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A review by evelikesbooks
A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski
4.0
Though I hadn't heard of it before discovering it on Goodreads, this certainly reads like classic feminist sci-fi. The peaceable Sharers live on the planet Shora, which has no land at all, only ocean on which floats their living rafts. The Sharers are human, albeit somewhat adapted to their marine life, and they have very sophisticated science around genetics and biology. They are all female, reproducing by gene splicing, and their worldwide culture communicates via coded messages using certain insects and sea creatures which broadcast their messages.
Shora's twin planet, Valedon, is a more traditional militaristic world, which has several countries with somewhat different characters, but all using military might.
A lot of the book is straight-up colonial narrative. Contact with Shora starts with trading, and then when the Sharers realize that this trading is damaging to them and stop the trade, armies are sent to pacify them. I only threw the book on the floor once, but I wanted to several other times. The second half is rage-inducing.
The ending felt a bit rushed. I think the author wanted the story to end differently from other historical colonial narratives, and having the sea swallowers be the eventual downfall of the armies was fitting, but everything seemed hopeless and then suddenly turned around, with very little input from the people involved. Still, I was relieved that the military commanders didn't follow through on their threat to wipe out the population of the planet.
Shora's twin planet, Valedon, is a more traditional militaristic world, which has several countries with somewhat different characters, but all using military might.
A lot of the book is straight-up colonial narrative. Contact with Shora starts with trading, and then when the Sharers realize that this trading is damaging to them and stop the trade, armies are sent to pacify them. I only threw the book on the floor once, but I wanted to several other times. The second half is rage-inducing.
The ending felt a bit rushed. I think the author wanted the story to end differently from other historical colonial narratives, and having the sea swallowers be the eventual downfall of the armies was fitting, but everything seemed hopeless and then suddenly turned around, with very little input from the people involved. Still, I was relieved that the military commanders didn't follow through on their threat to wipe out the population of the planet.