In 2198, one hundred and fifty years after the desperate wars that destroyed an overpopulated Earth, humanity lives precariously on a hundred hastily-established colony worlds and in the seven giant Ships that once ferried people to the stars. Mia Havero’s Ship is a small, closed society. It tests its children by casting them out to live or die in a month of Trial in the hostile wilds of a colony planet. Mia’s fourteenth birthday and accompanying Trial are fast approaching; in the meantime she must learn not only the skills that will keep her alive but the deeper courage to face herself and her world.

Originally published in 1968, Alexei Panshin’s Nebula Award-winning classic has lost none of its relevance, with its keen exploration of societal stagnation and the resilience of youth.

“Teens who love The Hunger Games would probably really like Alexei Panshin’s Rite of Passage.”–Carrie Vaughn, author of the Kitty Norville series

“Intensely believable, movingly personalized story . . . so perfectly done that one feels a real shock as one realizes that Panshin after all has never been a girl growing up aboard a hollowed-out planetoid.”—Algis Budrys in Galaxy Magazine

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards®

A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can change their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters. Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fictio