The novel is set in the future, on the fictional planets of Shora and Valedon. Shora is a moon of Valedon, covered by water. The inhabitants of this planet, known as Sharers, are all female. Sharers use genetic engineering to control the ecology of their planet. They are peaceful beings who "share" — that is, they have a spiritual and linguistic union with each other and treat everyone equally. Valedon, by contrast, is one of many planets ruled by a transhuman figure called "The Patriarch."
At the beginning of the novel, the Sharers encounter a non-Sharer community from another planet, which threatens them. The Sharer Merwen the Impatient realizes that they must find out whether other kinds of "people" can share their life or not. Merwen goes to Valedon, to recruit a young Valan, Spinel, to return to Shora and attempt to learn their ways. This venture leads to disagreement within the Sharer community, despite the fact that a Valan noblewoman, Lady Berenice, who takes the Sharer name, Nisi the Deceiver, has lived amongst the Sharers before. Berenice, daughter of the first traders to settle on Shora, spent her childhood among the Sharers and returned to Valedon to spend time with her fiancé, Realgar, a Sardish Valan general.
To Spinel's initial distress, after some time on Shora, his skin takes on a purple hue as his body becomes acclimated to the breathmicrobes that allow Sharers to stay longer underwater. He gradually learns the Sharer way, as a man and is finally accepted by Merwen's daughter, Lystra, who risks her life to save him from a Shockwraith, a deadly underwater creature. Lystra's former 'lovesharer', Rilwen, is "stonesick", meaning that she has developed an addictive fascination with the stones and gems the Valan traders bring to Shora. After Rilwen's death, Lystra and Spinel become lovesharers.
Realgar and Malachite, an envoy of the Patriarch, visit Shora to place it under Patriarchal rule. After this visit, Realgar, Berenice, and Spinel return to Valedon. Berenice eventually realizes Realgar has no intention of letting her return to Shora and that the Patriarch has arranged for Shora to come under patriarchal rule rather than exist self-governed. She fakes her death and sneaks away to Shora, despite the fact that travel has become forbidden. Meanwhile, Spinel returns to his family, who are living under Dolomite rule after the siege of their city. He helps the citizens stage a peaceful act of rebellion against the Dolomites and becomes a "spirit caller." When Spinel hears what has happened to Shora while he has been away, he returns to the capital of Valedon to try and gain passage back to Shora.
Realgar, still grieving the death of Berenice but obeying orders, returns to Shora to force the Sharers to obey Patriarchal rule and Valan law. The Sharers peacefully continue their way of life, despite the increasing military presence and escalating violence of Realgar's soldiers. Realgar has several Sharers kidnapped and probed for information, though the Sharers enter "whitetrance", a vulnerable state close to death in which their bodies turn wholly white as their minds retreat within. Some kidnapped Sharers, including Lystra, are taken to Valedon. Spinel sees Lystra and calls out to her, breaking her whitetrance. Spinel's ability to reach the Sharers causes Realgar to take him and the Sharers back to Shora, where the Sharers are tortured. Several of Realgar's soldiers become increasingly sympathetic to the Sharers. Among them is the scientist, Siderite, who is tasked with learning the Sharer's advanced science for the Patriarch and becomes apprenticed to Usha, a "lifesharer" who practices advanced medicine.
After finding out Berenice still lives, Realgar publicly executes several Sharers, and almost executes Merwen before taking her back to the military compound. Merwen attempts to "share" with Realgar to cure him of what the Sharers consider the Valan's sickness, the fear that causes them to "hasten death" (kill). The Sharers continue to protest through non-violence, though this results in many Sharer deaths. They discover a cure for the microbes the Valans have released to keep away the dangerous seaswallowers and counteract it to allow the seaswallowers to return and bring the planet back into harmony. The return of the seaswallowers nearly destroys the Valan military compounds, forcing the Valan troops to withdraw. Travel between the two planets becomes banned. Berenice remains on Shora, while Spinel almost returns to Valedon to spread nonviolent resistance against the Patriarch. However, when Lystra decides not to follow, Spinel decides to stay as well.
Major themes
Ecofeminism
Slonczewski's Sharers are committed to environmental sustainability. They restrict their own reproduction to sustainable levels and view all species on their world as interconnected, including seaswallowers, a dangerous species that often destroy the rafts on which Sharers live and whose natural actions result in the deaths of Sharers.[1] The Sharer worldview extends to their environment, their surrounding ecosystem. They cannot act upon their plants and animals without being acted upon in return. So, for example, because Sharers consume plants and animals as food, they accept the fact that they in turn will become food for other life forms; that predators will ultimately consume them.
Slonczewski's premise associates the exploitative and patriarchal practices of Valedon as males and ecological wisdom as female. Eric C. Otto argues that Slonczewski subverts this essentialism by depicting women, not as more in tune with ecology than men, but as allies with the non-human natural due to their shared subordinate status under patriarchy and their subjection to capitalist practices.[2] The Sharers are not depicted as "noble savages" nor are they aligned with nature because they lack technology; rather, the Sharers are revealed to be extremely technologically knowledgeable and use their advanced scientific techniques for ecological purposes.[3]
Language
A unique expression of the Sharer way is their language, in which subject and object are interchangeable. The Sharers know by context what subject and object are—but their language is bidirectional and does not make a distinction.[1] As a result, they always know that what one person "forces" upon another can always go the other way. Their language impedes anyone from "giving orders" to dominate others. For example, if a stranger says, "You must obey me," the Sharer hears, "I must obey you," or (the closest translation), "We must share agreement." Their language reinforces the Sharers' inability to accept any situation in which one individual dominates another by force.
Even the language's verbs enforce the Sharer's beliefs. All verbs "embed the notion of reciprocity in every action" says Vint, who gives the verb examples, “learnsharing, worksharing, lovesharing” (37).[4] The verb "hitsharing" is also an example because the verb is described as hitting a rock, which will hit back in turn, because of the vibrations one feels on their arms. In this way, the Sharers' language attributes agency beyond the human, with even non-living matter having the capacity to act.[3]
Non-violence
Sharers do not engage in physical violence as, in the Sharer language, to hurt is to be hurt. However, Slonczewski is also careful not to clearly assign violence and non-violence strictly along Sharer/Valan or male/female lines. Some Sharers are willing to attempt violence, while some Valans, both male and female, embrace the Sharer lifestyle and ideals.[1]
The Sharers take egalitarianism for granted because they share and they lack the concept of "power-over", making their society one in which conflicts are settled without violence. When they are being threatened by an outside power, they resist nonviolently because they refuse to believe in power. Thus, the Sharers can never be subdued by force. The Sharer way of nonviolence is more than spiritual. It is based on historical realities of nonviolent resistance. The author based the events of their novel on much historical research, particularly the writings of peace historian Gene Sharp. The novel includes much biological research into the evolution of innate capacities for nonviolence. For example, the participation of children in nonviolent resistance draws on deep instinctual responses found in humans and related mammals.[citation needed]
LGBT themes
The novel has been described as depicting a "lesbian feminist eco-utopia"[5] and lesbian separatism.[6] The women of Shora love and reproduce with each other, while homosexuality is illegal on Valedon and referred to as "immoral cohabitation."[7] Slonczewski has stated that "The ocean women of A Door into Ocean are pansexual – they love regardless of gender".[8]
Jane L. Donawerth argues that A Door Into Ocean complicates the conventions of science fiction lesbian separatist utopias through the incorporation of a young male into the Sharers of Shora. She writes that Spinel "is asked to become a truly female man, a lesbian man" in entering a sexual relationship with Lystra, a Sharer, without penetration.[9]
Quakerism
The Sharer's nonviolence is a reflection of Slonczewski's Quaker ethos.[1] Slonczewski has said that, "Sharers have a lot in common with Quakers, particularly in the dynamic of their "meetings.""[10]
Development history
Slonczewski described her motiviations to write A Door Into Ocean, saying "I really wanted to write about how the countries of Eastern Europe could free themselves from Soviet domination."[11] The book was rejected by Del Rey Books, which had published Slonczewski's earlier novel, Still Forms on Foxfield, as well as several other publishers. In an interview, Slonczewski explained that these rejections by saying, "This was before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and there was an absolute dogma that peace never works. Nobody wanted to look at a book that said otherwise."[8]
A Door Into Ocean is the first book in the Elysium series, and is followed by Daughter of Elysium (1993), The Children Star (1998), and Brain Plague (2000).[8]
The 1985 Library Journal review highly recommended this novel, saying "Slonczewski creates an all-female nonviolent culture that reaches beyond feminism to a new definition of human nature".[12]
In other culture
New York artist, Ziemba, released a "sonic fragrance mist" in 2017 named "A Door Into Ocean", after Slonczewski's novel.[13]
Feminist science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction focused on such feminist themes as: gender inequality, sexuality, race, economics, reproduction, and environment. Feminist SF is political because of its tendency to critique the dominant culture. Some of the most notable feminist science fiction works have illustrated these themes using utopias to explore a society in which gender differences or gender power imbalances do not exist, or dystopias to explore worlds in which gender inequalities are intensified, thus asserting a need for feminist work to continue.
Science fiction and fantasy serve as important vehicles for feminist thought, particularly as bridges between theory and practice. No other genres so actively invite representations of the ultimate goals of feminism: worlds free of sexism, worlds in which women's contributions are recognized and valued, worlds that explore the diversity of women's desire and sexuality, and worlds that move beyond gender.
The Dosadi Experiment is a 1977 science fiction novel by American writer Frank Herbert. It is the second full-length novel set in the ConSentiency universe established by Herbert in his short stories "A Matter of Traces" and "The Tactful Saboteur", and continued in his novel Whipping Star. It was first published as a four-part serial in Galaxy Science Fiction magazine from May to August, 1977.
Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction author and a multiple recipient of the Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.
The planet Venus has been used as a setting in fiction since before the 19th century. Its opaque cloud cover gave science fiction writers free rein to speculate on conditions at its surface—a "cosmic Rorschach test", in the words of science fiction author Stephen L. Gillett. The planet was often depicted as warmer than Earth but still habitable by humans. Depictions of Venus as a lush, verdant paradise, an oceanic planet, or fetid swampland, often inhabited by dinosaur-like beasts or other monsters, became common in early pulp science fiction, particularly between the 1930s and 1950s. Some other stories portrayed it as a desert, or invented more exotic settings. The absence of a common vision resulted in Venus not developing a coherent fictional mythology, in contrast to the image of Mars in fiction.
The Snow Queen is a 1980 science fiction novel by American writer Joan D. Vinge. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1981, and was also nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1981.
The Gate to Women's Country is a post-apocalyptic novel by American writer Sheri S. Tepper, published in 1988. It describes a world set three hundred years into the future after a catastrophic war which has fractured the United States into several nations.
Joan Lyn Slonczewski is an American microbiologist at Kenyon College and a science fiction writer who explores biology and space travel. Their books have twice earned the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel: A Door into Ocean (1987) and The Highest Frontier (2011). With John W. Foster and Erik Zinser, they coauthor the textbook, Microbiology: An Evolving Science now in its fifth edition.
Lilith's Brood is a collection of three works by Octavia E. Butler. The three volumes of this science fiction series were previously collected in the now out-of-print omnibus edition Xenogenesis. The collection was first published under the current title of Lilith's Brood in 2000.
Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, has appeared in works of fiction across several centuries. The way the planet has been depicted has evolved as more has become known about its composition; it was initially portrayed as being entirely solid, later as having a high-pressure atmosphere with a solid surface underneath, and finally as being entirely gaseous. It was a popular setting during the pulp era of science fiction. Life on the planet has variously been depicted as identical to humans, larger versions of humans, and non-human. Non-human life on Jupiter has been portrayed as primitive in some works and more advanced than humans in others.
Planets outside of the Solar System have been featured as settings in works of fiction. Most of these fictional planets do not vary significantly from the Earth. Exceptions include planets with sentience, planets without stars, and planets in multiple-star systems where the orbital mechanics can lead to exotic day–night or seasonal cycles.
Still Forms on Foxfield is a 1980 science fiction novel by Joan Slonczewski. It was their first novel.
"The Day Before the Revolution" is a science fiction short story by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. First published in the science fiction magazine Galaxy in August 1974, it was anthologized in Le Guin's 1975 collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters and in several subsequent collections. Set in Le Guin's fictional Hainish universe, the story has strong connections to her novel The Dispossessed, and is sometimes referred to as a prologue to the longer work, though it was written later.
Arbor House was an independent publishing house founded by Donald Fine in 1969. Specializing in hard cover publications, Arbor House published works by Hortense Calisher, Ken Follett, Cynthia Freeman, Elmore Leonard and Irwin Shaw before being acquired by the Hearst Corporation in 1979 to move into paperback publishing. Arbor House became an imprint of William Morrow & Company in 1988.
A relatively common motif in speculative fiction is the existence of single-gender worlds or single-sex societies. These fictional societies have long been one of the primary ways to explore implications of gender and gender-differences in science fiction and fantasy. Many of these predate a widespread distinction between gender and sex and conflate the two.
Galileo's Dream (2009) is a science fiction novel with elements of historical fiction written by Kim Stanley Robinson. In the book, 17th-century scientist Galileo Galilei is visited by far-future time travellers living on the Galilean moons of Jupiter. Italicised portions of the text within the novel are actually translations of Galileo and his contemporaries' own recorded writings.
Angel Island is a science fiction/fantasy novel by American feminist author, journalist and suffragette Inez Haynes Irwin, writing under the name Inez Haynes Gillmore. It was originally published by Henry Holt in January 1914. The novel is about a group of men shipwrecked on an island occupied by winged-women.
Grass is a 1989 science fiction novel by Sheri S. Tepper and the first novel from the Arbai trilogy. Styled as an ecological mystery, Grass presents one of Tepper's earliest and perhaps most radical statements on themes that would come to dominate her fiction, in which despoliation of the planet is explicitly linked to gender and social inequalities.
Aliens: Phalanx is a 2020 science fiction horror novel by Scott Sigler and the ninth book in the third novel series based on the Alien franchise. The novel is set on Ataegina, a planet of castles and medieval culture where a sect of humanity is engaged in conflict with an army of Xenomorphs. The story received an epilogue titled Another Mother in the 2022 anthology Aliens vs. Predators: Ultimate Prey.
Pastoral science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction which uses bucolic, rural settings, like other forms of pastoral literature. Since it is a subgenre of science fiction, authors may set stories either on Earth or another habitable planet or moon, sometimes including a terraformed planet or moon. Unlike most genres of science fiction, pastoral science fiction works downplay the role of futuristic technologies. The pioneer is author Clifford Simak (1904–1988), a science fiction Grand Master whose output included stories written in the 1950s and 1960s about rural people who have contact with extraterrestrial beings who hide their alien identity.
The Wall Around Eden is a 1989 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American microbiologist and science fiction writer Joan Slonczewski. It was first published in the United States in September 1989 by William Morrow and Company, and in the United Kingdom by The Women's Press in March 1991. It was translated into Italian and published by Editrice Nord as Le mura dell'Eden in May 1991.
↑ Otto, Eric C. (2012). "Ecofeminist Theories of Liberation in the Science Fiction of Sally Miller Gearhart, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Joan Slonczewski". In Vakoch, Douglas A. (ed.). Feminist Ecocriticism, Environment, Women, and Literature. Lexington Books. pp.13–38. ISBN9780739176832.
↑ Donawerth, Jane L. (1996). Frankenstein's Daughters: Women Writing Science Fiction. Syracuse University Press. pp.97–100. ISBN9780815626862.
1 2 "Feature Interview: Joan Slonczewski", pp. 12-18 in "SFRA Review, August/October 1998" (1998). SFRA Newsletter (Science Fiction Research Association).
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
