Ammonite [Paperback]

Nicola Griffith (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 30, 2002

Change or die. These are the only options available on the planet Jeep. Centuries earlier, a deadly virus shattered the original colony, killing the men and forever altering the few surviving women. Now, generations after the colony has lost touch with the rest of humanity, a company arrives to exploit Jeep–and its forces find themselves fighting for their lives. Terrified of spreading the virus, the company abandons its employees, leaving them afraid and isolated from the natives. In the face of this crisis, anthropologist Marghe Taishan arrives to test a new vaccine. As she risks death to uncover the women’s biological secret, she finds that she, too, is changing–and realizes that not only has she found a home on Jeep, but that she alone carries the seeds of its destruction. . . .

Ammonite is an unforgettable novel that questions the very meanings of gender and humanity. As readers share in Marghe’s journey through an alien world, they too embark on a parallel journey of fascinating self-exploration.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In Ammonite, the 1994 James Tiptree Jr. Award winner, the attempts to colonize the planet Jeep have uncovered a selective virus that kills all men and all but a few women. The remaining women undergo changes that enable them to communicate with one another and the planet itself, and give to birth to healthy, genetically diverse children. Marguerite Angelica Taishan is an anthropologist who realizes this phenomena and makes the decision to give herself up to the planet to uncover its mysteries. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Los Angeles Times Book Review
Ammonite's story is gripping, many-layered, ever-changing. Griffith has a fine way with character and sure talent. Many passages are beautifully written; most seem to do double duty, shimmering with the many levels and complex meanings of this remarkable first novel.

Washington Post Book World
Uncompromisingly packed with nondogmatic feminist and queer ideologies... Griffith reveal[s] herself to be fluent in presenting realistic science and its implications, capable of cinematic clarity in her prose, insightful with emotions and character.

New York Times Book Review 
Pays homage to Ursula K. Le Guin'sLeft Hand of Darkness without inviting invidious comparisons. 

Locus
Ammonite represents a major, no, make that a revolutionary change...a remarkable departure from the commonplace.

Interzone
Nicola Griffith's first novel, Ammonite, flies all the banners of traditional sf [but] beneath the banners, it is armed to the teeth against convention.

Dorothy Allison 
A serious assault on conventions so enormous that it is very much more dangerous, sometimes, than writing about lesbianism.

The New York Review of Science Fiction Probably the best debut novel of the year--an accomplished, moving, intelligent, and graceful examination of gender roles, and a helluva good read.

Denver Post
Ammonite, by Nicola Griffith, is the first novel of a major talent.

“A knockout . . . Strong, likeable characters, a compelling story, and a very interesting take on gender.”
–URSULA K. LE GUIN


“A POWERFUL STORY OF CONNECTION, ALLEGIANCE, AND OBLIGATION. Read Nicola Griffith’s book–and keep an eye out for her name in the future.”
–VONDA N. MCINTYRE

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey (April 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780345452382
• ISBN-13: 978-0345452382
• ASIN: 0345452380
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.9 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #512,002 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nicola Griffith: a native of Yorkshire, England, now dual US/UK citizen. Author of five novels (Ammonite, Slow River, The Blue Place, Stay, Always) and a multi-media memoir (And Now We Are Going to Have a Party: Liner notes to a writer's early life). Co-editor of the Bending the Landscape series of original queer f/sf/h stories. Essayist. Teacher. Blogger. Winner of the Nebula, Tiptree, World Fantasy, and 6 Lambda Literary Awards. (Also a BBC poetry prize, some Gaylactic Spectrum awards, the Premio Italia, the Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize, and others.) Partner of writer Kelley Eskridge (and co-owner of Sterling Editing.

Her latest novel, Hild--about the most powerful woman of the early middle ages, who became St Hilda of Whitby--will be published on November 12, 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Nicola lives in Seattle, where she occasionally emerges from the seventh century to drink just the right amount of beer and take enormous delight in everything.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple, scientific, impelling and meaningful. March 11, 1999

By [e-mail] or Marsha Clark

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Nicola Griffith, in her first novel, Ammonite, makes the claim that change is the death that requires courage. Each character in her story finds that death, the required change, in an individual challenge, and sources the courage from a unique strength. Very real, very human dilemmas placed in the storyteller's rhythm that draws you deeper into her story. Ms. Griffith's science is instructive. She has stayed within the boundaries created by theoretical probabilities, extrapolating the present into the future - weaving scientific explanation and the processes of our human spirit into an impelling story. Her vision for the potential of what our society names "alternative methods" in the healing professions is believable and powerful. A review on the book jacket claims that Ms. Griffith has "a very interesting take on gender." The book is potent in its ability to convey that in our essence we are gender-more as well as gender-less. Environmental circumstances in her story create a female population, but the human questions, conditions, and challenges remain constant. The attitudes and actions of her characters contain qualities of what we currently identify as feminine or masculine. Ms. Griffith translates for the reader the inner balancing of each character's feminine/masculine energies, changing the gender concept into something else. Readers who enjoy a book which takes today into the future, relates science in ways which teach, and characters that explore the depths of human character will find value in this book. It is a book you experience as well as read. Ammonite stays with you after you have finished the last page. At first, you wish it had been longer and given more information. Then you start to appreciate its simplicity and uncluttered-ness. You want to read it again, unhurried now, because you know the stopping point of the story. Ms. Griffith is a viajera. If you wish to know what that is - read the book.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Science fiction has never appealed to me. July 12, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Science fiction has never appealed to me. Perhaps this is because I had always associated it with things like "Star Trek," and people dressed in spandex saying things like, "Android Vortex reporting for duty Sir." Ammonite, by Nicola Griffith is nothing like what I had feared, I would recommend it as a wonderful first venture into reading within the genre of Science Fiction. Science fiction intrinsically allows for stimulating social commentary and Nicola Griffith does so skillfully. While envisioning alternate perspectives on issues of gender, sexuality, reproduction, and most other aspects of society, she also tells a story which utilizes the elements of drama in a most engaging way. The author's use of exposition to both provide the background information needed to follow the story and to slowly guide the reader from that which is known, to the world where the story will play out, is subtle and feels quite effortless. Ammonite takes place in the distant future on the planet GP, nicknamed "Jeep" by those who have traveled there from Earth as part of a corporate mission of the Durallium Company. The company has only one interest in the planet and that is its potential financial yield. There are several conflicts in Ammonite which drive the story forward. One is the internal conflict within the main protagonist, Marghe Taishan. An anthropologist sent by the Durallium Company to GP to test a vaccine, which Company hopes will eliminate a deadly virus which has prevented Company occupation of the planet, Marghe is soon torn between loyalty to the Company and curiosity about the new world she is inhabiting. Concurrently, conflicts between Marghe and the society she encounters, and between the inhabitants and Company are also taking place. The exploration of the planet as well as the societies which exists on it causes an immersion in these alternative societies which Griffith has created and from this immersion comes an appreciation for the simplicity of the people, their customs, their whole way of life and a desire to see it all preserved, and a disappointment that the fantasy ended.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Something for everyone who likes science fiction January 8, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Mass Market Paperback

This is a fantastic blend of lots of different science fiction elements: a quest story, a huge planetary landscape, anthropology, sociology, viruses and galactic political intrigue. It's populated by humans of all descriptions--flawed, complex, with good and bad intentions. It's a beautifully written book about people and how they respond to crisis and to change. I'm recommending it to all my friends and will definitely be looking for her other work.