Subject: AMMONITE by Nicola Griffith

From: [email-masked] (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070)
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 16:12:06 GMT

AMMONITE by Nicola Griffith
                     A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		      Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper

     This is the first of the "Del Rey Discovery" series that I have read,
though there have been six previously published.  Most of them seem to be of
the space adventure mold, but with some New Age philosophy, shamanism, and
ecology added on.

     AMMONITE, to take this specific book, starts with the idea that the
colonists on the planet GP ("Jeep") were struck by a virus that killed most
of the colonists--including all of the men--and left them isolated.  Now,
hundreds of years later, the Company is trying to regain a foothold on jeep.
They have a vaccine against the virus, which MAY work, and they have an
all-female team to try to make contact with the inhabitants.  The team soon
becomes just one person trying to make contact with the various tribes and
draw them together, while at the same time trying to discover the secret of
their survival.

     It sounded vaguely reminiscent of THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS, but much
of the anthropological story and even the biological riddle ends up wrapped
in New Age channeling and the lifestyles of various indigenous peoples.
While some might find this to their liking, I am not one of them.  Books
that see the solution to problems as "becoming one with the world" tend to
strike me more as political tracts than as stories (so for that matter do
the technophilic stories that one finds in ANALOG these days), and I prefer
my messages a bit subtler and a bit less pat.

     This could have been a very good novel, and in spite of its flaws is
still worth reading, but if the trend that the "Discovery" series seems to
be taking continues, I suspect it will end up focused on a fairly small
market.

     (Some reviewers have said that this is the first "lesbian science
fiction novel" marketed by a major publisher.  Assuming by this they mean a
novel in which the main character or characters are lesbian, I suppose it's
about time, but calling it a "lesbian novel" is like calling STARSHIP
TROOPERS a Filipino novel.  While AMMONITE's theme won't appeal to everyone,
it certainly should work across gender and sexual orientation lines.)

%T      Ammonite
%A      Nicola Griffith
%C      New York
%D      February 1993
%I      Del Rey Discovery
%O      paperback, US$3.99
%G      ISBN 0-345-37891-1
%P      349pp

Evelyn C. Leeper   |   +1 908 957 2070   |   [email-masked]