Ammonite

This is one of my favorite books of all time. It’s not perfect, but it’s impossible to put down.

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.

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.

A beautifully written quest story that perfectly combines the internal and external journeys of the characters. Everything is vivd and very, very moving. This is a story about all kinds of people, for all kinds of people. It's hard to believe this is a first novel and I eagerly look forward to reading the others.

The author's focus on the roles people take for themselves in society, and how they deal with how well or ill those roles fit, is what makes this book so special. Ms. Griffith makes you think about yourself and all the people you interact with, while telling a tale that is impossible to put down. The only thing I disliked about this story was that it had to end!

I loved reading full and complete characterizations of a variety of women's personalities, written so expertly by Ms. Griffith. Imagine a world that is multi-textured and vivid. Exciting episodes bring the Ammonite world to a satisfying [possibly utopian] conclusion. Thank you Nicola !! [I wish I could write to you personally.] Aloha, Judy Phillips