Not So Non-Binary

 

In The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin does some interesting work, but her central conceit falls short.  

This is a world where people are not sexually binary until they reach a monthly time period where they can either procreate as a male or female.  Whether a person develops male or female features appears to be random.  Unfortunately, the whole tone of the book is very masculine.  Le Guin, so amazingly inventive in many areas of this work, simply does not give these people the necessary range to be believably non-binary.

So, unless the characters are talking or thinking about their unique form of sexuality, the tone is masculine.  In this sense, the book falls far short.  Perhaps Le Guin developed this premise far too early; today, she might have the chops to pull it off.  In other areas, particularly politics and ecology, Le Guin succeeds in creating a fully realized world, rendered in perfect prose.