The southern reach, a secretive government agency, has sent eleven expeditions to investigate area X. One has ended in mass suicide, another in a hail of gunfire, the eleventh in a fatal cancer epidemic. Now four women embark on the twelfth expedition into the unknown.
It is the life work of Shevek, a brilliant physicist from the arid anarchist world of Anarres.But Shevek's work is being stifled by jealous colleagues, so he travels to Anarres's sister-planet Urras, hoping to find more liberty and tolerance there. But he soon finds himself being used as a pawn in a deadly political game.
The moving story of contact with alien intelligence serves as a canvas for discussion of our mind’s limitations and the nature of human cognition. A love story for some readers, a philosophical treatise for others; Lem’s inspiring masterpiece defies unambiguous interpretations.