The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

A terrific book. I’ve been carrying this around on my kindle unread for 10 years now, still, better late than never. Beautifully written, superb characters, exciting story. The wiki page seems mostly to focus on sex and gender. While a major theme of the book, I found it to be only an interesting facet of the only-slightly-alien race of androgynous men/women inhabitants. A single envoy from a pangalactic race of starhoppers has landed alone on an ice age planet to encourage the locals to join their federation for trade of knowledge, but the feudal or bureaucratic nations are uneasy with this surprise visitor, leading to suspicion and tribulations for the hero. Anyway, don’t wait 10 years to read it like I did.