Many of these short stories take place in the same universe The Left Hand of Darkness does, but Le Guin goes further in exploring matters to do with sex and love for a few of them. More than just being 'experiments', though, her worlds are complete, organic. You can also picture them growing beyond her, the births and deaths and forests extending beyond what we can see on the page.

What if...

- A marriage were a foursome (a sedoretu with a 'Day' male/female pair and an 'Evening' male/female pair), with sexual relationships only allowable between those of different moieties - Day/Evening pairs - so a Day male, for instance, can only couple with the Evening male and female - yet must maintain a spouse-/sibling-like relationship with his Day partner?

- Men were objectified and had to be banished to a castle once they came of age, 'released' only to perform impregnation duties?

- (and this is from The Left Hand of Darkness) There were no fixed gender, but one became temporarily male or female depending on the first sexual partner one met when one was in kemmer?

- What we label as a primitive need for solitude arose from a higher-order practice of cultivating one's soul?

- Religion were about the journey, and not the destination? [The last story, 'Paradises Lost', is about a group of people sent to discover a new planet habitable for man (SO MUCH better than [book:Across the Universe|8235178] though), where the humans find 'Bliss' to make life purposeful.]

My only quibble is that Le Guin's intentions can be a little transparent at times - (the flipping of black/white, male/female domination; nuclear weaponry). That only applies to a couple of stories though ("Old Music and the Slave Women"), and despite that, one can't help marvelling at Le Guin's genius and scope of ambition in marrying art and science.