Gethen is a
fictionFiction is a branch of literature which deals, in part or in whole, with temporally contrafactual events...
al
planetA planet , is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
in
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, most notably in the genres of fantasy and science fiction...
's
EkumenThe Hainish Cycle is the setting for a number of science fiction novels and stories of Ursula K. Le Guin. Most of them are not set on Hain, but have it as a rather distant background...
universe. It is the setting for her
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction. It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically-established or scientifically-postulated laws of nature...
novelA novel is a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
The Left Hand of DarknessThe Left Hand of Darkness is a science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in 1969.The book is one of the first major works of feminist science fiction and is one in a series of books by Le Guin all set in the fictional Hainish universe. It won the 1969 Nebula and 1970 Hugo awards...
.
Gethen appears to have a surface gravity more or less similar to
EarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun. It is the fifth largest of the eight planets in the solar system, and the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in terms of diameter, mass and density...
and a human-compatible atmosphere (the Earth envoy sent there shows no sign of discomfort). Because of its cold climate, the planet is sometimes called "Winter".
Gethen's axis is not
tiltedIn astronomy, axial tilt is the angle between an object's rotational axis and a line perpendicular to its orbital plane. The angle is measured between the line perpendicular to object's orbital plane and object's rotational axis passing through north pole at which the planet appears to rotate...
(as is the case with Earth), but a relatively high orbital eccentricity produces global seasons.
Gethen is a
fictionFiction is a branch of literature which deals, in part or in whole, with temporally contrafactual events...
al
planetA planet , is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
in
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, most notably in the genres of fantasy and science fiction...
's
EkumenThe Hainish Cycle is the setting for a number of science fiction novels and stories of Ursula K. Le Guin. Most of them are not set on Hain, but have it as a rather distant background...
universe. It is the setting for her
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction. It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically-established or scientifically-postulated laws of nature...
novelA novel is a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
The Left Hand of DarknessThe Left Hand of Darkness is a science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in 1969.The book is one of the first major works of feminist science fiction and is one in a series of books by Le Guin all set in the fictional Hainish universe. It won the 1969 Nebula and 1970 Hugo awards...
.
The planet
Gethen appears to have a surface gravity more or less similar to
EarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun. It is the fifth largest of the eight planets in the solar system, and the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in terms of diameter, mass and density...
and a human-compatible atmosphere (the Earth envoy sent there shows no sign of discomfort). Because of its cold climate, the planet is sometimes called "Winter".
Gethen's axis is not
tiltedIn astronomy, axial tilt is the angle between an object's rotational axis and a line perpendicular to its orbital plane. The angle is measured between the line perpendicular to object's orbital plane and object's rotational axis passing through north pole at which the planet appears to rotate...
(as is the case with Earth), but a relatively high orbital eccentricity produces global seasons. At the time of the story, Gethen is in the midst of an
Ice AgeThe general term "ice age" or, more precisely, "glacial age" denotes a geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in an expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within a long-term ice age, individual...
(some local scientists believe it is near the end). The poles and a large portion of the land around them are permanently covered with
glacierA glacier is a perennial mass of ice which moves over land. A glacier forms in locations where the mass accumulation of snow and ice exceeds ablation over many years...
s, and even in the inhabited areas the climate can be extremely cold. In some places it is impossible to travel in winter, since the snow covers all roads. A summer day at 30 degrees Celsius is compared (by a Gethenian) to being inside a furnace.
The people
Gethenians are physically and culturally adapted to cold; they tend to be of robust build and short stature, and they are familiar with the caloric yield of many different types of food. (The physical adaptations might be a product of genetic manipulation by the
HainHain is a fictional planet that plays an important background role in the science fiction novels of Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish Cycle. It is described more closely in some later short stories. It is the oldest culture in both the League of Worlds and later the Ekumen and is about 140 Light Years...
, the species that "seeded" many worlds in the
EkumenThe Hainish Cycle is the setting for a number of science fiction novels and stories of Ursula K. Le Guin. Most of them are not set on Hain, but have it as a rather distant background...
with humanoid lifeforms.)
The inhabitants of Gethen are
androgynesAndrogyny is a term derived from the Greek words ανήρ and γυνή that can refer to either of two related concepts about gender: the mixing of masculine and feminine characteristics, as in fashion statements; or the balance of "anima and animus" in psychoanalytic theory.-Androgyne:Androgyne derives...
, biologically hermaphroditic humans; for approximately three weeks of each month they are biologically neuter, and for the remaining week are male or female, as determined by pheromonal negotiation with an interested sex partner. Thus each individual can both sire and bear children.
As for their appearance, Le Guin explains;
- In my first big science fiction novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, the only person from Earth is a black man, and everybody else in the book is Inuit (or Tibetan) brown.
Calendar and timekeeping
Gethen
orbitsThe orbital period is the time taken for a given object to make one complete orbit about another object.When mentioned without further qualification in astronomy this refers to the sidereal period of an astronomical object, which is calculated with respect to the stars.There are several kinds of...
its primary star once every 0.96 Earth years (8401 Earth hours). The planet rotates around its axis in 23.08 earth hours, so a Gethenian year consists of 364 local days.
The only natural satellite of the planet revolves around it in 26 local days, which constitutes a
month. The year is divided into 14 of these lunar months. By fortunate coincidence, the deviation between this
lunisolar calendarA lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures whose date indicates both the moon phase and the time of the solar year. If the solar year is defined as a tropical year then a lunisolar calendar will give an indication of the season; if it is taken as a sidereal year then the calendar will...
and the true solar year is small enough to require a correction only once every 200 years. Thus the days are synchronized with the moon phase every month.
Each day in a month has a unique name. Days are not grouped in weeks, but the month is evenly divided in two halves of 13 days each (the names of the days in the second half are derived regularly from those of the first half).
Gethenians further divide each day into ten parts or "hours", the first one starting at noon.
A very curious concept of dating is employed in Gethen, though this is only explained briefly in the book: the years are not numbered sequentially in increasing order, but the current year is always referred to as "Year One", and the others are counted as years before or after this standpoint. Historical records employ well-known events to mark (fixed) past dates.
Cartography
Gethen has four continents and an archipelago. Two of the continents, Orgoreyn and Karhide, are connected. The action of the novel takes place here.
Map. The other continents are Sith and the Antarctic continent, Perunter.
The planet is covered with ice everywhere beyond 45 degrees, and often down to 30 degrees.
Appearances in Le Guin's fiction
The main description of the people and culture is
The Left Hand of DarknessThe Left Hand of Darkness is a science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in 1969.The book is one of the first major works of feminist science fiction and is one in a series of books by Le Guin all set in the fictional Hainish universe. It won the 1969 Nebula and 1970 Hugo awards...
. It gives their myths and legends, set amidst the story of a visitor from Earth.
Winter's KingWinter's King is a short story by Ursula K. Le Guin, included in her short story collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters. It was one of four nominations for the 1970 Hugo Award for Best Short Story....
is a short story written earlier. It tells the story of Argaven, a Gethenian who visits another planet.
Coming of Age in KarhideThe Birthday of the World is a collection of short fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin, and first published in 2002 by Gollancz, an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group...
was written 25 or 30 years later. It takes place after the events of
Winter's King. It is mostly about an ordinary Gethenian discovering sex.
Another short story,
The Shobies' StoryA Fisherman of the Inland Sea is a 1994 collection of short stories by Ursula K. Le Guin. The collection was second in the 1995 Locus Award poll in the collection category.-Contents:The stories include:*"The First Contact with the Gorgonids"...
, has Gethenians as part of a mixed
EkumenThe Hainish Cycle is the setting for a number of science fiction novels and stories of Ursula K. Le Guin. Most of them are not set on Hain, but have it as a rather distant background...
expedition to a new planet. Since they are now integrated into the Ekumen, it must take place after the other tales.