Winter's King

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Winter'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.

The story is part of the Hainish Cycle. It takes place on Gethen, the same planet shown in more detail The Left Hand of Darkness. it was in fact her first vision of that place:

When I write this story, a year before I began the novel The Left Hand of Darkness, I did not know that the inhabitants of the planet Winter of Gethen were androgynes. By the time the story came out in print, I did, but too late to emend such usages as 'son', 'mother', and so on...

In revising the story for this edition... I use the feminine pronoun for all Gethenians - while preserving certain masculine titles such as King and Lord, just to remind one of the ambiguity... The androgyny of the characters has little to do with the events of the story. (Introduction to the story in The Wind's Twelve Quarters).

The story is partly about politics, partly about the human effect of space travel at nearly the speed of light. The same idea as her earlier short story Semley's Necklace, but with some extra complications.