 It has been reprinted more than 30 times, and received a highly positive response from reviewers. In addition to being voted the Hugo and Nebula awards by fans and writers, respectively, a 1975 poll in Locus magazine ranked Left Hand third behind Frank Herbert's Dune and Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End. In 1987, Locus ranked it second among science fiction novels after Dune. In an introduction to a critical anthology edited in 1987, Harold Bloom stated; "Le Guin, more than Tolkien, has raised fantasy into high literature, for our time".
