Nicola Griffith's Ammonite was published in 1992, but it seems to me to live deeply in the shadow of other works of SF. Not that this is necessarily a problem, of course; building on the work of others is how we progress. On the other hand, Ammonite is so beholden to other, celebrated novels, that it's difficult to judge it as a book in its own right.At least if you're inclined to worry about the Bechdel Test (personally, I'm not) this novel will make you happy. It's kind of inevitable that Ammonite passes the includes-conversations-between-two-women test as, not only is every character a woman, but many of them don't actually know what a man is.This is because Griffith lays her scene on the peculiarly unevocatively-named planet of Jeep, where an endemic virus kills all men. Nevertheless, a thriving human colony has been established there for many centuries, although the circumstances of how it got there are left vague. One of the odd things about Griffiths' milieu is that the general level of technology isn't obviously very much more advanced than our own, but nevertheless it seems that interstellar colonisation has been a going concern for so long that details of early missions have been entirely lost. A grasping exploitative megacorporation - you know the sort of thing I mean - has the remains of an outpost trapped on the quarantined planet (only the female crew survived) and work on a vaccine is underway.The protagonist is anthropological observer Marghe, who's being inserted onto Jeep to test the vaccine and attempt to discover how an all-female population manages to replenish itself. Almost inevitably, Marghe has a few personal issues of her own to deal with, and the struggles she faces on Jeep lead to her a deeper understanding of herself, as well as the planet she is on.So why is it called Ammonite? Is the secret of Jeep tied up with the mysteries of mollusc biology? Er, no. The reason why doesn't really constitute a spoiler, but it's a bit involved. Anyway, I would probably have called the book Trilobite, as it manages to balance three separate strands rather elegantly. On one level, this book is an exercise in world-building, detailing the history and the different cultures of Jeep (there are a few aliens lurking in the undergrowth, but they don't directly impact on the plot much). The women on Jeep have a tribal society which is, for the most part, informed by Celtic, steppe nomad, and perhaps Mesoamerican influences. Why should this be? I sense it is more thematic than anything else, as Griffith is attempting to establish Jeep in contrast to the patriarchal western paradigm of modern society, and Celtic society has all sorts of matriarchal and counter-cultural associations. That said, Jeep isn't presented as any kind of utopia, and in another sense this is a very modern kind of planetary romance, with Marghe having various encounters and adventures with the different native factions: one of the tribeswomen turns out to be an absolute nutter and there is plenty of grisly bloodshed before everything is resolved. There are also various shenanigans involving the commander of the corporate outpost trying to resolve the conflict between her duty to her employers and the fact that said employers have a warship in orbit ready to wipe them out should the virus look like getting off-planet. This stuff was rather to my taste, but then hey, I'm a bloke.On the other hand, the third strand of the book is a very personal, internalised story about a woman coming to terms with her own identity as a person, rather than as a scientist or an employee. In this sense it's a character piece, perhaps even shading towards a full-on romance. Griffith is very matter-of-fact in a book which inevitably contains a lot of lesbian characters: no-one is described in those terms, even the off-worlders who would know the word, and no-one treats it as remotely unusual. Ammonite did win an award for LGBT literature, but there isn't much of an SF spin on this angle, and perhaps this is why I found my own response to the book to be rather muted.Griffith's depiction of a complex, monogendered society inevitably (to my mind, at least) recalls Ursula LeGuin and in particular The Left Hand of Darkness (there's even an astonishingly visceral and vivid trek-across-the-icy-wasteland sequence). But Jeep is less biologically radical than Gethen, and its society less alien. Central to the book as a piece of SF is the Jeep virus, and while I'm not quite prepared to go all the way and say this is just a Magic Plot Device, it does seem to be a remarkably convenient and polymathic little virus: it kills off all men, gives some people who carry it massively enhanced memories and sensory faculties (even to the point of recalling past lives), enables a form of parthenogenesis, and so on. It's an SF plot device, certainly, the enabling novum of the book, but the consequences of the virus are more emotional and social than biological. This is 'soft' SF with a strong emotional spin to it.And, hey, there's nothing wrong with that if it's your sort of thing. Ammonite is well-crafted and structured, and indeed I feel a bit mean for being so lukewarm for it, given that's mainly because it's not as extravagant in its SF content as I would have liked, or as traditional in its action-adventure quotient. Then again, this book is partly about getting out of the clutches of some of the traditional male-dominated hetero-normative SF tropes. I suppose it does a pretty good job, and it is an engaging read. It's just that if I had known exactly what kind of party this was going to turn out to be, I might have been a bit less likely to turn up.
(review originally posted on my livejournal account: http://intoyourlungs.livejournal.com/...)Read For: calico_reaction's Alphabet Soup book club (August)Like many of the other book club titles I have read this year, I had never heard of Nicola Griffith, or any of her previous work. So, I went into this novel without any idea what to expect, except that from the blurb, I knew we were going to be dealing with some gender issues in a sci-fi setting (which I found quite intriguing.) There will be spoilers for this book, but spoilers don't really *ruin* the novel -- I don't thinks so really -- because the book is about the transformation of the main character, so it's the journey that's important, not the destination. Still, if you'd like to remain spoiler-free, just read the My Verdict at the end of the review.What really caught my attention about the premise of the book was its focus on gender; more specifically, it's focus on women, as Jeep is a planet that is populated solely by women who have discovered a method of pro-creating. Griffith pulled off this premise beautifully. All of the women featured in this novel are STRONG women, but they're all strong for different reasons. They also never, EVER, fall into the stereotype of "man with boobs", despite being strong women. The idea that women are "strong" because they behave in ways that are typically attributed to men is something I feel like our society is plagued with, so it was so nice to see a lot of these strong (and in some cases, absolutely ruthless) women be feminine as well as strong. It was also nice to see that they had vulnerabilities as well, especially Marghe and her revelation that she was living a somewhat hollow existence, and her subsequent yearning to belong somewhere, anywhere. Speaking of characters, Marghe was incredibly fleshed out and well realized. Like I mentioned above, she's a woman who is very comfortable with her femininity despite her rather cool exterior, and watching her transform from being merely an observer/scientist, to a victim, to someone who felt an incredible need to belong, which led to being directly involved with Jeep people was well paced, and maybe not exciting, but definitely interesting and believable. The only bit that I found a little unbelievable was how Marghe was so willing to trust the people from Ollfoss. She had just escaped the Echraide, who treated her pretty horribly, so I thought she would be a little more hesitant to give herself so wholly to the people of Ollfoss. But that's just a minor quibble. Oh, and I also loved how the novel never established Marghe's sexual orientation; I don't know WHY I liked that so much... but I did. Now that I think of it, none of the characters are ever referred to specifically as lesbians, though Marghe isn't the only character who has a romantic relationship with another woman.I also really loved that as much as this book was about Marghe learning about the people of Jeep, it was even more a bit about her road to self-discovery and finding herself and where she belonged. The supporting characters were very well fleshed out as well, and I felt pretty bad for all of them, knowing what kind of danger they were on by staying on Jeep (not that they had much choice.) So while I liked all these elements of the novel, I still can't say that I *loved* it. It was definitely a very interesting look at how a matriarchy society would work, and the way that the Jeep people produced was interesting (and reminded me a little bit of the oolois from Butler's Lilith's Brood, what with the genetic manipulation and stuff.) However, the novel is never exciting. I know it's not a book that's meant to be exciting, but it was still an element that kept from loving this book. I do, however, appreciate and respect a bunch, and as such is a book I plan on keeping, as I love what Griffith has done here. It's just not a book that I think I would re-read, or if I did, it wouldn't be any time soon. :) Final Verdict: This is some really awesome speculative fiction and a great look at a matriarchal society in a sci-fi setting. Griffith has done some really interesting things with this novel that I absolutely loved, but it's not a book that I love as whole, just because it is rather more slow-moving. However, this is not a story that's meant to be fast-paced, so that's solely my personal preferences shining through and not a fault of the author's. This is a book I would love to keep, though maybe it's not one I would want to re-read any time soon. However, if you're interested in fiction that deals with gender (more specifically, the female gender) this is definitely a book to check out, hands down. The women that populate the novel are also very well realized, as they're women who are *definitely* feminine, without falling into feminine stereotypes, but they also never fall into the "man with boobs" stereotype, despite being strong female characters. It's also great how this novels also focuses on Marghe's road to self-discovery as WELL as being a study of an all-female society. I would definitely check out more works by this author. :)
Do You like book Ammonite (2002)?
I enjoyed this from first page to last, and it’s different enough for a five. I like its attitudes: for one, how it takes a spanner to our sacred biology. Here a virus enhances our senses and by accident grants us more control over the body. Bring it on. The story is of an anthropologist who learns the wisdom to go native. Its theme, I’m told, is change, and I can see that: change to escape extinction, on a personal level (the main, among others), or a cultural (a group of horse nomads on the planet becomes destructive/self-destructive because their way of life has ceased to fit their environment), or biological. The main already has taught herself exercises to school her body functions, and she is still traumatised from the time she had her face rearranged – even though she looks unlikely at first, closed-up and scientific, she’s just the one to make the leap of identity, lead the military remnants out of the compound, into the risks and gains of the new. I cared about secondary cast (Aoife) and thought bit parts deftly portrayed (Twissel). For much of the novel I forgot about its messages and had a romp with the adventure. The writing, besides, has a lovely way with descriptions. Although my copy doesn’t have the author’s note (bummer) I see around the traps that she wrote this, or began to write this as an experiment, in that it only has women in the cast. As Ursula Le Guin said, “But a lot of books, like Moby Dick, eliminate one gender, and yet nobody thinks anything about it.” Women readers grow up used to this – I’m a major fan of Moby Dick – and identify with ease with male characters. But I guess you need science fiction to get aboard a whale ship of women. I choose to see as half-humour, half-homage, the plot whereby she kills off the men with a virus, as Joanna Russ had to do on Whileaway to study women on their own. Men once eliminated, she just goes on as usual, she doesn’t note their absence, they’re not discussed, the book’s not about them for better or for worse. If it was an experiment, then it did its job on me. Four or five times I forgot that we only have women on the planet: a bunch of sailors, a draggle of kids; I pictured males for a moment, and then went, oops. I’m ashamed to say it may have been the rowdy sailors or the bratty kids that popped up a male image in my head. Which means the book wasn’t wasted on me, I needed the exercise. I see that Griffith was moved or provoked to write this by the state of the portrayal of women in speculative fiction in the early 90s. I wasn’t paying attention at the time. What I did notice, though, was that the feminism we had perfect faith in when I was at university – namely, that there are no innate differences between the sexes, there is only socialisation – vanished without much of a trace that I saw in my society; even on campus people embraced their gender distinctions, and the world was never so pink and blue. It’s been a sore puzzle in my life – that change – so if she felt the need to pull out Joanna Russ at them again, I can understand.
—Bryn Hammond
The planet Jeep's native population--themselves humans who immigrated centuries before--are all female. Anthropologist Marghe comes to explore their unique culture, and to field-test a vaccine against the virus which created it. Griffith takes an intriguing and problematic trope--a female-only culture--and works magic on it by seeing it not as gendered dystopia or male fantasy but as a human civilization, varied and complex. It's fantastic. Thematically (both as a trope inversion and as a study of human adaptability), Ammonite is at times heavy-handed. But Griffith's has a powerful and evocative voice, Marghe is well-defined with a meaningful arc, and Jeep is vibrant, difficult, intelligently constructed, thoughtfully explored. There's a pleasant balance of worldbuilding via daily survival, overarching themes, and plot, so, while Ammonite can be earnest to a fault, I thoroughly enjoyed it.I only wish that Griffith had addressed the issue of gender identity. While it's almost a relief that sexual orientation is a non-issue, I was left wondering: What is the native population's concept of gender? (Does the presence of male flora and fauna and/or their genetic memories effect it?) How does it interact with the gender binary that offworlders (presumably) have? In such a carefully built and explored world, where the full breadth of female identity is such an obvious focus, ignoring the diversity of biological sex and social gender feels like an oversight.
—Juushika
The book that allowed the amazing Griffith to stay in this country (she's English) because it won so many awards.You know those 70's separatist-lesbian short stories where all the men die off and women are "rulers" of the world and all is bliss?This isn't one of them.This is a world (not ours) where, yes, there's a virus that kills all the men. Some women too. The main character visits the world because she's wanting to discover the entire history of this culture. She also brings with her a vaccine that might work against the virus.Nicola shows us that even a world full of women can be filled with love, hate, mistrust, bad decisions, domestic violence, slavery, war, and peace. This isn't a book about lesbian-separatist women. It's a book about people living their lives the best way they can...they just don't have babies with men.It's fantastically glorious.
—Ian
