Sakura of DOOM

I think it's interesting to consider Shogun (1975) alongside The Left Hand of Darkness (1969). Both of them are explorations of "alien" societies, and both of them use the device of the visitor who is closer to the expected reader (I think it's as clear that Clavell, writing in English, wasn't writing for a Japanese audience as that Le Guin wasn't writing for a Gethenian one) who can be used as a pathway into the alien culture. They're both clearly in the tradition of the utopian novel where the present day explorer is washed up on the shore to make it easier for the reader to learn the culture along with the new arrival, rather than the immersive POV of a character from the society, like The Dispossessed or Memoirs of a Geisha. (Together for the very first time in a sentence!)

I think this articulates what is different for me about Shogun from the "need a honky" films. It's "start from the familiar and explore an exotic place" rather than "one white man is just what we need to save the world".

And this way you also get to see The Left Hand of Darkness in the context of colonialism... the most benign Hainish kind, naturally, but... is Genly Ai's visit to Gethen really going to lead to something better than those first contacts with Japan? Le Guin seems to have forgotten in later books the enemy out there that the Hainish wanted everyone to unite against -- is it going to end like William Tenn's "The Liberation of Earth"?