A Door into Ocean (Leather Bound) [Leather Bound]

Joan Slonczewski (Author)

Product Details

• Leather Bound
• Publisher: Easton Press; Collector's Ecition edition (1992)
• ASIN: B000U860JW
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Joan Lyn Slonczewski is a microbiologist at Kenyon College and a science fiction writer. Her novel "The Highest Frontier" shows a college in a space habitat financed by a tribal casino and protected from deadly ultraphytes by Homeworld Security. According to Alan Cheuse at NPR, her book invents "a worldwide communications system called Toy Box that makes the iPhone look like a Model-T Ford."

Slonczewski's classic book, "A Door into Ocean" (Campbell Award) depicts an ocean world run by genetic engineers who repel an interstellar invasion using nonviolent methods similar to Tahrir Square. In her book "Brain Plague," intelligent microbes invade human brains and establish microbial cities. She also authored with John W. Foster the leading microbiology textbook, Microbiology: An Evolving Science (W. W. Norton).

Author blog: ultraphyte.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Environmental utopia, October 17, 2001

By 

Kimberly Wells (Shreveport, LA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Door Into Ocean (Elysium Cycle) (Paperback)

Dune was probably the first "environmental" sci fi, exploring issues of how "where you live" and how your relative harmony/disharmony with that place can affect your society. This book is similar in that way-- and it adds the element of a society where gender relationships are examined, like the best utopia sci-fi. I thought that the characters were interesting, and the clash between a sort of "patriarchy" with a definite matriarchy was thought-provoking, as well. If you liked books like Ursula K. LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness, The Handmaid's Tale, The Gate to Women's Country, and other "dystopic/utopia" fiction, you'll probably like this one.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Timeless Science Fiction Classic, April 8, 1998

By 

Tom Bourne ([e-mail]) (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Door into Ocean (Hardcover)

In this novel Joan Slonczewski combines striking character interactions with a solid science background, making a thoroughly enjoyable story that completely captured my attention. The clash of the Sharer society concerned with fitting into the overall ecosystem on the ocean moon Shora with the techno-mechanical Valan military trying to establish lordship over Shora makes for an excellent story that should become one of the textbooks for future science fiction writers. The interaction of the Shora and Valan cultures are effectively illustrated from both an overall culture perspective and a personal point of view, and I was captivated with the diverse character set created by the author. The book manages to convey the Shora ecosystem science aspects in an easily readable form that you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand. The internal conflict in the Sharer community over how to deal with the Valan presence seems to me to be a classic study on the trials all non-violent societies go through to maintain their ideals when confronted with an opponent prepared to use violence. I found this book to be a most enjoyable read and have gone back many times to reread it.

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very Good, August 15, 2001

By 

R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Door Into Ocean (Elysium Cycle) (Paperback)

This is a very good science fiction novel. The scene is a system with 2 inhabited worlds. There is an inhabited planet and a moon around the planet which is entirely ocean. Markedly different societies occupy these worlds. The planet is a largely traditional human society; capitalist, patriarchial to a large extent, traditional forms of government, and physics based technology. The inhabitants of the aqueous moon are females who reproduce via parthenogenesis, have a very egalitarian society, and rely on sophisticated biotechnology. The book is about the clash of these two cultures. The themes are rapacious patriarchy versus feminism, hierarchy versus egalitarianism, ecological integration versus exploitation of the natural world, and coercion versus pacifism. This is a well written and enjoyable book. The author does a very good job of depicting ecology of the aqueous moon. Defects include the fact that the contrasts between the two societies are too black and white, and an overly elaborate plot with unnecessary prolongation of the book. This book is also somewhat derivative. There are themes and ideas drawn clearly from Ursula Le Guin's great utopian novel, The Dispossessed. This book is still superior to most science fiction but because it has pretensions to greater value, invites harsher criticism.