The Shore of Women (Spectra) [Mass Market Paperback]

Pamela Sargent (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1987

Women rule the world in this suspenseful love story set in a postnuclear future. Having expelled men from their vast walled cities to a lower-class wilderness, the women in this futuristic universe dictate policy and chart the future through control of scientific and technological advances. Among their laws are the rules for reproductive engagement, an act now viewed as a means of procreation rather than an act of love. In this rigidly defined environment, a chance meeting between a woman exiled from the female world and a wilderness man triggers a series of feelings, actions, and events that ultimately threaten the fabric of the women's constricted society. Trying to evade the ever-threatening female forces and the savage wilderness men, the two lovers struggle to find a safe haven and reconcile the teachings of their upbringings with their newly awakened feelings.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This unusual romance novel takes a fresh look at a familiar science fiction setting. In a post-nuclear future, women live in walled cities, controlling all technology. Men, considered incapable of complex intellectual functions, worship females as divine beings. Roaming the countryside in primitive bands, men approach cities only when summoned for purposes of procreation. At the story's center is a young woman, Birana, who is wrongly convicted of a crime and banished from her city. Birana's judges assume that her lack of strength and outdoor skills will condemn her to a quick death. She survives, however, and during her struggles meets a hunter, Arvil. Over time, Birana realizes Arvil is not a savage, and he discovers she is not a goddess. They fall in love, and together search for refuge from the all-powerful women, who fear the day when men no longer hold them in awe. Some science fiction purists may be surprised by the decidedly erotic nature of this story, but, with her luminous prose and vivid characters, Sargent (Venus of Dreams has written a compelling and emotionally involving novel.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

""With her luminous prose and vivid characters, Pamela Sargent has written a compellingly and emotionally involving novel." --Publishers Weekly
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Bantam Books (September 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553268546
• ISBN-13: 978-0553268546
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #996,143 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent, Imaginative, Beautifully Wrought--And OOP, July 28, 2002

By 

Paul Frandano (Reston, Va. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shore of Women (Hardcover)

Pamela Sargent's The Shore of Women works out in persuasively anthropological detail--almost Geertzian "thick description," if you will--a post-apocalyptic world in which women rule with space-age technologies from walled citadels, exiling male children into literal stone age societies of isolated bands clad in animal skins, where lives are nasty, brutish, and short. The violence of Sargent's largely paleolithic male society is mitigated only by its loving devotion to "The Goddess" and her cult, visits to the shrines in which prayer and worshipful communion with the deity transpires, and the occasional "callings" to the enclaves--simultaneously the preeminent male rite of passage and the sole (blind and thoroughly mediated) interaction with the ruling society that enables both worlds to procreate and persist. Within city walls, the master society is strictly bifurcated into elite and masses, in which the custodians of established order replace themselves, presiding over the bought indifference of commoners.

Sargent is a beautifully expressive writer who works out the logic of her story to persuasive conclusions and, along the way, has smart, thoroughly rendered observations to make on societies of women and of men, the humanistic origins of religion, small group interactions under duress, the transformation of nomadic bands into sedentary cultures, the possible retreat of civilization from its points of greatest advancement, a variety of contemporary feminist political ideas, and more. At times, The Shore of Women brought to mind a host of antecedents, including A Canticle for Leibowitz, Lord of the Flies, The Golden Bough, Greek and Roman mythology, captivity stories from 17th and 18th century prisoners of American woodland Indians, the writings of Margaret Meade and other classic anthropologists, and other possible references, but without seeming directly dependent on any. Its principal characters, the inquisitive newly "called" man Arvil and the cast-out woman Birana, are beautifully developed and pass through punctuated sequences of change and unfolding awareness. A third point of view is provided by Laissa, who as the daughter of one of the "Mothers of the City" progresses on her own surprising journey of discovery...

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Probably 4.5 stars! Excellent!, January 10, 2002

By 

D. Henderson (Las Cruces, NM, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shore of Women (Hardcover)

I can't believe this book is out of print. I've read many of what I call 'after-the-apocalypse' novels, but this is one of my favorites. Probably long after a nuclear apocalypse, women lived in domed cities, where they carry on at least somewhat with science, society, learning, arts, etc. Meanwhile, men live much as they did thousands of years ago, roaming a desolate world and living a subsistence lifestyle. The main characters are a woman and a man, neither of whom fit the stereotypical men and women of this age. This book has been compared (and rightly so) with Sheri S. Tepper's also-excellent "The Gate to Women's Country". If this sounds good to you, find a used copy!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshing and Satisfying, December 16, 2002

By 

Avid Reader (Franklin, Tn) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shore of Women (Hardcover)

Pamela Sargent is a prolific writer who unfortunately does not have a vocal support group. Her novels and novellas are not of the type "This is Cronon from the planet Abuzz, stop your atomic testing of be destroyed" They are instead, intelligen far-reaching reveries on the future. In several of her stories she has extrapolated a Mulism planet but this book goes beyond that to a time we can barely fathom.

What happens when a woman in a strictly segregated society commits the ultimate sin - falling in love with a man? The descriptions of the two varying societies and their need for each other is told with a sense of disquiet. And when the lovers finally "find each other" the language approaches a confession. This is a book that can be read again and again on several levels.