What do you think?
Rate this book
Elysium Cycle #1
A Door Into Ocean
Joan Slonczewski's A Door into Ocean is the novel upon which the author's reputation as an important SF writer principally rests.
A ground-breaking work both of feminist SF and of world-building hard SF, it concerns the Sharers of Shora, a nation of women on a distant moon in the far future who are pacifists, highly advanced in biological sciences, and who reproduce by parthenogenesis--there are no males--and tells of the conflicts that erupt when a neighboring civilization decides to develop their ocean world, and send in an army.
A ground-breaking work both of feminist SF and of world-building hard SF, it concerns the Sharers of Shora, a nation of women on a distant moon in the far future who are pacifists, highly advanced in biological sciences, and who reproduce by parthenogenesis--there are no males--and tells of the conflicts that erupt when a neighboring civilization decides to develop their ocean world, and send in an army.
403 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1986
105 people are currently reading
6,525 people want to read
About the author
Joan Slonczewski
33Ìýbooks186ÌýfollowersJoan Lyn Slonczewski is an American microbiologist at Kenyon College and a science fiction writer who explores biology and space travel. Her books have twice earned the John W. Campbell award for best science fiction novel: The Highest Frontier (2012) and A Door into Ocean (1987). With John W. Foster she coauthors the textbook, Microbiology: An Evolving Science (W. W. Norton).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 251 reviews
December 4, 2013
I loathe this book with an ungodly passion.
I want to preface the rest of my review by saying I am deeply feminist. In fact, feminist science fiction is my most beloved literary subgenre. I am well-versed in the canon of women SF/fantasy writers. And yet... I cannot like this book. I wanted to, and instead ended up throwing it across the room at several points in my reading. The plot is offensively gender-reductive. Slonczewski equates femininity with every positive attribute possessed by any of the characters: the all-female Sharers are nurturing, generous, telepathic, gentle, and in all respects aligned with nature; masculinity is essentialized as purely brutish, destructive, and selfish. I don't think that this lazy broad-brush ecofeminism does women any favors, as it continues to relegate femininity to the realms of body/emotion/instinct rather than allowing for logic or intellectual choice. She could use a dose of .
The book does have positive features, making my dislike of it all the more frustrating. The author is a professor of biology, and her vast knowledge of the subject shines through in the descriptions of parthenogenic reproduction and marine life. Also, the linguistic description of the Sharers is as good a fictional exploration of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as we are ever likely to see. It's too bad that these really interesting points get overshadowed by the oversimplified gender roles upon which the entire plot hinges. It's an endless, clumsy rape allegory, and I find that a little nauseating.
I don't recommend this book if you believe that character traits cannot be divided neatly along moral lines. I do recommend this book if, perhaps, you enjoy oceanic euphemisms for sex and own more than one adult item shaped like a dolphin.
I want to preface the rest of my review by saying I am deeply feminist. In fact, feminist science fiction is my most beloved literary subgenre. I am well-versed in the canon of women SF/fantasy writers. And yet... I cannot like this book. I wanted to, and instead ended up throwing it across the room at several points in my reading. The plot is offensively gender-reductive. Slonczewski equates femininity with every positive attribute possessed by any of the characters: the all-female Sharers are nurturing, generous, telepathic, gentle, and in all respects aligned with nature; masculinity is essentialized as purely brutish, destructive, and selfish. I don't think that this lazy broad-brush ecofeminism does women any favors, as it continues to relegate femininity to the realms of body/emotion/instinct rather than allowing for logic or intellectual choice. She could use a dose of .
The book does have positive features, making my dislike of it all the more frustrating. The author is a professor of biology, and her vast knowledge of the subject shines through in the descriptions of parthenogenic reproduction and marine life. Also, the linguistic description of the Sharers is as good a fictional exploration of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as we are ever likely to see. It's too bad that these really interesting points get overshadowed by the oversimplified gender roles upon which the entire plot hinges. It's an endless, clumsy rape allegory, and I find that a little nauseating.
I don't recommend this book if you believe that character traits cannot be divided neatly along moral lines. I do recommend this book if, perhaps, you enjoy oceanic euphemisms for sex and own more than one adult item shaped like a dolphin.
August 18, 2022
I have no idea why it took me so long to read this book. Probably because my eyes are bigger than my stomach and I am chronically over-booked. Yes, pun intended. I've had Daughter of Elysium on my Kindle for ages and heard about this book first from the Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy and Utopian Book Club that I was a member of back around the turn of the century. But Daughter of Elysium is the second book in the series, so I was waiting for a good excuse to read Door. It was a planned buddy read on the SFFBC group and then it made it onto the poll to become a group read, but lost. Anyhoo, I had put it on hold at the library, started it, stopped and then was forced to finish reading it because it was going to be returned whether I liked it or not.
So if you aren't completely bored by all the stuff NOT about the book keep reading.
The idea that an ocean moon (Enceladus, anyone?) populated only by female humanoids, is fascinating in and of itself. It orbits a planet that is in many ways just like earth and the people that live there want to exploit it and subjugate it and its women. This book is one of those wonderful thought experiments that luckily also make for a very good read. I listened to it and have to admit to zoning out of quite a bit of one of the middle sections, but found the biological (non-)war in a later section extremely interesting. I will definitely be reading this again, but in print. Not that the audio was bad, not at all, the narrator was great, but I think the book merits close attention being paid.
So if you aren't completely bored by all the stuff NOT about the book keep reading.
The idea that an ocean moon (Enceladus, anyone?) populated only by female humanoids, is fascinating in and of itself. It orbits a planet that is in many ways just like earth and the people that live there want to exploit it and subjugate it and its women. This book is one of those wonderful thought experiments that luckily also make for a very good read. I listened to it and have to admit to zoning out of quite a bit of one of the middle sections, but found the biological (non-)war in a later section extremely interesting. I will definitely be reading this again, but in print. Not that the audio was bad, not at all, the narrator was great, but I think the book merits close attention being paid.
July 11, 2012
Shora is a world without land. The humans who colonized it chose to reshape themselves, instead of terraforming the planet. Sharers, as the descendents of the colonists call themselves, strive to live in balance with each other and their world. Although they have incredibly advanced biological science, they try to change as little as possible about the natural ecology of Shora, even though it means losing friends and loved ones to vast monsters that roam the ocean. Their highest goal is to strengthen the ecological and social web that ties each creature to another. But they share their solar system with Valedon, a feudal, warlike world. And Valedon wants to expand its hold. Can the pacifists of Shora find a way to understand, and be understood by, their invaders?
I've seen other reviews that decry this book as gender-essentialist lesbian separatism, and I have to disagree. The Sharers are all female, and they are, as a group, very wise. But the book doesn't seem to present being wise as the natural extention of being an all-female society. The original colonists created a society that prizes consensus and pacifism, and those are the priorities they passed on to their descendents. There are many Sharers who are not wise in the least, who are hot-headed, blood-thirsty, or narrow-minded. The Valedon soldiers are male and female, and their chief torturer is a woman. And it's not like men are left out of the book--a male Valedon first learns from a wise (male) seer, then becomes a Sharer. We spend a large portion of the book inside his head, and much of the latter half inside another man's.
I really enjoyed reading the Sharers' struggles. They're incredibly inspirational, and I loved their society (even though I'd hate to live on their world). They refuse to do anything that might harm the Valedons (prefering civil disobedience), but the Valedons only value strength. It's fascinating conflict, but the resolution felt like a cop-out: That aside, the societies Slonczewski create are engrossingly unique, and the conflict between them made me very tense and anxious.
I've seen other reviews that decry this book as gender-essentialist lesbian separatism, and I have to disagree. The Sharers are all female, and they are, as a group, very wise. But the book doesn't seem to present being wise as the natural extention of being an all-female society. The original colonists created a society that prizes consensus and pacifism, and those are the priorities they passed on to their descendents. There are many Sharers who are not wise in the least, who are hot-headed, blood-thirsty, or narrow-minded. The Valedon soldiers are male and female, and their chief torturer is a woman. And it's not like men are left out of the book--a male Valedon first learns from a wise (male) seer, then becomes a Sharer. We spend a large portion of the book inside his head, and much of the latter half inside another man's.
I really enjoyed reading the Sharers' struggles. They're incredibly inspirational, and I loved their society (even though I'd hate to live on their world). They refuse to do anything that might harm the Valedons (prefering civil disobedience), but the Valedons only value strength. It's fascinating conflict, but the resolution felt like a cop-out: That aside, the societies Slonczewski create are engrossingly unique, and the conflict between them made me very tense and anxious.
June 25, 2010
Hours after I have finished reading this book I am still trying to emerge from the vast ocean Shora. The words on each page were like a whirlpool, sucking me in, forcing me to listen to their tale. I fell hopelessly in love with Shora and the sharers that inhabit Her. I feared for their fate at the hands of man. I questioned my own humanity, and that of others around me. My entire way of thinking has been eternally changed because of this book.
Perhaps, this is not as "critical" as a review should be, but I can't find it in myself to analyze this book in that way. I feel like it is a living entity. It shared breathing with me, as it shared passion with me. The pacifist in me was deeply satisfied.
Perhaps, this is not as "critical" as a review should be, but I can't find it in myself to analyze this book in that way. I feel like it is a living entity. It shared breathing with me, as it shared passion with me. The pacifist in me was deeply satisfied.
September 23, 2021
3.5 stars, because the conflict solution felt a bit unearned, but rounded up, because of the skillful worldbuilding.
The story is about the occupation of a peaceful world, where the main goal of society is to save the ecosystem, by a society of traders and soldiers who see strength as the most important way of living. The author made this conflict quite uncomfortable for the reader, because the impending doom of the Sharer-society who refuse to kill seems to be inevitable. The inner conflicts of several characters on both sides are shown and their attempts at finding a solution without sacrificing one's own faith, sometimes resulting in sacrificing one's own life.
I was moved and fascinated by the ocean world of the Sharers and by the cultural clash of those two different value systems. There is ample food for thought.
It has a slow pacing and needs some extra attention at times because of the political entanglements, but it is definitely worth the time.
The story is about the occupation of a peaceful world, where the main goal of society is to save the ecosystem, by a society of traders and soldiers who see strength as the most important way of living. The author made this conflict quite uncomfortable for the reader, because the impending doom of the Sharer-society who refuse to kill seems to be inevitable. The inner conflicts of several characters on both sides are shown and their attempts at finding a solution without sacrificing one's own faith, sometimes resulting in sacrificing one's own life.
I was moved and fascinated by the ocean world of the Sharers and by the cultural clash of those two different value systems. There is ample food for thought.
It has a slow pacing and needs some extra attention at times because of the political entanglements, but it is definitely worth the time.
April 3, 2013
Meh. As with most ideologically pacifist writing, this one left me feeling unsatisfied.
The setup is good: a planet of women who live in a tribal egalitarian society, with life sciences way beyond our own, is threatened by an imperialist power that wants to exploit their planet's resources (and is threatened by their difference).
But that's where it ends. The Sharers are really hung up on teaching non-violence to their would-be conquerers. The lack of imagination here is kind of offensive, not to mention the dismissiveness of the depth and variety of real-world indigenous cultures. This is a society which has evolved on its own for ten thousand years, and it has nothing to teach us other than how to not-kill?
It feels kind of like having dinner with Einstein and spending the evening debating the proper way to hang a toilet paper roll.
The setup is good: a planet of women who live in a tribal egalitarian society, with life sciences way beyond our own, is threatened by an imperialist power that wants to exploit their planet's resources (and is threatened by their difference).
But that's where it ends. The Sharers are really hung up on teaching non-violence to their would-be conquerers. The lack of imagination here is kind of offensive, not to mention the dismissiveness of the depth and variety of real-world indigenous cultures. This is a society which has evolved on its own for ten thousand years, and it has nothing to teach us other than how to not-kill?
It feels kind of like having dinner with Einstein and spending the evening debating the proper way to hang a toilet paper roll.
April 4, 2012
In a word: amazing. Landor’s narration is beautiful and lyrical, with well-detailed characterizations across the cultures and classes presented in Slonczewski’s award-winning novel of feminism, pacifism, and anarchism in a far-future of multiple visions of post-humanity. It immediately vaults into my all-time favorites list, though perhaps a half-step behind The Dispossessed and Parable of the Sower.
May 14, 2017
Interlibrary loan courtesy of Collins Library, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA.
Wow! What an incredible book!! Great world building, important messages about the environment and war.
One world is completely covered by an ocean and populated by an all-female race that reproduces by parthenogenesis. Another world is very similar to ours with a military, traders, etc.
One knows about killing, one knows about "sharing". This is a very powerful book with great characters and an important lesson which I fear we will never learn.
Wow! What an incredible book!! Great world building, important messages about the environment and war.
One world is completely covered by an ocean and populated by an all-female race that reproduces by parthenogenesis. Another world is very similar to ours with a military, traders, etc.
One knows about killing, one knows about "sharing". This is a very powerful book with great characters and an important lesson which I fear we will never learn.
December 4, 2013
As I read this book I couldn't stop comparing it to Dune by Frank Herbert. In many ways it was similar, war time, a supreme ruler, a group of people who didn't want to fight, and a young male who is out of place but still makes a difference. The main difference- Dune is set in the harsh dessert while A Door Into Ocean is set on a planet with no land and only water.
Sharers are the only inhabiter's on the Ocean Moon planet or Shora. There are the lesser sharers like clickflies and starworms and then there are the human sharers. Women who life of rafts, they are peaceful, kind, never wear clothes, and are trying to figure out whether their neighbor planet is home to any humans. Or at least Merwen and Usha are, they even bring a human home to Shora as proof: Spinel. Then their neighbors invade, the Valedons come bring their death-hastening ways and sickness. The Sharers mean to share-learning and -healing with their invaders the army Commander has other plans. Many months this war is drawn on until it comes down to only a few who help decide its outcome. Can a war be fought if one side refuses to fight?
This is an interesting book with science ideas from todays world set in an unstable universe.
Sharers are the only inhabiter's on the Ocean Moon planet or Shora. There are the lesser sharers like clickflies and starworms and then there are the human sharers. Women who life of rafts, they are peaceful, kind, never wear clothes, and are trying to figure out whether their neighbor planet is home to any humans. Or at least Merwen and Usha are, they even bring a human home to Shora as proof: Spinel. Then their neighbors invade, the Valedons come bring their death-hastening ways and sickness. The Sharers mean to share-learning and -healing with their invaders the army Commander has other plans. Many months this war is drawn on until it comes down to only a few who help decide its outcome. Can a war be fought if one side refuses to fight?
This is an interesting book with science ideas from todays world set in an unstable universe.
June 21, 2017
This is a book that, in my opinion, does not show its age. It could have been published last week,
Two inhabited moons with very different cultures are part of a larger galactic empire, and increasing contact with the empire is causing its own strains. The more industrialized, military-inclined culture of Valendon wants to exploit the resources of Shora, a world virtually without land.
The Shorans have different ideas.
The are peaceful, cooperative, and communal. They are also all female. The reasons for this and its significance become clear as the story progresses, and it's the source of much of the conflict in the story.
Shora isn't the simplistic paradise it may appear on the surface. The Shorans, who call themselves Sharers, are doing a lot more than is visible at a casual glance, and two gender-determined cultures are anything but. The storyline of the young man, Sinel, rejects the whole idea that the traits the Sharers value might be gender-determined rather than cultural.
This isn't a fast-paced action story. It's thoughtful, deliberate, and fascinating. with characters who are interesting, complex, and unfolded with skill. The world-building is indirect yet convincing.
Highly recommended.
I bought this audiobook.
Two inhabited moons with very different cultures are part of a larger galactic empire, and increasing contact with the empire is causing its own strains. The more industrialized, military-inclined culture of Valendon wants to exploit the resources of Shora, a world virtually without land.
The Shorans have different ideas.
The are peaceful, cooperative, and communal. They are also all female. The reasons for this and its significance become clear as the story progresses, and it's the source of much of the conflict in the story.
Shora isn't the simplistic paradise it may appear on the surface. The Shorans, who call themselves Sharers, are doing a lot more than is visible at a casual glance, and two gender-determined cultures are anything but. The storyline of the young man, Sinel, rejects the whole idea that the traits the Sharers value might be gender-determined rather than cultural.
This isn't a fast-paced action story. It's thoughtful, deliberate, and fascinating. with characters who are interesting, complex, and unfolded with skill. The world-building is indirect yet convincing.
Highly recommended.
I bought this audiobook.
May 6, 2023
A very close call - finished this 77 minutes before book club. And I feel very mixed about it. I didn't know how I felt about it, but I do enjoy feeling challenged as a reader and in that, the book club picks are spot on. I really struggled with this. I was almost panicking (yes, I take book club that seriously!!) because the night before book club I was barely a third of the way through, after four days of trying. I did manage to finish it, happily.
And, even though I would not call this feminist-utopia-becomes-slow-painful-genocide-of-a peaceful-people a success as a novel. There are a million little worldbuilding tidbits that are fascinating and worth exploring - but then again, the worldbuilding is way too dense and the first 100 pages are a slog in trying to process and understand the world.
Examples of fascinating tidbits: an ocean moon that has no dry land, where humanoid 100% women called the Shora live in a sort of anarcho-communist paradise, where nobody goes hungry and everyone is cared for, emotionally or otherwise. The girls become women when they decide to selfname, which means they take a sort of nickname that represents the character trait that they will try to transcend for the rest of their lives (one of the main characters is Merwen the Impatient One and she is pretty cool, there's also The Deceiver, The Impulsive and so on). The science-fiction aspect is pretty tantalizing as well - the Shora basically fear anything that's inorganic, and that's why their laboratory equipment and medicine implements (like IVs and such) are all plant parts genetically modified to be containers for substances or chemistry sets and so on. There are clickflies, insects that can be used as long-distance communication among the rafts that are made of wood still growing (on which the Shora live as a community), but also can hold all kinds of information in their chromosomes.
And then, of course... the empire du jour arrives.
I particularly liked the verbs and other language aspects of this culture. Merwen is a wordweaver (sort of diplomat/ politician, she is good with words and convincing people of things), then their partners are lovesharers. Sharing (like learn-sharing as well) is a big part of this world. It acknowledges this mutuality between persons or a person and an object that we tend to reduce to a framing of subject vs object.
“What the devil is ‘word-sharing�? Does the word for ‘speak� mean ‘listen� just as well? If I said, ‘Listen to me!� you might talk, instead.�
“What use is the one without the other? It took me a long time to see this distinction in Valan speech.�
Spinel thought over the list of “share-forms�: learnsharing, work-sharing, lovesharing. “Do you say ‘hitsharing,� too? If I hit a rock with a chisel, does the rock hit me?�
“I would think so. Don’t you feel it in your arm?�
Unfortunately, these elements of worldbuilding and the whole utopia and conflict between the pacifist Shora and the imperialist forces are not fully explored in a nuanced sort of realistic way. It tries to make points on civil disobedience, dehumanizing the other & rehumanizing yourself in the eyes of others, empathy & understanding, but it never really goes anywhere with them and the conflict stalls for a while, because neither side is really really truly trying to understand each other. So we have the two sides keeping their positions with only the punishments escalating in truly painful ways.
At the same time, you can feel that the author is a scientist but doesn't have a lot of experience as a writer. The worldbuilding and scientific ideas are there, but the characters are inconsistent and are doing forever what the plot needs them to do. There is also a whole lot of headhopping in the same chapter, we just jump from close perspective to close perspective and still there isn't much to be said about the interiority of the characters. A lot of trauma happens but it is not really processed and the healing process feels like something we're gliding over as soon as possible.
One of the reviews calls this book gender-reductive and says that the women are associated with body and feeling, but not intellect and logic, but I would have to disagree with all of that. The male characters are built on a broad spectrum of masculinity (Spinel, the Seer, Siderite and Raelgar, just to mention the most important), and also the Shora are really not a monolith (we have like 30 Shora characters and they are distinct), Usha is quite a brilliant scientist, Merwen is the diplomat/ charismatic leader, we have engineers (not in the human way though, they engineer mostly organic matter, since that's the Shora spiel) and the population has a very deep understanding of how the ecosystem of the planet works and because of that it works with the planet to keep the balance alive - that is a very pragmatic, wise choice, even though it is not a choice that our supposedly rational world is making right now. And the fuck? What is wrong with feelings and being connected to your own body? Are us women to become intellectual machines because that's what the establishment considers to be intellectual? It feels like there are layers upon layers of preconceptions and faulty premises that the statement I'm ranting against contains.
I would maybe read some more Joan Slonczewski, curious if the actual writing of her scifi has developed further.
And, even though I would not call this feminist-utopia-becomes-slow-painful-genocide-of-a peaceful-people a success as a novel. There are a million little worldbuilding tidbits that are fascinating and worth exploring - but then again, the worldbuilding is way too dense and the first 100 pages are a slog in trying to process and understand the world.
Examples of fascinating tidbits: an ocean moon that has no dry land, where humanoid 100% women called the Shora live in a sort of anarcho-communist paradise, where nobody goes hungry and everyone is cared for, emotionally or otherwise. The girls become women when they decide to selfname, which means they take a sort of nickname that represents the character trait that they will try to transcend for the rest of their lives (one of the main characters is Merwen the Impatient One and she is pretty cool, there's also The Deceiver, The Impulsive and so on). The science-fiction aspect is pretty tantalizing as well - the Shora basically fear anything that's inorganic, and that's why their laboratory equipment and medicine implements (like IVs and such) are all plant parts genetically modified to be containers for substances or chemistry sets and so on. There are clickflies, insects that can be used as long-distance communication among the rafts that are made of wood still growing (on which the Shora live as a community), but also can hold all kinds of information in their chromosomes.
And then, of course... the empire du jour arrives.
I particularly liked the verbs and other language aspects of this culture. Merwen is a wordweaver (sort of diplomat/ politician, she is good with words and convincing people of things), then their partners are lovesharers. Sharing (like learn-sharing as well) is a big part of this world. It acknowledges this mutuality between persons or a person and an object that we tend to reduce to a framing of subject vs object.
“What the devil is ‘word-sharing�? Does the word for ‘speak� mean ‘listen� just as well? If I said, ‘Listen to me!� you might talk, instead.�
“What use is the one without the other? It took me a long time to see this distinction in Valan speech.�
Spinel thought over the list of “share-forms�: learnsharing, work-sharing, lovesharing. “Do you say ‘hitsharing,� too? If I hit a rock with a chisel, does the rock hit me?�
“I would think so. Don’t you feel it in your arm?�
Unfortunately, these elements of worldbuilding and the whole utopia and conflict between the pacifist Shora and the imperialist forces are not fully explored in a nuanced sort of realistic way. It tries to make points on civil disobedience, dehumanizing the other & rehumanizing yourself in the eyes of others, empathy & understanding, but it never really goes anywhere with them and the conflict stalls for a while, because neither side is really really truly trying to understand each other. So we have the two sides keeping their positions with only the punishments escalating in truly painful ways.
At the same time, you can feel that the author is a scientist but doesn't have a lot of experience as a writer. The worldbuilding and scientific ideas are there, but the characters are inconsistent and are doing forever what the plot needs them to do. There is also a whole lot of headhopping in the same chapter, we just jump from close perspective to close perspective and still there isn't much to be said about the interiority of the characters. A lot of trauma happens but it is not really processed and the healing process feels like something we're gliding over as soon as possible.
One of the reviews calls this book gender-reductive and says that the women are associated with body and feeling, but not intellect and logic, but I would have to disagree with all of that. The male characters are built on a broad spectrum of masculinity (Spinel, the Seer, Siderite and Raelgar, just to mention the most important), and also the Shora are really not a monolith (we have like 30 Shora characters and they are distinct), Usha is quite a brilliant scientist, Merwen is the diplomat/ charismatic leader, we have engineers (not in the human way though, they engineer mostly organic matter, since that's the Shora spiel) and the population has a very deep understanding of how the ecosystem of the planet works and because of that it works with the planet to keep the balance alive - that is a very pragmatic, wise choice, even though it is not a choice that our supposedly rational world is making right now. And the fuck? What is wrong with feelings and being connected to your own body? Are us women to become intellectual machines because that's what the establishment considers to be intellectual? It feels like there are layers upon layers of preconceptions and faulty premises that the statement I'm ranting against contains.
I would maybe read some more Joan Slonczewski, curious if the actual writing of her scifi has developed further.
July 26, 2023
Check out my full, spoiler free, video review Very enjoyable read, great writing and interesting themes explored. Thought provoking at times but the ending fell just a bit flat for me.
June 12, 2013
Intended Audience: Adult
Sexual content: Significant
Ace/Genderqueer characters: Yes (Human and Alien)
Rating: PG-13/R for violence, torture, brief sexuality and rape
Writing style: 3/5
Likable characters: 4/5
Plot/Concepts: 4/5
Travelers from the ocean moon of Shora, Sharers Merwen and Usha must judge whether the Valans who have invaded their home are human in any sense they can know. Spinel the stonecutter's son follows them back, a "malefreak" among an all-female species. In the midst of the rising threat of colonization and extermination, the question remains--can a Valan share sisterhood with the people of Shora, and thus be healed from fear?
I was drawn to this book mainly for its feminist and genderqueer elements. The Sharers—being an all-female race which does not reproduce sexually—cannot really be restricted by the label of "woman" and therefore gender becomes relatively meaningless in their society. At first I was a little annoyed that Spinel, a man, seemed to be such a main character, but I quickly learned that there was no single main character, and I also grew to like Spinel for the way he so easily abandons any sense of masculine superiority. He comes to see himself as a sister to the Sharers, and they accept him as such despite his physical differences. He has moments of feeling like an outsider in both of his families, but that is to be expected with anyone who crosses between worlds.
As the story went on I realized that there was a much more problematic question looming on the horizon. Sharers and their experiences with the colonizing Valans run in close parallel to the history of indigenous peoples who have been brutalized and oppressed over recent centuries. In many ways Sharers are romanticized in this book, and romanticizing a people usually only makes them seem more foreign. But I worried even more about whether Spinel would become the equivalent of a white messiah, proving that only a non-Sharer could save Sharers, much as some films and books have a white man saving the Indians from his own people. This kind of narrative dooms the natives to failure and helplessness every time, and belittles the strengths they have always had in their own culture. It sends the message that they are not good enough on their own, even if the invaders are clearly the bad guys.
So does A Door Into Ocean fall prey to this trope? I can’t say a firm yes or no. Aspects of it are definitely present. For example, Spinel is occasionally referred to by the narrator as the Sharer’s only hope, or something like it. He is allowed places other Sharers are not, so that his adopted identity is almost always an asset. He is excepted from most of the brutalities and oppression his sisters face, which gives him some power in certain situations that they do not have. He has great amounts of Valan privilege despite being a pretty unimportant citizen.
However, while I was afraid that this privilege of his would be the deciding force in the battle for Sharer sovereignty and survival, he actually played a fairly limited role. Whatever advantage they gained was due to the shared efforts of the sisters from all over the globe, as well as the cooperation of enemy soldiers who could not abide the atrocities they were ordered to take part in. I feel like this is a fair depiction of what is necessary to truly win a conflict like this. There have to be people on both sides working to curb the desperation that results in violence. While it is obvious that the main villain, Raelgar, is pretty much a racist sexist genocidal maniac, no single person’s power is infinite. While the chain of command stays cohesive for a depressingly long time, it does eventually begin to break down. Meanwhile the Sharers have their own disputes over whether to give up their humanity by allowing themselves to share violence with their colonizers. Spinel takes a long time to fully accept their way of life in that regard—he wants them to do whatever they must in order to avoid suffering, even if it means killing. The way in which each individual character handles the conflict and responds to it internally is one of my favorite aspects of the book.
I’m sure some people will disagree with me, and find problems with the way the Sharers are depicted as it relates to the portrayal of indigenous peoples. I would be very interested to hear opinions, especially from people with relevant experience. I’m sure I have many blind spots due to my own privilege and there may be some important points I missed.
This book was difficult to read in two different ways. Firstly, it was painful to watch the chain of events as it unfolded, knowing what sort of pattern it would take and how many people might suffer or die in the process. So much of this is due to misunderstandings and assumptions made because of different cultural viewpoints, although some if it is also unadulterated greed and racism. A good portion of the book was horribly depressing in the same way my American Indian history classes were. The second reason it was difficult to read is that the writing style is often wordy. There are some big chunks of text and sometimes my mind would glaze over at the sight of so many complex sentences. I also had a hard time at first with all the translations of sharer verbs, such as “lovesharer� and “learnsharing� and such. I found these words a little cheesy at first, even though later I came to appreciate how the language reflects and shapes Sharer psychology.
Despite reproducing asexually, the Sharers are not asexual in general. They participate in sexual acts with their partners/lovesharers, and it seems to be a given that such acts and attractions are an important part of why coupling happens. They are no longer physically designed for “normal� sex with a male, which is part of why the idea of rape by colonists is even more disturbing. The book doesn’t go into detail about any sexual acts, but they are mentioned enough to give an idea. Spinel and a Sharer named Lystra become a couple and at one point must discuss differences in their ability to perform certain sexual acts, but this is restricted to only a few short scenes.
The worldbuilding is pretty extensive, as the author had to develop not only Shora but Spinel’s world and a few others whose citizens make up the invading force. Spinel’s world and its occupying force seem vaguely modeled after a sort of pseudo-modern medievalism, while Shora is a world in which everything lives in a harmonious natural balance. Pretty much everything on Shora is alive—most Sharers had never seen stone until the Valan traders arrived, and as a thing which is not living and never has lived, it disturbs them. They associate it with death, as only those who die go to “land�, that is, the bottom of the ocean. The living dwell on “rafts� which are really great floating webs of plant matter. This is one example of how the author extrapolates the psychology of the people from their surroundings. I also really appreciated that Sharer sciences were validated as being very advanced, and not simply “witch’s magic�. In fact it is the Sharer sciences which the colonizers most fear.
I found the plot a little hard to follow in some parts, due to the political machinations and trying to keep straight all the important figures and their motivations on the colonizing side. Some of that might be due to the incomprehensibility of Realgar’s character, though. I always find it difficult to really grasp how anyone could see themselves as being in the right while dishing out torture and death. The narrative definitely makes an attempt—I know the rationalizations he used, but from my perspective they seemed incredibly weak. Still, this parallels history in a way too. People are still stunned when they learn of what their fellow humans are capable of, and it’s hard to pick apart exactly why certain horrible events of history occurred, even when we have detailed records and hypotheses.
For the most part, the characters were well defined and each had their own unexpected moments of weakness and strength, which really made them “human�. I grew to love and admire so many of the Sharers, as well as Nisi (a non-sharer woman who learned Sharer ways), Spinel, and even a few of the random side characters. The ending was not 100% happily ever after, although it was fairly satisfying and gave me a lot to think about.
Sexual content: Significant
Ace/Genderqueer characters: Yes (Human and Alien)
Rating: PG-13/R for violence, torture, brief sexuality and rape
Writing style: 3/5
Likable characters: 4/5
Plot/Concepts: 4/5
Travelers from the ocean moon of Shora, Sharers Merwen and Usha must judge whether the Valans who have invaded their home are human in any sense they can know. Spinel the stonecutter's son follows them back, a "malefreak" among an all-female species. In the midst of the rising threat of colonization and extermination, the question remains--can a Valan share sisterhood with the people of Shora, and thus be healed from fear?
I was drawn to this book mainly for its feminist and genderqueer elements. The Sharers—being an all-female race which does not reproduce sexually—cannot really be restricted by the label of "woman" and therefore gender becomes relatively meaningless in their society. At first I was a little annoyed that Spinel, a man, seemed to be such a main character, but I quickly learned that there was no single main character, and I also grew to like Spinel for the way he so easily abandons any sense of masculine superiority. He comes to see himself as a sister to the Sharers, and they accept him as such despite his physical differences. He has moments of feeling like an outsider in both of his families, but that is to be expected with anyone who crosses between worlds.
As the story went on I realized that there was a much more problematic question looming on the horizon. Sharers and their experiences with the colonizing Valans run in close parallel to the history of indigenous peoples who have been brutalized and oppressed over recent centuries. In many ways Sharers are romanticized in this book, and romanticizing a people usually only makes them seem more foreign. But I worried even more about whether Spinel would become the equivalent of a white messiah, proving that only a non-Sharer could save Sharers, much as some films and books have a white man saving the Indians from his own people. This kind of narrative dooms the natives to failure and helplessness every time, and belittles the strengths they have always had in their own culture. It sends the message that they are not good enough on their own, even if the invaders are clearly the bad guys.
So does A Door Into Ocean fall prey to this trope? I can’t say a firm yes or no. Aspects of it are definitely present. For example, Spinel is occasionally referred to by the narrator as the Sharer’s only hope, or something like it. He is allowed places other Sharers are not, so that his adopted identity is almost always an asset. He is excepted from most of the brutalities and oppression his sisters face, which gives him some power in certain situations that they do not have. He has great amounts of Valan privilege despite being a pretty unimportant citizen.
However, while I was afraid that this privilege of his would be the deciding force in the battle for Sharer sovereignty and survival, he actually played a fairly limited role. Whatever advantage they gained was due to the shared efforts of the sisters from all over the globe, as well as the cooperation of enemy soldiers who could not abide the atrocities they were ordered to take part in. I feel like this is a fair depiction of what is necessary to truly win a conflict like this. There have to be people on both sides working to curb the desperation that results in violence. While it is obvious that the main villain, Raelgar, is pretty much a racist sexist genocidal maniac, no single person’s power is infinite. While the chain of command stays cohesive for a depressingly long time, it does eventually begin to break down. Meanwhile the Sharers have their own disputes over whether to give up their humanity by allowing themselves to share violence with their colonizers. Spinel takes a long time to fully accept their way of life in that regard—he wants them to do whatever they must in order to avoid suffering, even if it means killing. The way in which each individual character handles the conflict and responds to it internally is one of my favorite aspects of the book.
I’m sure some people will disagree with me, and find problems with the way the Sharers are depicted as it relates to the portrayal of indigenous peoples. I would be very interested to hear opinions, especially from people with relevant experience. I’m sure I have many blind spots due to my own privilege and there may be some important points I missed.
This book was difficult to read in two different ways. Firstly, it was painful to watch the chain of events as it unfolded, knowing what sort of pattern it would take and how many people might suffer or die in the process. So much of this is due to misunderstandings and assumptions made because of different cultural viewpoints, although some if it is also unadulterated greed and racism. A good portion of the book was horribly depressing in the same way my American Indian history classes were. The second reason it was difficult to read is that the writing style is often wordy. There are some big chunks of text and sometimes my mind would glaze over at the sight of so many complex sentences. I also had a hard time at first with all the translations of sharer verbs, such as “lovesharer� and “learnsharing� and such. I found these words a little cheesy at first, even though later I came to appreciate how the language reflects and shapes Sharer psychology.
Despite reproducing asexually, the Sharers are not asexual in general. They participate in sexual acts with their partners/lovesharers, and it seems to be a given that such acts and attractions are an important part of why coupling happens. They are no longer physically designed for “normal� sex with a male, which is part of why the idea of rape by colonists is even more disturbing. The book doesn’t go into detail about any sexual acts, but they are mentioned enough to give an idea. Spinel and a Sharer named Lystra become a couple and at one point must discuss differences in their ability to perform certain sexual acts, but this is restricted to only a few short scenes.
The worldbuilding is pretty extensive, as the author had to develop not only Shora but Spinel’s world and a few others whose citizens make up the invading force. Spinel’s world and its occupying force seem vaguely modeled after a sort of pseudo-modern medievalism, while Shora is a world in which everything lives in a harmonious natural balance. Pretty much everything on Shora is alive—most Sharers had never seen stone until the Valan traders arrived, and as a thing which is not living and never has lived, it disturbs them. They associate it with death, as only those who die go to “land�, that is, the bottom of the ocean. The living dwell on “rafts� which are really great floating webs of plant matter. This is one example of how the author extrapolates the psychology of the people from their surroundings. I also really appreciated that Sharer sciences were validated as being very advanced, and not simply “witch’s magic�. In fact it is the Sharer sciences which the colonizers most fear.
I found the plot a little hard to follow in some parts, due to the political machinations and trying to keep straight all the important figures and their motivations on the colonizing side. Some of that might be due to the incomprehensibility of Realgar’s character, though. I always find it difficult to really grasp how anyone could see themselves as being in the right while dishing out torture and death. The narrative definitely makes an attempt—I know the rationalizations he used, but from my perspective they seemed incredibly weak. Still, this parallels history in a way too. People are still stunned when they learn of what their fellow humans are capable of, and it’s hard to pick apart exactly why certain horrible events of history occurred, even when we have detailed records and hypotheses.
For the most part, the characters were well defined and each had their own unexpected moments of weakness and strength, which really made them “human�. I grew to love and admire so many of the Sharers, as well as Nisi (a non-sharer woman who learned Sharer ways), Spinel, and even a few of the random side characters. The ending was not 100% happily ever after, although it was fairly satisfying and gave me a lot to think about.
September 15, 2024
My interview with the author is here:
Video:
It is strange to realize that the first books I discovered purely through Google searches are now books I read decades in the past. A Door into Ocean is a book I was recently told is a SF feminist classic, but I honestly didn’t know others knew of it. I thought I had found a rare obscure gem. In 2000, I was volunteering at an anarchist bookstore in my hometown and a customer fresh off reading Leguin’s classic The Dispossessed asked me if any SF books were considered eco-feminist. A Google search uncovered this novel and Starhawk’s Fifth Sacred Thing, both of which I decided to read.
While on a road trip with my friend’s band, slinging T-shirts I read this book mostly on a drive back from the east coast. I remember liking it, thinking it presented powerful ideas. I remember having a long conversation with the woman looking for eco-feminist SF. Twenty-four years later when I was asked if I had an interest in being on a panel about the book at a conference I said yes, because I loved the idea of having a reason to re-read it.
I have also invited Joan Slonczewski' (JS after this) on the podcast so we are going to get lots of chances to celebrate this novel that is worthy of rediscovery.
ADIO is a fantastic work of multilayered science fiction that deserves to be remembered as an eco-feminist classic. I am not sure the mainstream SF canon remembers as much as it should. A comparison seems cheap, but if I had to make one it has the ecology-centered world-building of a novel like Dune, the political strength of a Dispossessed complete with a moon and planetary division that feels like homage to Leguin. It has a bit of “Way of Water.� The final hundred pages take on a different energy that was closer to what I wanted out of Ron Goulart’s SF comedy Flux, which was about protest movements written in the early 1970s.
The novel is focused on the Sharers of Shora, a nation of women living in a series of intentional communities called Rafts like floating communes. This far-future culture has long been separated from humanity on a distant moon. They are pacifists, deep ecologists who are intensely connected to the cycle of the ocean on their world. The comparisons to Dune are many, because the Sharers were founded by highly advanced founders, and as connected to the ecology, and as primitive as some of their ideals are, they are skilled in biological sciences and reproduce by parthenogenesis. The culture has no males—one of the reasons they have managed to sustain their utopia.
The conflicts of the novel erupt when a civilization from a nearby world is pressured by the (not so subtly named) Patriarch of the vast interstellar empire wants Shora to develop their ocean world. The Sharers are not exactly the native culture, victim to colonial expansion. They were humans. The Sharers however are so integrated with their world that the characters debate if they were ever human or if the patriarch has to respect their rights.
“Forgive me, she said withdrawn out irony, “I forgot that nonhumans are of no interest to the patriarch.�
“It's not that simple. Their genetic character allows a possibility that they are descended from human stuff.�
“More than a possibility,� she corrected with Ill-concealed contempt. “But who cares? 1,000 fools believe a lie and it's as good as truth.� (P.32)
Of course, the Patriarch comes to exploit, no different from the capitalists or colonialists of our world who are more than willing to exploit humans. The clash of cultures comes later in the novel, but it would mean little if the novel didn’t paint Shora vividly. JS being a biologist means the biology and ecology of the planet. The connection between the Sharers is everything.
“A mother is born when her child comes.�
Quote or if I swim in the sea, does the sea swim in me?�
“Does it not?� (P.37)
The characters who grew up on the rafts close to the ocean are important but Spinel, who grew up off-world becomes an important POV on the world of the novel. The Patriarch of Torr is the empire that Spinel comes from and if not for him early in the novel you might feel you were reading a fantasy novel, not Science Fiction.
“The man had no face there was only a pale, blank Oval where his face should be. “it's a servo!� Spinel was delighted. It was said that mechanical servitors did all the hard work in Iridus, Leaving the nobles free for leisure.� (p.37)
This comes back into the novel in the second half when the Patriarch invade�
“The next day, that Lady Berenice walked the skystreet of Center Way towards palace Iridium, ignoring solicitous hangcars as usual. Without newscubes to tell her, she might not have known that Iridus swarmed with the Pyrrholite refugees this winter and that food riots overran the older sections. (P.191)
Strange to think of these world-building details as grounding the novel, and Spinel himself grounds ADIO less in reality but in the future we come to expect in a typical science fiction novel. Spinel never comes to fully understand the Sharers culture but enough that he can “translate� when the oppressors come. JS gives us this novel’s take on the clash of cultures.
The larger galaxy is interesting, not a focus of the novel but important details nonetheless.
“Oh, no, Starling; I used to run the malachite ship. At your service, here to Torr decades at lightspeed were but days to me.�
Spinel looked up.
“You See, I was just a starling like you when my home world -� he bird whistled the name, “burnt to a cinder in the brother wars. After that, why, I wanted to get as far away as time and space allowed. So, I took the Torran route and ran it for centuries period until they retired me to this hole.� he said.
“The brother wars that was before the Patriarch. What, are you one of the primes?� those men live like gods this whole troll was one?�
Jack puffed his chest out. “that's right, I'm a prime. I'm older than the patriarch of Torr and near as old as Shora. I was there when the new age began when they pulled all the plans together like lobsters in the trap. I can tell you.� (P.49)
The name Brother wars is not so subtlety named for men, implies a conflict that women smartly stayed out of. It would explain why the rulers of this empire would be called “The Patriarch.� And the idea of centuries-old Primes, makes sense in far-future interstellar civilizations. Of course the Sharers are not interested in all that. They have their world and choose to leave a wider planet spanning civilizations.
The culture of the sharers dominates much of the early pages of the novel. That is what the title means.
“No, silly,� said Flossa. “it's for the fish you ate, and for Rilwen and the others, whose bones will sink to ‘land.� Shora said long ago that our song would help speed each soul through the last door.� Spinel’s scalp trickled. “What's it a door into?�
“Who knows? That's why it's last. You can't share it; You go alone, and never return to share the telling.� (p.141)
Everything is shared except that last door, and I suspect JS is implying this story, this novel is a Door into Ocean. A way to understand their lives, and the culture in this novel. For the second half of the novel to work you have to understand or relate to the way the Sharers live. This Utopia has to be challenged, that is the nature of the conflict. Spinel caught between both worlds is the novel’s view on the conflict.
“Spinel was thinking, he should have known from the start it would never work out. They were a race of man-haters, after all. No wonder the traders cheated them.
Lystra added, “The traders soon learned not to share rape. We applied ointment that stung on contact, so they shared the pain.�
Spinel replied, “We don't put up with rapists unveiled on. We put them away, or even hasten death for the worst ones.� (P.163)
The Sharers even as victims of brutal crimes can’t understand how the Patriarch deal with those being wronged. Their resistance is non-violent because that is the only way they have to fight back.
In the pages that stretch from 200-300 the novel shows us the typical colonial invasions, the taking of prisoners, and the misunderstanding of culture. This stuff is good but the last hundred pages when the Sharers non-violently resist is when the novel really cooks.
“Two days after the first prisoners were taken, natives at another raft system 100 kilometers away appeared at a Garrison asking after their sisters. Visitation soon spread to other bases, halfway around the globe. Even more annoying, the natives would not leave when put off, but grew in numbers and stayed by day and night until guards hauled them out to sea� (p.231)
ADIO is a novel built on the influence of the sciences and social movements that Joan Sloanczewski was a part of. Part of the non-violent Quaker movement resisting nuclear arms. In my interview with JS she focused on the use of language and how the Sharers spoke and how it related to their environment.
“We have to get a handle on these natives. They must have a weakness.�
“It's pathological,� Jade said. “They just don't know what fear is.�
“They have a word for it.�
“They think they do, but it's on a different scale from ordinary fear.� (p. 251)
The simple fact is that in their culture they didn’t understand or even have words for conceptslike exploitation.
“I don't know the sharer words for order or obey.�
Protector said nothing. Apparently, he did not know the words either.� (p. 282)
ADIO is a novel with two beating hearts, the world-building in a biological sense pumps blood into the second half which is resistance. The novel has many natural immunities to many of the narrative flaws of post-colonialist resistance stories. There is no outside savior and Sharers don’t have to forego their ethics to fight back. The most powerful moment of the book comes on pages 289-290.
Realgar of the Patriarch, tries to as he sees it reason with Merwen about how many Sharers will die to non-violently resist. In doing so even leverages the safety of her daughter/
“Does she realize,� said Realgar, “that many more sisters will die?�
“Do you realize that others will die?� Spinel said Hollowly.
But many Sharers have died, physically, since the beginning of time.� (page 289)
Despite the pain, she is committed to the struggle. Sloanczewski studied the history of these movements and many of these scenes quote directly from the history of movements. How different is it to have novel influenced by Dune that ends not in an epic battle of guns but willpower. What greater expression of feminist theory in science fiction?
Realgar not only wants them to fight, so he has an excuse to kill them but he is asking them erase the thing that makes there evolution with this new complete. The Patriarch struggles because breathmicrobes that make ocean life possible brings disease to the invaders.
“Spinel said “He wants you to chase out the breathmicrobes.�
Merwen opened her eyes and considered this. “A sad wish, Spinel. If Valans intend to live in our ocean, surely they wish to swim as well as possible.� (p.290)
Life on Shora is something these women evolved to do, and life itself informs their ethics. Very few novels can convey radical ethics from pages 1 to 400 in the way this novel does.
“If we kill, we lose our will to choose, our shared protection of Shora, our ability to shape life. Our humanity would slip away, beyond even your own. ( p.354)
Modern science fiction has plenty of radical political statements. If this novel reminds me of anything modern it is the fiction of S.B. Divya, whose Meru about living starships played with biology and ethics in similar ways. I can only speak for myself but the mission and message of this novel is as vital today as when it was released.
I speak always of communication across generations through the novels and stories of science fiction. As our climate collapses worse than it ever has, A Door Into Ocean is more important than ever.
Video:
It is strange to realize that the first books I discovered purely through Google searches are now books I read decades in the past. A Door into Ocean is a book I was recently told is a SF feminist classic, but I honestly didn’t know others knew of it. I thought I had found a rare obscure gem. In 2000, I was volunteering at an anarchist bookstore in my hometown and a customer fresh off reading Leguin’s classic The Dispossessed asked me if any SF books were considered eco-feminist. A Google search uncovered this novel and Starhawk’s Fifth Sacred Thing, both of which I decided to read.
While on a road trip with my friend’s band, slinging T-shirts I read this book mostly on a drive back from the east coast. I remember liking it, thinking it presented powerful ideas. I remember having a long conversation with the woman looking for eco-feminist SF. Twenty-four years later when I was asked if I had an interest in being on a panel about the book at a conference I said yes, because I loved the idea of having a reason to re-read it.
I have also invited Joan Slonczewski' (JS after this) on the podcast so we are going to get lots of chances to celebrate this novel that is worthy of rediscovery.
ADIO is a fantastic work of multilayered science fiction that deserves to be remembered as an eco-feminist classic. I am not sure the mainstream SF canon remembers as much as it should. A comparison seems cheap, but if I had to make one it has the ecology-centered world-building of a novel like Dune, the political strength of a Dispossessed complete with a moon and planetary division that feels like homage to Leguin. It has a bit of “Way of Water.� The final hundred pages take on a different energy that was closer to what I wanted out of Ron Goulart’s SF comedy Flux, which was about protest movements written in the early 1970s.
The novel is focused on the Sharers of Shora, a nation of women living in a series of intentional communities called Rafts like floating communes. This far-future culture has long been separated from humanity on a distant moon. They are pacifists, deep ecologists who are intensely connected to the cycle of the ocean on their world. The comparisons to Dune are many, because the Sharers were founded by highly advanced founders, and as connected to the ecology, and as primitive as some of their ideals are, they are skilled in biological sciences and reproduce by parthenogenesis. The culture has no males—one of the reasons they have managed to sustain their utopia.
The conflicts of the novel erupt when a civilization from a nearby world is pressured by the (not so subtly named) Patriarch of the vast interstellar empire wants Shora to develop their ocean world. The Sharers are not exactly the native culture, victim to colonial expansion. They were humans. The Sharers however are so integrated with their world that the characters debate if they were ever human or if the patriarch has to respect their rights.
“Forgive me, she said withdrawn out irony, “I forgot that nonhumans are of no interest to the patriarch.�
“It's not that simple. Their genetic character allows a possibility that they are descended from human stuff.�
“More than a possibility,� she corrected with Ill-concealed contempt. “But who cares? 1,000 fools believe a lie and it's as good as truth.� (P.32)
Of course, the Patriarch comes to exploit, no different from the capitalists or colonialists of our world who are more than willing to exploit humans. The clash of cultures comes later in the novel, but it would mean little if the novel didn’t paint Shora vividly. JS being a biologist means the biology and ecology of the planet. The connection between the Sharers is everything.
“A mother is born when her child comes.�
Quote or if I swim in the sea, does the sea swim in me?�
“Does it not?� (P.37)
The characters who grew up on the rafts close to the ocean are important but Spinel, who grew up off-world becomes an important POV on the world of the novel. The Patriarch of Torr is the empire that Spinel comes from and if not for him early in the novel you might feel you were reading a fantasy novel, not Science Fiction.
“The man had no face there was only a pale, blank Oval where his face should be. “it's a servo!� Spinel was delighted. It was said that mechanical servitors did all the hard work in Iridus, Leaving the nobles free for leisure.� (p.37)
This comes back into the novel in the second half when the Patriarch invade�
“The next day, that Lady Berenice walked the skystreet of Center Way towards palace Iridium, ignoring solicitous hangcars as usual. Without newscubes to tell her, she might not have known that Iridus swarmed with the Pyrrholite refugees this winter and that food riots overran the older sections. (P.191)
Strange to think of these world-building details as grounding the novel, and Spinel himself grounds ADIO less in reality but in the future we come to expect in a typical science fiction novel. Spinel never comes to fully understand the Sharers culture but enough that he can “translate� when the oppressors come. JS gives us this novel’s take on the clash of cultures.
The larger galaxy is interesting, not a focus of the novel but important details nonetheless.
“Oh, no, Starling; I used to run the malachite ship. At your service, here to Torr decades at lightspeed were but days to me.�
Spinel looked up.
“You See, I was just a starling like you when my home world -� he bird whistled the name, “burnt to a cinder in the brother wars. After that, why, I wanted to get as far away as time and space allowed. So, I took the Torran route and ran it for centuries period until they retired me to this hole.� he said.
“The brother wars that was before the Patriarch. What, are you one of the primes?� those men live like gods this whole troll was one?�
Jack puffed his chest out. “that's right, I'm a prime. I'm older than the patriarch of Torr and near as old as Shora. I was there when the new age began when they pulled all the plans together like lobsters in the trap. I can tell you.� (P.49)
The name Brother wars is not so subtlety named for men, implies a conflict that women smartly stayed out of. It would explain why the rulers of this empire would be called “The Patriarch.� And the idea of centuries-old Primes, makes sense in far-future interstellar civilizations. Of course the Sharers are not interested in all that. They have their world and choose to leave a wider planet spanning civilizations.
The culture of the sharers dominates much of the early pages of the novel. That is what the title means.
“No, silly,� said Flossa. “it's for the fish you ate, and for Rilwen and the others, whose bones will sink to ‘land.� Shora said long ago that our song would help speed each soul through the last door.� Spinel’s scalp trickled. “What's it a door into?�
“Who knows? That's why it's last. You can't share it; You go alone, and never return to share the telling.� (p.141)
Everything is shared except that last door, and I suspect JS is implying this story, this novel is a Door into Ocean. A way to understand their lives, and the culture in this novel. For the second half of the novel to work you have to understand or relate to the way the Sharers live. This Utopia has to be challenged, that is the nature of the conflict. Spinel caught between both worlds is the novel’s view on the conflict.
“Spinel was thinking, he should have known from the start it would never work out. They were a race of man-haters, after all. No wonder the traders cheated them.
Lystra added, “The traders soon learned not to share rape. We applied ointment that stung on contact, so they shared the pain.�
Spinel replied, “We don't put up with rapists unveiled on. We put them away, or even hasten death for the worst ones.� (P.163)
The Sharers even as victims of brutal crimes can’t understand how the Patriarch deal with those being wronged. Their resistance is non-violent because that is the only way they have to fight back.
In the pages that stretch from 200-300 the novel shows us the typical colonial invasions, the taking of prisoners, and the misunderstanding of culture. This stuff is good but the last hundred pages when the Sharers non-violently resist is when the novel really cooks.
“Two days after the first prisoners were taken, natives at another raft system 100 kilometers away appeared at a Garrison asking after their sisters. Visitation soon spread to other bases, halfway around the globe. Even more annoying, the natives would not leave when put off, but grew in numbers and stayed by day and night until guards hauled them out to sea� (p.231)
ADIO is a novel built on the influence of the sciences and social movements that Joan Sloanczewski was a part of. Part of the non-violent Quaker movement resisting nuclear arms. In my interview with JS she focused on the use of language and how the Sharers spoke and how it related to their environment.
“We have to get a handle on these natives. They must have a weakness.�
“It's pathological,� Jade said. “They just don't know what fear is.�
“They have a word for it.�
“They think they do, but it's on a different scale from ordinary fear.� (p. 251)
The simple fact is that in their culture they didn’t understand or even have words for conceptslike exploitation.
“I don't know the sharer words for order or obey.�
Protector said nothing. Apparently, he did not know the words either.� (p. 282)
ADIO is a novel with two beating hearts, the world-building in a biological sense pumps blood into the second half which is resistance. The novel has many natural immunities to many of the narrative flaws of post-colonialist resistance stories. There is no outside savior and Sharers don’t have to forego their ethics to fight back. The most powerful moment of the book comes on pages 289-290.
Realgar of the Patriarch, tries to as he sees it reason with Merwen about how many Sharers will die to non-violently resist. In doing so even leverages the safety of her daughter/
“Does she realize,� said Realgar, “that many more sisters will die?�
“Do you realize that others will die?� Spinel said Hollowly.
But many Sharers have died, physically, since the beginning of time.� (page 289)
Despite the pain, she is committed to the struggle. Sloanczewski studied the history of these movements and many of these scenes quote directly from the history of movements. How different is it to have novel influenced by Dune that ends not in an epic battle of guns but willpower. What greater expression of feminist theory in science fiction?
Realgar not only wants them to fight, so he has an excuse to kill them but he is asking them erase the thing that makes there evolution with this new complete. The Patriarch struggles because breathmicrobes that make ocean life possible brings disease to the invaders.
“Spinel said “He wants you to chase out the breathmicrobes.�
Merwen opened her eyes and considered this. “A sad wish, Spinel. If Valans intend to live in our ocean, surely they wish to swim as well as possible.� (p.290)
Life on Shora is something these women evolved to do, and life itself informs their ethics. Very few novels can convey radical ethics from pages 1 to 400 in the way this novel does.
“If we kill, we lose our will to choose, our shared protection of Shora, our ability to shape life. Our humanity would slip away, beyond even your own. ( p.354)
Modern science fiction has plenty of radical political statements. If this novel reminds me of anything modern it is the fiction of S.B. Divya, whose Meru about living starships played with biology and ethics in similar ways. I can only speak for myself but the mission and message of this novel is as vital today as when it was released.
I speak always of communication across generations through the novels and stories of science fiction. As our climate collapses worse than it ever has, A Door Into Ocean is more important than ever.
Read
April 27, 2023I gave up after 25%. I liked only the world building. I also disagree about this being feminist sci-fi.
Ho smesso di leggere piú o meno attorno al 25%, perché mi piaceva soltanto il world-building. Inoltre non sono affatto d'accordo sul fatto che questo sia un libro femminista.
Ho smesso di leggere piú o meno attorno al 25%, perché mi piaceva soltanto il world-building. Inoltre non sono affatto d'accordo sul fatto che questo sia un libro femminista.
December 17, 2023
*4,5/5*
Questa lettura mi è stata consigliata da mia zia, e gliene sono molto grata. Non mi sarei mai aspettata di trovare un libro fantascientifico degli anni '80 la cui ambientazione è un pianeta di lesbiche che si riproducono per partenogenesi. Già la premessa era alquanto invitante. Lo stesso vale per le tematiche: colonizzazione, ecologia, pacifismo/guerra.
Non so se James Cameron lo abbia letto, ma devo dire che come trama mi ha ricordato moltissimo Avatar. Per quanto riguarda Shora e tutte le regole che la governano, queste le ho trovate estremamente originali. Ammetto però che se dalla descrizione che mi era stata fatta non avessi già saputo dei verbi attivi-passivi e della questione delle pietre ci avrei messo un bel po' a capirle.
Il libro ci mette un po' a ingranare ma quando lo fa ti cattura e diventi inevitabilmente legato alle vicende dÉ™ personaggÉ™. Ho anche raggiunto livelli di odio elevato per un certo personaggio.
Devo dire che Shora e le spartienti mi mancheranno.
Questa lettura mi è stata consigliata da mia zia, e gliene sono molto grata. Non mi sarei mai aspettata di trovare un libro fantascientifico degli anni '80 la cui ambientazione è un pianeta di lesbiche che si riproducono per partenogenesi. Già la premessa era alquanto invitante. Lo stesso vale per le tematiche: colonizzazione, ecologia, pacifismo/guerra.
Non so se James Cameron lo abbia letto, ma devo dire che come trama mi ha ricordato moltissimo Avatar. Per quanto riguarda Shora e tutte le regole che la governano, queste le ho trovate estremamente originali. Ammetto però che se dalla descrizione che mi era stata fatta non avessi già saputo dei verbi attivi-passivi e della questione delle pietre ci avrei messo un bel po' a capirle.
Il libro ci mette un po' a ingranare ma quando lo fa ti cattura e diventi inevitabilmente legato alle vicende dÉ™ personaggÉ™. Ho anche raggiunto livelli di odio elevato per un certo personaggio.
Devo dire che Shora e le spartienti mi mancheranno.
June 30, 2024
I can't remember who recommended to me, but I thank them as it proved very rewarding. The narrative takes a while to get going and is never very fast-paced. The emphasis is on cultural and environmental worldbuilding, as people from a planet, Valedon, and its moon, Shora, meet and try to determine whether each other are human. Valedon seemingly has an early Modern-type economy and is peopled by beings who apparently look like us. It is ruled by a distant authoritarian empire, although there are competing military factions beneath. Shora by constrast is entirely covered in ocean and its people are all women, with physical adaptions for swimming that could have evolved or be deliberate genetic manipulation. They are called Sharers and live in a decentralised direct democracy, or perhaps anarchist, society that entirely rejects violence. Their economy is essentially permaculture, involving careful management of the balance of the oceanic ecosystem.
At first the interactions between these two very different worlds only involve a few individuals, which gives the worldbuilding space to unfold before the main plot begins. The narrative subsequently turns into a fascinating, moving, and vivid examination of non-violent resistance to colonialism. A military force from Valedon attempts to occupy Shora and force the Sharers to join their empire, which is helmed by the unsubtly-titled Patriarch. Throughout the book there is a great deal of dialogue and Sharer discussions of how to deal with the occupation are among the most thought-provoking. The same question is repeatedly asked in different ways: can it be morally right to counter dehumanisation with dehumanisation? does not pretend that this there is a simple answer to this, but instead builds a picture of a social structure that resists dehumanising anyone even under extraordinary pressure.
The carefully constructed society and culture of the Sharers is an outstanding example of utopian writing and the plot explores its resilience. Yet the narrative also demonstrates that the Sharers aren't unique, as people from Valedon go to Shora and react to life there in wildly different ways. It defied my expectations by not focusing much on gender. Despite the Patriarch Planet vs Woman Moon theme, gender roles aren't discussed very much. I think this was a good call, as it would have undermined the tone of nuanced humanism to generalise men = evil and women = good. Once I got into it, I found to be that rare thing: an engaging and hopeful piece of utopian writing that does not ignore authoritarianism and cruelty.
At first the interactions between these two very different worlds only involve a few individuals, which gives the worldbuilding space to unfold before the main plot begins. The narrative subsequently turns into a fascinating, moving, and vivid examination of non-violent resistance to colonialism. A military force from Valedon attempts to occupy Shora and force the Sharers to join their empire, which is helmed by the unsubtly-titled Patriarch. Throughout the book there is a great deal of dialogue and Sharer discussions of how to deal with the occupation are among the most thought-provoking. The same question is repeatedly asked in different ways: can it be morally right to counter dehumanisation with dehumanisation? does not pretend that this there is a simple answer to this, but instead builds a picture of a social structure that resists dehumanising anyone even under extraordinary pressure.
The carefully constructed society and culture of the Sharers is an outstanding example of utopian writing and the plot explores its resilience. Yet the narrative also demonstrates that the Sharers aren't unique, as people from Valedon go to Shora and react to life there in wildly different ways. It defied my expectations by not focusing much on gender. Despite the Patriarch Planet vs Woman Moon theme, gender roles aren't discussed very much. I think this was a good call, as it would have undermined the tone of nuanced humanism to generalise men = evil and women = good. Once I got into it, I found to be that rare thing: an engaging and hopeful piece of utopian writing that does not ignore authoritarianism and cruelty.
January 7, 2024
très belle réflexion sur l'écoféminisme. comme pour le guin, j'ai l'impression que c'est moins la capacité de la scifi à "prédire" le futur qui intéresse slonczewski que sa capacité à réfléchir un champ de possibles. what if women ruled the world ? [SPOILERS] c'est super chill ! c'est grosso modo la question qu'elle se pose (et aujourd'hui sur google c'est la deuxième suggestion qui sort quand j'écris "what if women..."). à travers la communauté imaginée des sharers de la planète shora, elle s'attarde à construire de toute pièce un système politique tel qu'il se serait développé dans une société composée uniquement de femmes. on y retrouve notamment plein de trucs propres à l'écoféminisme comme des économies de partage, le respect des limites bioécologiques, l'idée de web-of-life, etc. c'est aussi une société qui prend au sérieux le traitement du silence, au point d'en faire un acte politique � elles parlent d'unspeaking � qui remplace tout pouvoir de coercition. c'est un point quand même fort quand on pense que c'est souvent quelque chose qu'on associe aux femmes. surtout quand cette chose est tournée au ridicule ou considérée comme une preuve de faiblesse. me semble qu'au québec c'était un thème récurent chez les humoristes des années 1990 et 2000. les femmes viennent de vénus, les hommes de mars. lol. sont différents. mentrue. dèche. cum.
sinon, c'est aussi un roman qui place la figure convenu du héros masculin en périphérie du récit. contrairement à la plupart des récits (d'initiation) du genre, le héros n'apprend pas de son aventure, mais plutôt de son expérience avec les femmes de shora. ne serait-ce que pour ça, c'est un beau récit d'apprentissage féministe pour les petits gars.
sinon, c'est aussi un roman qui place la figure convenu du héros masculin en périphérie du récit. contrairement à la plupart des récits (d'initiation) du genre, le héros n'apprend pas de son aventure, mais plutôt de son expérience avec les femmes de shora. ne serait-ce que pour ça, c'est un beau récit d'apprentissage féministe pour les petits gars.
February 3, 2017
Turns out I'm still in the mood for 1980s anthropological sci-fi, so I bumped this to the top of my reading list. (That, and current discourse about the ethicality of Nazi-punching made me want some pacifist philosophy in my life.) This hit both desires on the nose; Slonczewski's depiction of Sharer culture and morals is fascinatingly alien. I particularly appreciate that their pacifism is never presented as utopian; they are flawed people who may or may not be making the right choices, and their survival owes as much or more to the internal flaws of the Valans as to the efficacy of their own actions. Thematically I'd shelve this beside , though I don't think the Anarresti and the Sharers would consider their own philosophies particularly compatible. I'm intrigued by all that we're never quite told about Valan culture, too, and about the Patriarchy that lurks off-screen, controlling them at a distance.
Character and plot-wise this is sort of a mixed bag; the pacing is meandering until it's abruptly very rushed instead, people (except for Merwen) wander in and out of the narrative, and some motivations (particularly those in the push-pull relationship between Bernice and Realgar) were never well-developed. But the backdrop Slonczewski paints is worth savoring even if I wish the performance being presented was stronger.
Character and plot-wise this is sort of a mixed bag; the pacing is meandering until it's abruptly very rushed instead, people (except for Merwen) wander in and out of the narrative, and some motivations (particularly those in the push-pull relationship between Bernice and Realgar) were never well-developed. But the backdrop Slonczewski paints is worth savoring even if I wish the performance being presented was stronger.
April 25, 2018
A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski not sure now where on goodreads I saw this one after I read the synopsis I thought well that sounds interesting lets give it a try. So glad I did, there were a few reviews where the reader hated the book I don’t see what there was to hate, the science was clear and far above average the author being a microbiologist. The Pacifist creed of the sharers of Shora was very well thought out although the circular compressed logic of their speech made me more than a few times having to go back and reread a passage or two. The story was for me analogist to Native Americans experience with early traders and settlers. Probably not many other people read it that way, but I sure felt it as I read it, but my favorite chapter was the children as hostages and what resulted from that just classic, overall 5 stars, haven’t enjoyed a science fiction novel as much as this one in a long time this is right up there with Octavia Butler’s work so glad I read it.
March 23, 2014
...All things considered, I feel that A Door into Ocean would have been a better book if it had been a bit less political. I love the worldbuilding, emphasis on ecology and the way Slonczewski handles language for instance. In some respects it is a very strong novel so I can see why it was awarded the Campbell. I can't help but detect a bit of irony there, Campbell himself would, given the content and his views on women and science fiction, most likely have detested the novel. Ultimately it's the simplicity of the way genders are portrayed that is the novels undoing however. While I enjoyed parts of it greatly, I found the novel as a whole a bit of a disappointing read.
December 19, 2017
I loved this novel and used it as an example of the feminism that posits that women are different from men, ie morally superior.
December 3, 2020
How do you review a book like A Door Into Ocean?
Typically I'd sum up the plot's critical elements, introduce you to the primary characters, and then spell out, at a broad level, what I considered the highs and lows to be.
That's not gonna work here. For starters, I'm not sure I can summarize the central plot. At play here is identity—both individual and community—ecology, biology, the nature of the military-industrial complex, a hierarchical society's effect on psychology, the nature of fear, consciousness, humanity, and death. And more! It's a lot, and it feels like I read a series rather than a 406-page book.
And yet, it's also quite simple. On the water-covered moon called Shora a society of women live in harmony with their unusual home. Deep purple—on account of microbes in their skin that help them retain oxygen while swimming—they also sport extra-long, webbed digits and a body devoid of hair. This last fact is very noticeable as they don't wear clothing. They call themselves Sharers, and they are the only sentient beings native to their planet. Though spread across the globe, they live as one tribe.
Their way of life, previously undisturbed for centuries or more, is finally encountering a reckoning. Traders arrived some years past, pitching the world into unfamiliar territory. How much do they let modern conveniences overtake their way of life? And what of the unintended consequences of these conveniences—are they worth it? Then there's the traders' effect on the local ecology.
You get the idea.
Merwen, the closest thing this egalitarian group has to a leader, wants to understand these traders and their kind. n search of understading, she visits the nearby planet of Valedon, where she meets Spinel. Young and searching for an identity, he agrees to return with her to Shora.
The transition isn't easy for anyone, yet Merwen is convinced that Spinel's presence among them is critically important. This scenario comprises most of the first half of A Door Into Ocean.
I have read quite a few of these "outsider" types of stories for ForFemFan, but I never tire of them. They're a perfect platform from which to introduce a well-honed world while exploring the nuance of identity. In my mind, they're as timeless as the Heroes journey—if done well.
And Slonczewski does it well. From the anthropological to the biological, everything about Shora and its people is different yet vaguely familiar and infinitely endearing. I could go into specifics, but I'll refrain. I enjoyed experiencing the peculiarities of the Sharers without introduction. I will, however, warn you that when Slonczewski has a complicated piece of information she wants to impart, she simply goes for it. Expect the occasional long paragraph, or page, dead-ass explaining the biology of a type of sea creature.
The only "miss" for me in these chapters was the political nuance.
Spinel's presence is the primary focus, not the sole one. Elsewhere, another Sharer-adopted Valedon is living her life, and it's a lot more political. As the child of the high-powered politician who initiated trading with Shora and the partner of some high-powered military officer, it's through her that we get hints and foreshadowing that Shora's current tribulations with the traders are relatively low-stakes.
The problem here is that I'm terrible at reading between the lines, and I feel like most of the big reveals are � revealed through inference. Here's a made-up example:
Like, obviously, I understand that "his Lordship canceling === bad." But I'd need to know the woman's relationship to the man, the woman's relationship to His Lordship, and His Lordship's relationship with wherever he's (now) not headed to understand why it’s bad and the potential ramifications of this change of behavior.
As those pieces of information were spread out across chapters (as this was not the primary focus) and were also often inferred rather than clearly stated, every bit of political intrigue added to the pile only made less sense to me. It was clear, though, that this pile was stacking up against the Sharers. And every time I hit one of those moments where I could feel the impending doom, I struggled to keep reading.
Not because I didn't like the book; I loved it. In a way, I felt like the Sharers themselves: here was a thing I loved and respected and wanted to remain precisely as it was despite the inevitability of strife and change.
So when a full-on occupation of Shora replaces the now minor problem of the traders, I struggled. This struggle was exasperated by my natural tendency to come out swinging.
For example, take a day in fifth-grade when a high-schooler stole a classmate's hat and taunted her about it. I could have gone for an adult. I could have tried to convince him to give it back. I could have sat in front of the door and refused to let him back inside until he returned it. I could have decided it was none of my business—I didn't even like that classmate—and go back to playing.
Instead, I tackled him in the back of the knees, causing them to buckle, then jumped on his back and hit him until he dropped it.
So when the women of Shora faced their injustice with non-violence, my brain screamed for someone to tackle the army by the back of the knees and hit them until they went home. I get why that wasn't their approach. I even respect that not being their approach. But them not doing the thing that I would have wanted to do in their stead provoked anxiety within me and only amplified the novel's tension.
I devoured the second half of A Door Into Ocean. It's well-written and easy to read, true. And I loved the characters and cared about them and wanted to see them through their ordeals, yes. But by-and-large, I read with such speed because I needed to banish that tension, and the only remedy was to finish reading the book. For better or for worse, once I knew what happened, I could relax.
Some people love novels putting the screws to them in this manner; I am not among them. My preferred narrative is nuanced and bursting with character and without staggering amounts of tension.
The tension in A Door Into Ocean follows reason and the trajectory of the storytelling. We get a close look at the instigator and understand why he behaves the way he does. The story is told well, or else I would have quit reading. I simply prefer lighter stories.
I'm glad that I read A Door Into Ocean; none of these comments are negative, per se. I simply hope to make the story's progression apparent, so you know what sort of story you're getting into and can plan accordingly.
This is the end of my traditional review, but I do have one more topic to discuss: "gender essentialism" in A Door Into Ocean. Many reviews seem to think the novel is a study in "women are nurturing and prone to non-violence; men are the opposite."
I disagree. I could get into specifics within the novel that refute this presumption, but I don't want to spoil anything. Also, thanks to the capstone project of my obscenely expensive but otherwise worthless degree, I have a more holistic argument against the idea that the Sharer's non-violence is (unreasonably) born out of them being women.
Violence is often a direct reaction to "the other." Homogenous groups are, on average, less violent than heterogeneous groups because of the shared group identity. This idea is not hypothetical; you can study it anywhere a group of people have suitable land/resources and either few neighbors or neighbors of similar physical characteristics and ideologies. Hundreds of years later, non-violence is often still the first response to violence, simply because they're unfamiliar or uncomfortable with using violence as a tool. It makes sense that people--communities--stick to what they know.
The Sharers are one tribe of people with ideological and physical equality. They sometimes disagree, of course, but their ideology allows room for disagreement. Despite covering the globe, they're few in number and have the means to communicate with each other at a great distance. Their decision making, when technologically feasible, takes place on a global scale. And hell, they're even all women.
This level of homogeny is unparalleled in the real world. There is no "other" on Shora, and countless generations have passed where problems can and were solved without violence.
I could dig deeper, but I'll spare you. My point here is, despite culture being a vast, nuanced, and incredibly interesting amorphous "thing," there is real-world evidence that corroborates the notion that the Sharer's predisposition to non-violence is based on their homogeny rather than the author’s belief in gender essentialism.
Then why are the Sharers women, you ask, if not for gender-essentialist nonsense?
I argue it's because of reproduction.
Even in a distant future with remarkable biological prowess, it would be much more difficult for a society of folks with XY chromosomes to reproduce. It would also likely involve something technological—for lack of a better term, an incubator—to gestate the resulting embryo. This separation from nature is anathema to the Sharers.
It also would require some conscious selection: if somehow an embryo could result from combining sperm, then they'd have to consciously select for children with XY chromosomes, which again kind of goes against Sharers' nature.
On the flip side, using one ovum to fertilize a second is possible in our current world, at least with mice. Given the Sharers can crack that biological hack, which they obviously can, everything else plays out. Gestation is accomplished the old-fashioned way, and by fusing ovum to ovum you're always guaranteed children with XX chromosomes. This ensures the homogeny necessary for the Sharers to be believable while also striking that shocking difference with their oppressors.
To me, it seems like the Sharers are women because logically and biologically, for the story to work, Sharers must be women. And considering Slonczewski is known for her biological acumen and creativity, I think this is a fairly safe assumption.
Dissertation over. :)
(I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See a more at )
Typically I'd sum up the plot's critical elements, introduce you to the primary characters, and then spell out, at a broad level, what I considered the highs and lows to be.
That's not gonna work here. For starters, I'm not sure I can summarize the central plot. At play here is identity—both individual and community—ecology, biology, the nature of the military-industrial complex, a hierarchical society's effect on psychology, the nature of fear, consciousness, humanity, and death. And more! It's a lot, and it feels like I read a series rather than a 406-page book.
And yet, it's also quite simple. On the water-covered moon called Shora a society of women live in harmony with their unusual home. Deep purple—on account of microbes in their skin that help them retain oxygen while swimming—they also sport extra-long, webbed digits and a body devoid of hair. This last fact is very noticeable as they don't wear clothing. They call themselves Sharers, and they are the only sentient beings native to their planet. Though spread across the globe, they live as one tribe.
Their way of life, previously undisturbed for centuries or more, is finally encountering a reckoning. Traders arrived some years past, pitching the world into unfamiliar territory. How much do they let modern conveniences overtake their way of life? And what of the unintended consequences of these conveniences—are they worth it? Then there's the traders' effect on the local ecology.
You get the idea.
Merwen, the closest thing this egalitarian group has to a leader, wants to understand these traders and their kind. n search of understading, she visits the nearby planet of Valedon, where she meets Spinel. Young and searching for an identity, he agrees to return with her to Shora.
The transition isn't easy for anyone, yet Merwen is convinced that Spinel's presence among them is critically important. This scenario comprises most of the first half of A Door Into Ocean.
I have read quite a few of these "outsider" types of stories for ForFemFan, but I never tire of them. They're a perfect platform from which to introduce a well-honed world while exploring the nuance of identity. In my mind, they're as timeless as the Heroes journey—if done well.
And Slonczewski does it well. From the anthropological to the biological, everything about Shora and its people is different yet vaguely familiar and infinitely endearing. I could go into specifics, but I'll refrain. I enjoyed experiencing the peculiarities of the Sharers without introduction. I will, however, warn you that when Slonczewski has a complicated piece of information she wants to impart, she simply goes for it. Expect the occasional long paragraph, or page, dead-ass explaining the biology of a type of sea creature.
The only "miss" for me in these chapters was the political nuance.
Spinel's presence is the primary focus, not the sole one. Elsewhere, another Sharer-adopted Valedon is living her life, and it's a lot more political. As the child of the high-powered politician who initiated trading with Shora and the partner of some high-powered military officer, it's through her that we get hints and foreshadowing that Shora's current tribulations with the traders are relatively low-stakes.
The problem here is that I'm terrible at reading between the lines, and I feel like most of the big reveals are � revealed through inference. Here's a made-up example:
"You must realize the situation is untenable, which is why His Lordship has canceled his visit." The man shrugged apologetically.
"You bastard!" She said, startled by her own outburst.
Like, obviously, I understand that "his Lordship canceling === bad." But I'd need to know the woman's relationship to the man, the woman's relationship to His Lordship, and His Lordship's relationship with wherever he's (now) not headed to understand why it’s bad and the potential ramifications of this change of behavior.
As those pieces of information were spread out across chapters (as this was not the primary focus) and were also often inferred rather than clearly stated, every bit of political intrigue added to the pile only made less sense to me. It was clear, though, that this pile was stacking up against the Sharers. And every time I hit one of those moments where I could feel the impending doom, I struggled to keep reading.
Not because I didn't like the book; I loved it. In a way, I felt like the Sharers themselves: here was a thing I loved and respected and wanted to remain precisely as it was despite the inevitability of strife and change.
So when a full-on occupation of Shora replaces the now minor problem of the traders, I struggled. This struggle was exasperated by my natural tendency to come out swinging.
For example, take a day in fifth-grade when a high-schooler stole a classmate's hat and taunted her about it. I could have gone for an adult. I could have tried to convince him to give it back. I could have sat in front of the door and refused to let him back inside until he returned it. I could have decided it was none of my business—I didn't even like that classmate—and go back to playing.
Instead, I tackled him in the back of the knees, causing them to buckle, then jumped on his back and hit him until he dropped it.
So when the women of Shora faced their injustice with non-violence, my brain screamed for someone to tackle the army by the back of the knees and hit them until they went home. I get why that wasn't their approach. I even respect that not being their approach. But them not doing the thing that I would have wanted to do in their stead provoked anxiety within me and only amplified the novel's tension.
I devoured the second half of A Door Into Ocean. It's well-written and easy to read, true. And I loved the characters and cared about them and wanted to see them through their ordeals, yes. But by-and-large, I read with such speed because I needed to banish that tension, and the only remedy was to finish reading the book. For better or for worse, once I knew what happened, I could relax.
Some people love novels putting the screws to them in this manner; I am not among them. My preferred narrative is nuanced and bursting with character and without staggering amounts of tension.
The tension in A Door Into Ocean follows reason and the trajectory of the storytelling. We get a close look at the instigator and understand why he behaves the way he does. The story is told well, or else I would have quit reading. I simply prefer lighter stories.
I'm glad that I read A Door Into Ocean; none of these comments are negative, per se. I simply hope to make the story's progression apparent, so you know what sort of story you're getting into and can plan accordingly.
This is the end of my traditional review, but I do have one more topic to discuss: "gender essentialism" in A Door Into Ocean. Many reviews seem to think the novel is a study in "women are nurturing and prone to non-violence; men are the opposite."
I disagree. I could get into specifics within the novel that refute this presumption, but I don't want to spoil anything. Also, thanks to the capstone project of my obscenely expensive but otherwise worthless degree, I have a more holistic argument against the idea that the Sharer's non-violence is (unreasonably) born out of them being women.
Violence is often a direct reaction to "the other." Homogenous groups are, on average, less violent than heterogeneous groups because of the shared group identity. This idea is not hypothetical; you can study it anywhere a group of people have suitable land/resources and either few neighbors or neighbors of similar physical characteristics and ideologies. Hundreds of years later, non-violence is often still the first response to violence, simply because they're unfamiliar or uncomfortable with using violence as a tool. It makes sense that people--communities--stick to what they know.
The Sharers are one tribe of people with ideological and physical equality. They sometimes disagree, of course, but their ideology allows room for disagreement. Despite covering the globe, they're few in number and have the means to communicate with each other at a great distance. Their decision making, when technologically feasible, takes place on a global scale. And hell, they're even all women.
This level of homogeny is unparalleled in the real world. There is no "other" on Shora, and countless generations have passed where problems can and were solved without violence.
I could dig deeper, but I'll spare you. My point here is, despite culture being a vast, nuanced, and incredibly interesting amorphous "thing," there is real-world evidence that corroborates the notion that the Sharer's predisposition to non-violence is based on their homogeny rather than the author’s belief in gender essentialism.
Then why are the Sharers women, you ask, if not for gender-essentialist nonsense?
I argue it's because of reproduction.
Even in a distant future with remarkable biological prowess, it would be much more difficult for a society of folks with XY chromosomes to reproduce. It would also likely involve something technological—for lack of a better term, an incubator—to gestate the resulting embryo. This separation from nature is anathema to the Sharers.
It also would require some conscious selection: if somehow an embryo could result from combining sperm, then they'd have to consciously select for children with XY chromosomes, which again kind of goes against Sharers' nature.
On the flip side, using one ovum to fertilize a second is possible in our current world, at least with mice. Given the Sharers can crack that biological hack, which they obviously can, everything else plays out. Gestation is accomplished the old-fashioned way, and by fusing ovum to ovum you're always guaranteed children with XX chromosomes. This ensures the homogeny necessary for the Sharers to be believable while also striking that shocking difference with their oppressors.
To me, it seems like the Sharers are women because logically and biologically, for the story to work, Sharers must be women. And considering Slonczewski is known for her biological acumen and creativity, I think this is a fairly safe assumption.
Dissertation over. :)
(I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See a more at )
August 13, 2019
So you're a young man still undecided about your career and who hasn't ventured too far out of the city where he grew up. One day two women from a nearby moon invite you back to their world, a world that's basically a giant ocean inhabited by nothing but women who never wear clothes. For Spinel it should be the greatest day of his life.
Unfortunately for him none of the women are interested in him in the way he'd like and don't even need him frankly. In short, they only like him for his mind and that's mostly because they want to learn more about his world before it goes and does something crazy like invade them. And then it does anyway. This would perhaps be the point where he discovers that he's been hanging out with a secretive group of aquatic Amazons who are hiding giant guns under the big ocean, but alas, he's not. Every single person in this book is going to have to do things the hard way. And it turns out there's more than one hard way.
World building is one of those skills that sounds easier to do in theory than practice, as its not quite the same as coming up with a cool RPG world to torment all your friends' characters, unless you're going to put a lot of thought into the biology of a fire-breathing dragon and what ultimate effect a race of them would have on the ecosystem (and what you could upset by slaughtering a whole bunch of them). Most of the best examples in SF were done by people with a pretty serious hard science background, and Joan Slonczewski was no exception, having achieved a PhD in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale in the early eighties. It may not make her smarter than you, but I'm pretty sure she might know more about microbiology than you (she helped write a textbook!).
Of course being able to articulate an interesting far-out idea in a plausible fashion and telling an entertaining thoughtful story about it are two entirely different things and SF is littered with examples of writers who thought having characters explain cool physics ideas in place of a story was a surefire way to win readers over. While this wasn't Slonczewski's first novel (it was her second), it’s the one that won the John W Campbell Award and is probably what she's best known for today in SF circles despite having written three general sequels to this novel.
In a way its easy to see why this one stands out. In 1986 writing a SF novel about a world of oceanic lesbians who were all genius biologists as well as ardent pacifists wasn't exactly a crowd pleasing concept unless your name was Ursula K Le Guin (to put this into context, 1986 was the year "Ender's Game" was sweeping all the awards and everyone had gone ga-ga over "Neuromancer" the year before) so this one might have fallen through the cracks a little bit in the years since. But its well worth revisiting, both for the uniqueness of the concepts and how well she depicts a world where passive resistance is stretched to the breaking point.
It doesn't start out that way first and she leisurely introduces us to the world through the eyes of two people, the aforementioned Spinel, who gets recruited by Merwen and Usha to come learn their customs, and Lady Berenice, a noblewoman who considers herself part Sharer after having spent so much time there acting as a kind of liaison. For Spinel, everything is new and confusing and Slonczewski uses him as our gateway into a culture where the nonviolence trickles down into their very language and extends into their view of the entire ecosystem, which like most properly run ecosystems maintains itself by remaining in balance and not sustaining any dramatic shocks to its cycles. Its tricky to wrap your head around the ideas at first but it doesn't make the book impenetrable. Like everyone else, you've just got to work to understand it.
She takes her time getting us used to everyone, which is useful because when the proverbial shocks to the system come, they come hard. Its not long before Spinel's world, Valedon, decides that a big ocean world is great for a combination of strip mining and a rich person's huge swimming pool, with a side bonus of an entire culture of expert scientists to come along with it. Cue the military invasion and a very close look at the downsides of colonialism (which are, um, almost everything about it) as the occupying force expects a much easier time of things and can't understand why the ocean women won't just let themselves be properly subjugated by a superior people.
Needless to say, it’s a recipe for nothing good and a lot of the tension in the latter half of the book is watching the situation get worse and worse and worse. The Sharers are attempting to resist in the only way they know how (leading to some harrowing moments, and not a few dead bodies) while the military isn't aware of how to fix any problem that can't be solved by shooting at it. Spinel and Berenice try to act as go-betweens but nobody wants to listen to them either, so matters just deteriorate further. One of the fascinating things Slonczewski does here is not depict the Sharers as some monolithic culture where everyone is constantly pointed in the same direction . . . arguments are frequent and she manages to explore just how much room there is for disagreement in how they go about resisting without someone saying "the heck with it" and inventing a missile made out of giant fish. They run through as many options as they can figure while stuck in a situation they didn't anticipate while the military ramps up the atrocities to try and discover if they have some kind of breaking point, all the while aware that while "wholesale plunder" is an acceptable outcome, "widespread genocide" isn't and the line between the two is getting thinner and thinner. But the question is will the acceleration of events give anyone a chance to pull back before the bodycount gets too high?
You could maybe argue that events go from zero to sixty very quickly as the commanders of the occupiers get almost absurdly sadistic in the face of a resistance they didn't expect. But more than a simplistic masculine versus feminine clash of cultures, Slonczewski is showing us the bloody results of a conflict between two radically different worldviews, one completely shaped by its environment and one that only knows how to impose. And while it could be an academic exercise she goes out of her way to unflinchingly show the consequences of those who have to live with the results, and the cost it enacts. All the while she juggles the various points of view, the Sharers, Berenice and Spinel, the Valdonian occupiers, showing the difference between a philosophy where being right means survival and another that promises only annihilation. It won't end easily, or neatly. But even amidst all the damage there is hope, a notion that you can embrace a worldview without violence and still emerge with more than your principles intact, that if you stand firm and sure you may be able to get people to embrace your way of thinking. And even with the book being over thirty years old it’s a message that given recent news seems more relevant than ever, one that leads to two hopes . . . that the message resonates sooner rather than later and that everyone survives to live in the final results.
Unfortunately for him none of the women are interested in him in the way he'd like and don't even need him frankly. In short, they only like him for his mind and that's mostly because they want to learn more about his world before it goes and does something crazy like invade them. And then it does anyway. This would perhaps be the point where he discovers that he's been hanging out with a secretive group of aquatic Amazons who are hiding giant guns under the big ocean, but alas, he's not. Every single person in this book is going to have to do things the hard way. And it turns out there's more than one hard way.
World building is one of those skills that sounds easier to do in theory than practice, as its not quite the same as coming up with a cool RPG world to torment all your friends' characters, unless you're going to put a lot of thought into the biology of a fire-breathing dragon and what ultimate effect a race of them would have on the ecosystem (and what you could upset by slaughtering a whole bunch of them). Most of the best examples in SF were done by people with a pretty serious hard science background, and Joan Slonczewski was no exception, having achieved a PhD in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale in the early eighties. It may not make her smarter than you, but I'm pretty sure she might know more about microbiology than you (she helped write a textbook!).
Of course being able to articulate an interesting far-out idea in a plausible fashion and telling an entertaining thoughtful story about it are two entirely different things and SF is littered with examples of writers who thought having characters explain cool physics ideas in place of a story was a surefire way to win readers over. While this wasn't Slonczewski's first novel (it was her second), it’s the one that won the John W Campbell Award and is probably what she's best known for today in SF circles despite having written three general sequels to this novel.
In a way its easy to see why this one stands out. In 1986 writing a SF novel about a world of oceanic lesbians who were all genius biologists as well as ardent pacifists wasn't exactly a crowd pleasing concept unless your name was Ursula K Le Guin (to put this into context, 1986 was the year "Ender's Game" was sweeping all the awards and everyone had gone ga-ga over "Neuromancer" the year before) so this one might have fallen through the cracks a little bit in the years since. But its well worth revisiting, both for the uniqueness of the concepts and how well she depicts a world where passive resistance is stretched to the breaking point.
It doesn't start out that way first and she leisurely introduces us to the world through the eyes of two people, the aforementioned Spinel, who gets recruited by Merwen and Usha to come learn their customs, and Lady Berenice, a noblewoman who considers herself part Sharer after having spent so much time there acting as a kind of liaison. For Spinel, everything is new and confusing and Slonczewski uses him as our gateway into a culture where the nonviolence trickles down into their very language and extends into their view of the entire ecosystem, which like most properly run ecosystems maintains itself by remaining in balance and not sustaining any dramatic shocks to its cycles. Its tricky to wrap your head around the ideas at first but it doesn't make the book impenetrable. Like everyone else, you've just got to work to understand it.
She takes her time getting us used to everyone, which is useful because when the proverbial shocks to the system come, they come hard. Its not long before Spinel's world, Valedon, decides that a big ocean world is great for a combination of strip mining and a rich person's huge swimming pool, with a side bonus of an entire culture of expert scientists to come along with it. Cue the military invasion and a very close look at the downsides of colonialism (which are, um, almost everything about it) as the occupying force expects a much easier time of things and can't understand why the ocean women won't just let themselves be properly subjugated by a superior people.
Needless to say, it’s a recipe for nothing good and a lot of the tension in the latter half of the book is watching the situation get worse and worse and worse. The Sharers are attempting to resist in the only way they know how (leading to some harrowing moments, and not a few dead bodies) while the military isn't aware of how to fix any problem that can't be solved by shooting at it. Spinel and Berenice try to act as go-betweens but nobody wants to listen to them either, so matters just deteriorate further. One of the fascinating things Slonczewski does here is not depict the Sharers as some monolithic culture where everyone is constantly pointed in the same direction . . . arguments are frequent and she manages to explore just how much room there is for disagreement in how they go about resisting without someone saying "the heck with it" and inventing a missile made out of giant fish. They run through as many options as they can figure while stuck in a situation they didn't anticipate while the military ramps up the atrocities to try and discover if they have some kind of breaking point, all the while aware that while "wholesale plunder" is an acceptable outcome, "widespread genocide" isn't and the line between the two is getting thinner and thinner. But the question is will the acceleration of events give anyone a chance to pull back before the bodycount gets too high?
You could maybe argue that events go from zero to sixty very quickly as the commanders of the occupiers get almost absurdly sadistic in the face of a resistance they didn't expect. But more than a simplistic masculine versus feminine clash of cultures, Slonczewski is showing us the bloody results of a conflict between two radically different worldviews, one completely shaped by its environment and one that only knows how to impose. And while it could be an academic exercise she goes out of her way to unflinchingly show the consequences of those who have to live with the results, and the cost it enacts. All the while she juggles the various points of view, the Sharers, Berenice and Spinel, the Valdonian occupiers, showing the difference between a philosophy where being right means survival and another that promises only annihilation. It won't end easily, or neatly. But even amidst all the damage there is hope, a notion that you can embrace a worldview without violence and still emerge with more than your principles intact, that if you stand firm and sure you may be able to get people to embrace your way of thinking. And even with the book being over thirty years old it’s a message that given recent news seems more relevant than ever, one that leads to two hopes . . . that the message resonates sooner rather than later and that everyone survives to live in the final results.
January 30, 2020
The moon-world of Shora and its ocean dwelling, all female population are threatened by the neighboring planet and the oversight of a galactic governing power. This take on a female-only pacifist pseudo-utopia interrogates tropes and preceding works in interesting ways, but still manages to feel dated. (I'd particularly love to see this trope account for intersex and trans individuals--and the emphasis on biology here would have been a great place for it.) The book feels long, perhaps longer than it is. The first half is worldbuilding, and it's slow, conceptual, and satisfying. The second half is the conflict with outside society, and the incursion of capitalism, sexism, murder &c. is less cerebral, more complex, and more frustrating--frustrating often for the wrong reasons: plot, characters, and win conditions are manipulated artlessly so that pacifism wins on a technicality.
(The worst example of this may be linguistics. That the language fails to differentiate between subject/object among persons is central to the book's themes--but the miscommunication is never believable, both because the society interacts with (and thus has language for) non-person entities, and because two fluent translators exist. The question of their fluency is also part of the book's themes--but that they pop up to affect predictable plot twists rather than to bridge cultural/linguistic divides is infuriating. The reader meanwhile has to be able to grasp both sides of the conflict, and so feels smarter than any character but even less able to contribute than the ineffectual translators.)
As implied, all of this serves a thematic function, and the book is perversely stronger for the stubborn limitations of its characters and for its conditional victory. But it's clumsy, and more adroit writing might allow that nuance to shine. This is the sort of feminist SF classic that I expected to file under "more interesting than good" and it meets expectations, but my bickering indicates engagement, not disdain.
(The worst example of this may be linguistics. That the language fails to differentiate between subject/object among persons is central to the book's themes--but the miscommunication is never believable, both because the society interacts with (and thus has language for) non-person entities, and because two fluent translators exist. The question of their fluency is also part of the book's themes--but that they pop up to affect predictable plot twists rather than to bridge cultural/linguistic divides is infuriating. The reader meanwhile has to be able to grasp both sides of the conflict, and so feels smarter than any character but even less able to contribute than the ineffectual translators.)
As implied, all of this serves a thematic function, and the book is perversely stronger for the stubborn limitations of its characters and for its conditional victory. But it's clumsy, and more adroit writing might allow that nuance to shine. This is the sort of feminist SF classic that I expected to file under "more interesting than good" and it meets expectations, but my bickering indicates engagement, not disdain.
September 5, 2023
Hit all the right notes for me with beautifully described ocean world filled with alien fauna and flora, and an exploration of how linguistic and conceptual differences effect relationships (a topic that one of my favourite novels, Embassytown, also explores). Message of pacifism was cool and something I haven't read in much other science fiction.
December 14, 2014
‘From the ocean world of Shora, Merwen the Impatient and Usha the Inconsiderate travel to Valedon, the world of stone. The Valans view with suspicion the ancient female race of Shora: with their webbed fingers, their withdrawal into ‘whitetrance� and their marvellous arts of healing. Where the Sharers of Shora hope for understanding, they are met with aggression.
Joan Slonczewski pushes the moral and political philosophy of non-violence to its very limits in a powerful and gripping narrative. To read it is to see your own future in the balance.�
Blurb from the 1987 Women’s Press paperback edition.
In a far-future galaxy Humanity spread to a thousand worlds, but following devastating wars and a period of ethnic cleansing, the number of human worlds was reduced to ninety-seven, ruled by The Patriarch.
The Patriarch has forbidden certain technologies or sciences to be employed independently, such as nuclear power or genetic engineering, driven by the fear that it would lead to a further great war.
On the planet Valedon, two strangers appear in the town square; hairless women with violet skin who wish to ‘learnshare� in order to discover whether the Valans are human. The stonecutter’s son, Spinel, becomes fascinated with them and eventually leaves with them for the ocean world of Shora.
Travelling with them is the Lady Berenice, a woman who has known the natives of Shora since she was a child and who is also being employed as a spy for the Valan government.
Her fiance, Realgar, is a General and a favourite of Takin, the ‘Protector� of Valedon.
Valans have been trading peacefully with the Shorans for many years, but following a visit by the Patriarch’s envoy, Malachite, the Valans suspect that Shora may be either a very valuable resource or a terrible danger. Realgar is sent to Shora to ‘deal with� the natives who have become increasingly restless since the number of Valans on their world increased and the ecological balance began to change.
Structurally we follow three couples, Merwen and Usha (the original two Shorans who visited Valedon), Berenice and Realgar, and Spinel and Lystra (the daughter of Merwen and Usha) who at first do not take to each other (or so they believe) but later both discover that the other is a very different person to the one they believed they loved.
On the whole, we see the drama unfold through the eyes of these six.
The natives of Shora are all female, at least to the average human observer, although a couple are able to conceive children between them. Their passive resistance and incomprehension of external societies which attempt to impose rules on them by force no doubt parallels the protests of the Nineteen Eighties by many women at such places as Greenham Common. The success of such protests is evinced by the fact that the very phrase ‘Greenham Common� is familiar to most of us decades later, and that their message was relaid by the media and the world and changed us, to whatever degree, as a society.
The women here are protesting at first about environmental vandalism, and their almost genetic adherence to a non-aggressive resistance eventually pays off, though at a terrible price to their population.
The setting is an interesting one, albeit symbolic, since the very masculine patriarchal ‘stone� world of Valedon is contrasted by the very female ‘water� world of Shora. The women live on giant rafts of living vegetation in a world where every species (including themselves) is a vital part of the world’s biosphere. There have been similar waterworlds in the past, notably in CS Lewis� ‘Voyage to Venus� (or ‘Perelandra), where again the femininity of the sea is contrasted with the male rock of the island (in this case standing in for the Forbidden Tree of Knowledge in The Garden of Eden)
Jack Vance’s ‘The Blue World� is almost the complete antithesis of Lewis� since Vance uses his novel to demonstrate the absurdity and the detrimental effect on society of organised religion. As in ‘Door into Ocean� Vance’s natives live a somewhat idyllic existence on island systems of giant lilypads.
Published by The Women's Press it is not surprisingly a very female work in tone and theme, which does make a refreshing change. Although very Romantic in style, there is a solid structure and a healthy respect for the integrity of the internal scientific logic.
Interestingly, the Shoran philosophy is to live in harmony with the Ocean and its life, although Slonczewski has muddied the waters a little by letting us know that much of the flora and fauna was genetically engineered by the Shorans, even themselves.
And, there is an obvious political contrast between the patriarchal (literally ruled by The Patriarch and his ‘protectors�) society of Valedon and the leaderless Shorans who are, in essence, a collective.
Despite the perhaps heavy-handed symbolism it is nevertheless a beautifully crafted and important piece of work. I’m not sure how Gollancz picks or obtains works for its SF Masterworks series but this should certainly be on the Gollancz shortlist.
Although it’s published by the Women’s Press, men are allowed to read this. In fact, I’m pretty sure men would benefit more from reading this than women would. Women already know how bad men are at running the world.
Joan Slonczewski pushes the moral and political philosophy of non-violence to its very limits in a powerful and gripping narrative. To read it is to see your own future in the balance.�
Blurb from the 1987 Women’s Press paperback edition.
In a far-future galaxy Humanity spread to a thousand worlds, but following devastating wars and a period of ethnic cleansing, the number of human worlds was reduced to ninety-seven, ruled by The Patriarch.
The Patriarch has forbidden certain technologies or sciences to be employed independently, such as nuclear power or genetic engineering, driven by the fear that it would lead to a further great war.
On the planet Valedon, two strangers appear in the town square; hairless women with violet skin who wish to ‘learnshare� in order to discover whether the Valans are human. The stonecutter’s son, Spinel, becomes fascinated with them and eventually leaves with them for the ocean world of Shora.
Travelling with them is the Lady Berenice, a woman who has known the natives of Shora since she was a child and who is also being employed as a spy for the Valan government.
Her fiance, Realgar, is a General and a favourite of Takin, the ‘Protector� of Valedon.
Valans have been trading peacefully with the Shorans for many years, but following a visit by the Patriarch’s envoy, Malachite, the Valans suspect that Shora may be either a very valuable resource or a terrible danger. Realgar is sent to Shora to ‘deal with� the natives who have become increasingly restless since the number of Valans on their world increased and the ecological balance began to change.
Structurally we follow three couples, Merwen and Usha (the original two Shorans who visited Valedon), Berenice and Realgar, and Spinel and Lystra (the daughter of Merwen and Usha) who at first do not take to each other (or so they believe) but later both discover that the other is a very different person to the one they believed they loved.
On the whole, we see the drama unfold through the eyes of these six.
The natives of Shora are all female, at least to the average human observer, although a couple are able to conceive children between them. Their passive resistance and incomprehension of external societies which attempt to impose rules on them by force no doubt parallels the protests of the Nineteen Eighties by many women at such places as Greenham Common. The success of such protests is evinced by the fact that the very phrase ‘Greenham Common� is familiar to most of us decades later, and that their message was relaid by the media and the world and changed us, to whatever degree, as a society.
The women here are protesting at first about environmental vandalism, and their almost genetic adherence to a non-aggressive resistance eventually pays off, though at a terrible price to their population.
The setting is an interesting one, albeit symbolic, since the very masculine patriarchal ‘stone� world of Valedon is contrasted by the very female ‘water� world of Shora. The women live on giant rafts of living vegetation in a world where every species (including themselves) is a vital part of the world’s biosphere. There have been similar waterworlds in the past, notably in CS Lewis� ‘Voyage to Venus� (or ‘Perelandra), where again the femininity of the sea is contrasted with the male rock of the island (in this case standing in for the Forbidden Tree of Knowledge in The Garden of Eden)
Jack Vance’s ‘The Blue World� is almost the complete antithesis of Lewis� since Vance uses his novel to demonstrate the absurdity and the detrimental effect on society of organised religion. As in ‘Door into Ocean� Vance’s natives live a somewhat idyllic existence on island systems of giant lilypads.
Published by The Women's Press it is not surprisingly a very female work in tone and theme, which does make a refreshing change. Although very Romantic in style, there is a solid structure and a healthy respect for the integrity of the internal scientific logic.
Interestingly, the Shoran philosophy is to live in harmony with the Ocean and its life, although Slonczewski has muddied the waters a little by letting us know that much of the flora and fauna was genetically engineered by the Shorans, even themselves.
And, there is an obvious political contrast between the patriarchal (literally ruled by The Patriarch and his ‘protectors�) society of Valedon and the leaderless Shorans who are, in essence, a collective.
Despite the perhaps heavy-handed symbolism it is nevertheless a beautifully crafted and important piece of work. I’m not sure how Gollancz picks or obtains works for its SF Masterworks series but this should certainly be on the Gollancz shortlist.
Although it’s published by the Women’s Press, men are allowed to read this. In fact, I’m pretty sure men would benefit more from reading this than women would. Women already know how bad men are at running the world.
May 29, 2016
This review is adapted from a post I made in a discussion thread about the book.
I had my doubts after the first section of the story; it was a slow start, and I just didn't like the way the Valan society was structured. But about halfway through the book, I realized I was completely sucked into the story and found myself constantly thinking about it as I went about my day.
I want to gush about the beautiful world-building on Shora. The ecology is believable and complex, and everything about the physical and social construction of the rafts is my #aesthetic. I want to live there, or at least read more books set there. It's also amazing for a book written 30 years ago; I feel like we're already worlds closer to the kind of technology she describes the Sharers as having. Given today's climate and environmental concerns, the book seems markedly prescient.
One of the things I loved about the story (and it's something I've noticed I'm fond of in SF in general) is how well Sloanczewski created a culture that's so fundamentally different, not only in behavior but in thought, and committed to it. It reminds me of Leckie's Radch trilogy in that the perspective of the character is preserved even perhaps at the expense of making things easy for the reader. Merwen (like Breq) sometimes thinks things that the reader doesn't understand, or maybe misunderstands, unless they are fully buying into this world and this perspective and trying to understand Merwen as a Sharer would. (Also like when reading Ancillary Mercy, I feel like I 'got' the perspective about halfway into the story and went from feeling meh/pretty good to loving it.)
I'm not sure exactly how we're supposed to understand the ending. There was a moment when Realgar was trying to convince Talion not to attack Shora, and Realgar walked away from that conversation thinking that he hadn't changed Talion's mind at all and that Talion was definitely going to kill everyone as soon as Realgar left anyway. But I also felt that Spinel's last few scenes (and I guess all of the Sharers' scenes at the end) felt optimistic, like they had won their victory. Did I miss something? I couldn't put it down and ended up finishing it at like 2 a.m. so it's very possible my sleepy brain skipped something important. Are we supposed to feel like the Sharers won at the end, or that their efforts weren't enough to beat the Valans' fear of death?
I think the villains (Nisi exlucded) of the story are all drawn with a surprising lack of empathy, given how thoroughly and complexly the Sharers are drawn; they remind me a bit of villains in an Ayn Rand story, where the people are primarily stand-ins for ideas or types of people (and bad ideas/people, at that). NISI THOUGH. Great character arc. I like that she deceives even the reader, in some ways; we think that because she's a viewpoint character introduced early on she'll be the most important bridge between the Sharers and the Valans, but she ends up as the biggest obstacle to peace.
I had my doubts after the first section of the story; it was a slow start, and I just didn't like the way the Valan society was structured. But about halfway through the book, I realized I was completely sucked into the story and found myself constantly thinking about it as I went about my day.
I want to gush about the beautiful world-building on Shora. The ecology is believable and complex, and everything about the physical and social construction of the rafts is my #aesthetic. I want to live there, or at least read more books set there. It's also amazing for a book written 30 years ago; I feel like we're already worlds closer to the kind of technology she describes the Sharers as having. Given today's climate and environmental concerns, the book seems markedly prescient.
One of the things I loved about the story (and it's something I've noticed I'm fond of in SF in general) is how well Sloanczewski created a culture that's so fundamentally different, not only in behavior but in thought, and committed to it. It reminds me of Leckie's Radch trilogy in that the perspective of the character is preserved even perhaps at the expense of making things easy for the reader. Merwen (like Breq) sometimes thinks things that the reader doesn't understand, or maybe misunderstands, unless they are fully buying into this world and this perspective and trying to understand Merwen as a Sharer would. (Also like when reading Ancillary Mercy, I feel like I 'got' the perspective about halfway into the story and went from feeling meh/pretty good to loving it.)
I'm not sure exactly how we're supposed to understand the ending. There was a moment when Realgar was trying to convince Talion not to attack Shora, and Realgar walked away from that conversation thinking that he hadn't changed Talion's mind at all and that Talion was definitely going to kill everyone as soon as Realgar left anyway. But I also felt that Spinel's last few scenes (and I guess all of the Sharers' scenes at the end) felt optimistic, like they had won their victory. Did I miss something? I couldn't put it down and ended up finishing it at like 2 a.m. so it's very possible my sleepy brain skipped something important. Are we supposed to feel like the Sharers won at the end, or that their efforts weren't enough to beat the Valans' fear of death?
I think the villains (Nisi exlucded) of the story are all drawn with a surprising lack of empathy, given how thoroughly and complexly the Sharers are drawn; they remind me a bit of villains in an Ayn Rand story, where the people are primarily stand-ins for ideas or types of people (and bad ideas/people, at that). NISI THOUGH. Great character arc. I like that she deceives even the reader, in some ways; we think that because she's a viewpoint character introduced early on she'll be the most important bridge between the Sharers and the Valans, but she ends up as the biggest obstacle to peace.
February 10, 2012
One Of The Classic Novels of Both Feminist Science Fiction & Space Opera
Joan Slonczewski's "A Door Into Ocean" is definitely a masterpiece of science fiction literature, comparable to the best ever written from the likes of Ursula K. Le Guin, Samuel Delany, and Bruce Sterling, to name but a few of our finest American writers of science fiction. In this astonishing, thoughtful novel published originally back in 1986, whose universal themes of environmental awareness and relationships between two distinctly different groups of humanity that see only themselves as human are ones which still resonate strongly today, Slonczewski set out for herself an almost impossible task of creating two memorably different worlds and human societies inhabited by intriguing, three-dimensional characters. Stylistically, Slonczewski's novel can be seen as having been influenced by Samuel Delany's and especially, Ursula Le Guin's classic work from the 1960s, and yet her complex human societies bear more than a passing nod of resemblance to Bruce Sterling's cyberpunk space operas which he was creating at the same time that she was writing "A Door Into Ocean".
Admittedly Slonczewski's tale begins sluggishly, as she deftly portrays the intense personal relationship developing between the young Valan male, Spinel and two female visitors from Shora, the "ocean" moon of the distant world of Valedon, and home to a semi-aquatic female-only human civilization. Eventually the pace does quicken, after Slonczewski has given a memorable depiction of Shoran society, and how it handles a Valan military invasion of their ocean world, primarily via passive, non-violent resistance. Slonczewski's graceful, lyrical prose, and the engaging cast of characters she's introduced, are among the many reasons why I regard this book as a genuine science fiction literary classic; an opinion which is shared by many fellow science fiction fans, critics and writers.
(Reposted from my 2007 Amazon review.)
Joan Slonczewski's "A Door Into Ocean" is definitely a masterpiece of science fiction literature, comparable to the best ever written from the likes of Ursula K. Le Guin, Samuel Delany, and Bruce Sterling, to name but a few of our finest American writers of science fiction. In this astonishing, thoughtful novel published originally back in 1986, whose universal themes of environmental awareness and relationships between two distinctly different groups of humanity that see only themselves as human are ones which still resonate strongly today, Slonczewski set out for herself an almost impossible task of creating two memorably different worlds and human societies inhabited by intriguing, three-dimensional characters. Stylistically, Slonczewski's novel can be seen as having been influenced by Samuel Delany's and especially, Ursula Le Guin's classic work from the 1960s, and yet her complex human societies bear more than a passing nod of resemblance to Bruce Sterling's cyberpunk space operas which he was creating at the same time that she was writing "A Door Into Ocean".
Admittedly Slonczewski's tale begins sluggishly, as she deftly portrays the intense personal relationship developing between the young Valan male, Spinel and two female visitors from Shora, the "ocean" moon of the distant world of Valedon, and home to a semi-aquatic female-only human civilization. Eventually the pace does quicken, after Slonczewski has given a memorable depiction of Shoran society, and how it handles a Valan military invasion of their ocean world, primarily via passive, non-violent resistance. Slonczewski's graceful, lyrical prose, and the engaging cast of characters she's introduced, are among the many reasons why I regard this book as a genuine science fiction literary classic; an opinion which is shared by many fellow science fiction fans, critics and writers.
(Reposted from my 2007 Amazon review.)
February 25, 2012
Joan Slonczewski is a science fiction writer who has more than an armchair understanding of science, and it shows. When you have solid input from the real world, your new spins on old tropes can be surprising and fresh.
What follows isn't really a spoiler, but it is part of the story: When I first read DOOR INTO OCEAN in college, my classmates were saying "A whole planetful of purple lesbians? Really." But the purple color of the Shorans' skins derives from a microbe living in their bodies that stores and releases oxygen, providing them with built-in scuba tanks. When these microbes are fully charged with oxygen, they look purple. I want to say this has something to do with rhodopsin, but this is so beyond my own very armchair-science enthusiasm that I can't form the question for a search engine to answer. What's more, Dr. Slonczewski doesn't get overabsorbed in the biological speculations to the expense of the characters' cultures-- indeed, this is where she shines. Her characters' biology and the world upon which they live inform their ways of life, and things go horribly wrong when they conflict-- but she also allows that thoughtful examination can heal those wrongs as well.
DOOR is a classic feminist science fiction novel, and the starting point of a series of related novels that build cultures upon cultures in a way unique to science fiction. Read the whole Elysium Cycle, it just gets richer and deeper.
What follows isn't really a spoiler, but it is part of the story: When I first read DOOR INTO OCEAN in college, my classmates were saying "A whole planetful of purple lesbians? Really." But the purple color of the Shorans' skins derives from a microbe living in their bodies that stores and releases oxygen, providing them with built-in scuba tanks. When these microbes are fully charged with oxygen, they look purple. I want to say this has something to do with rhodopsin, but this is so beyond my own very armchair-science enthusiasm that I can't form the question for a search engine to answer. What's more, Dr. Slonczewski doesn't get overabsorbed in the biological speculations to the expense of the characters' cultures-- indeed, this is where she shines. Her characters' biology and the world upon which they live inform their ways of life, and things go horribly wrong when they conflict-- but she also allows that thoughtful examination can heal those wrongs as well.
DOOR is a classic feminist science fiction novel, and the starting point of a series of related novels that build cultures upon cultures in a way unique to science fiction. Read the whole Elysium Cycle, it just gets richer and deeper.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 251 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.