31 years after the release of Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin goes back to the well. A terran woman escapes the dystopian theocracy of Earth to join the Ekumen as an emissary to other planets. She is chosen to be one of the select 4 people permitted to go to the hyper-capitalist and very isolationist Akan planet, which is like a blend of of the authoritarianism of China and a disingenuous reading of America. It's a pretty overt sleight on both nations and their ideologies, and the though experiment being explored in this book is altruism, or the religion-but-we-can't-call-it-that of the resistance faction on Aka, whereby they Tell stories to one another (no written word) about doing the right thing (or just doing things, which in turn makes them the right thing) because it is fulfilling to do so, rather than any sort of promise of eternal salvation. Daoist influences about this subversive religion, as well as obvious allusions to facism (the baddies are called blue and tans). It gives some more insight into Hain and its people, the function of the Ekumen, but it's formulaically identical to LHoD.

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