Excellent!

It has been a long time since I’ve enjoyed SF this much. I am hooked now and getting the sequel as I type!

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Great premise but a bit slow

I was fascinated by the concept of this sci-fi book - a lone emissary from earth is sent to a distant planet to negotiate an alliance. The people of the planet, Winter, are hermaphrodites and the absence of sexual roles contributes to making their culture completely alien to the human (male) emissary . The book was written in 1969 and was way ahead of its time on ideas of gender fluidity and much else.

It’s beautifully written and profound but be warned - it’s an introspective book. Not much happens, we are inside people’s heads a lot rather than experiencing any action. The last bit - a huge trek of several months through snowy plains with just 2 characters - was too long for me.
Nevertheless, I recommend this book and it’s truly a sci-fi classic!

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sci-fi

A new world full of mystery. Everything is a alien so unreal. While trying to make an understanding of it all. It's not the easiest read, but worth it.

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The Stranger and the Traitor

are neither, or rather, only on the mere circumstantial surface. This book invites you to look beneath the surface of appearance.

I have encountered apt descriptions of what it means to be in the role of an expatriate, an exile, a prisoner, an envoy, a prime minister, a mad king, a clansman, a communsal (?), a member of an Arctic voyage on foot... But what stuck was how two men are holding on to some chosen but destined path, a mission, which both transcends as well as deepens their humanity.

The theme of being physically bisexual didn't really come alive to me somehow, as the emotions involved where only distantly touched and passionate feelings absent.

Some food for thought about political organization and their degrees of freedom and equality. A technocratic socialist system vs. dictatorship on top of a traditional clan-based system plus an overarching supersystem to facilitate free trade and exchange.

The interplay of ego, power, fear and domination vs. kinship, hospitality, empathy and values vs. equality, conformity and functionality.

Solschenizyn or Josef Martin Bauer might have written something like this, maybe.

Some remarks on the style: Le Guin applies 3 perspectives: the first person perspectives of the two protagonists and interspersed bits of lore and reports.

The speaker has the slurry voice of a tired elderly man for all passages except for the king's voice. Being a bit hard of hearing I felt strained to listen at times. Giving Ai and Estraven distinctive voices would have been a boon.

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A perfect book in every respect

A haunting book, perfectly written, heartbreaking, deep, thoughtprovoking. Perfectly read by George Guidall. Have listened to three times in a row, and it is now established as my favourite book of all.

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Originalidad, inteligencia y profundidad

Disfruté la combinación de inclinaciones políticas, la ausencia de armas y violencia, la inteligencia de los personajes principales. Realmente es una historia original, profunda que me ha sorprendido. La recomiendo.

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Maybe a good book, but not a good audiobook

This is a classic scifi book that explores very interesting topics of different cultures clashing, so different that even their genders are not compatible, even tho both are human. However, the reader of the book has poor pronunciation and the author used a lot of artificial words that simply make some sentences unintelligible. This makes it really hard to listen to the story

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Gutes Buch, einfach nur schrecklicher Sprecher.

Gutes Buch, einfach nur ein schrecklicher Sprecher. Ich kann ihm leider keine zehn Minuten zuhören.

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8 Leute fanden das hilfreich