Adrian Buck’s Reviews > The Left Hand of Darkness > Status Update

"The Ekumen?" said Argaven startled
"No. Mankind".
- she really gets full value from that word.

""I and thou", he said. "Yes, it does, after all go even wider than sex...."

"Being a suppression, not merely a repression, it produced not frustration, but something more ominous, perhaps in the long run: passivity."

"I saw a girl' - no discussion here of the Gethenian skeleton. Does hard tissue also change during kemmer? And why changes between male/female forms other than the sexual organs?

"Along in those four millenia the electric engine was developed..." - Why would they abandon the technology of the human ancestors who placed them on Gethen?

I'm not the first alien to come to Gethen. I was preceded by a team of Investigators, who didn't announce their presence, but passed as well as they could for Gethenians. - nice inversion

"but the Ekumen doesn't rule, it co-ordinates. Its power is precisely the power of its member states and worlds. In alliance with the Ekumen, Karhide will become infinitely less threatened and more important than it's ever been" - sounds like a defence of the EU