Like half the books I write about here, I picked up The Left Hand of Darkness from my favorite used bookstore during one of their half-off sales. This one I searched for intentionally on the recommendation of one of my writing group friends. The Left Hand of Darkness is about a person who goes alone to a new planet as an Envoy from an organization that claims to be a non-governmental entity supporting the good of mankind. The Envoy works with various governments on the new planet to negotiate their entry into the organization, and makes notes on their customs. It took me two tries to make it through this book. I started it a couple weeks ago, and barely crawled through the first chapter before losing interest. When I picked up back up two months later, I had to re-start it. This time I pushed through the opening, hoping that the prose would pick up and that some amount of tension would grab me. It never did. I got through this book by committing to reading 25 pages ea...
This is the writing blog of Audely Bensen.