le Guin

To my mind clearly one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. The left hand of Darkness and The Disposessed are great novels and studies of human nature. In TlD she explores questions of gender and identity by imagining a planet where androgynous humans live. These humans take turns being pregnant and mate when they are 'in Kemmer' - and then one of them becomes male and the other female. This happens once a month, the rest of the time they don't think about sex... The politics of the planet are complex, but there have never been any wars. Interestingly its published in the same year as Christianity under the Glacier by Halldór Laxness - and its style, political and philosophical outlook is oddly similar, possibly more on that later.  The Disposessed is a fascinating study of anarchism (le Guin is an anarchist) and it posits two worlds, where one of them is a kind of an anarchist 'utopia'. The message is that, of course, utopia is not utopia, and that the revolution is a constant state of mind. Two points captured my attentions. The first is the question whether anarchism doesn't inevitably mean that we become our own oppressors, and whether the revolutionary isn't better of with the queen in the palace to fight her, instead of having her inside your own head (in the firm of a kind of kantian ethic) .... another point is her exploration of love and sexual loyalty and fidelty as a self chosen form of discipline that is the grounding for all other love and loyalty, to yourself the world etc. This idea is also explored in The left hand of Darkness. I haven't talked about her fantasies, which are also good, and she is a very charismatic and fascinating person all around. She is a very soft sf author, there are few battles in her work, she focuses on social and psychological issues and does so in a very powerful and interesting way.