In this excerpt, Brown maintains that The Left Hand of Darkness explores the past, present, and future aspects of androgyny, recognizing that individuals can only become fully human when sexual differences are transcended.

Much of the impact of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) results from the fact that the novel is an exploration of the concept of the dichotomous/androgynous one on three time levels: future, present, and past. First and most obviously, it is future directed, presenting a possible androgynous world on the planet Winter. Second, it is rooted in the present. As Le Guin affirms in her introduction to the Ace edition, the purpose of her science fiction is descriptive, not predictive: "I'm merely observing, in the peculiar, devious, and thought-experimental manner proper to science fiction, that if you look at us at certain odd times of the day … we already...