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You Should Read This: Ammonite by Nicola Griffith

Cover of Ammonite by Nicola Griffith
Ammonite is beautifully real, and a good example of the heights speculative fiction can reach.
Ammonite, by Nicola Griffith, is subtle and beautiful and a terrific piece of speculative fiction. An anthropologist, Marghe Taishan, arrives on the planet GP, there to test a vaccine against the deadly virus that has killed all but a few of the original colonists. She finds that the survivors, all women, have developed the ability to give birth without men.

The book won both a Lambda and Tiptree Award, and it’s easy to see why. A dynamite protagonist interacting with intriguing and beautifully three-dimensional characters. The world is fabulously drawn, evocative, and both the anthropological and physical science are accurate and carefully thought out.

Ammonite was Griffith’s debut novel. I’d also recommend her most recent, the absolutely amazing Hild, a retelling of the life of historical figure, Saint Hild of Whitby. Come to think of it, nothing I’ve read by her has been shabby, including Slow River, a near-future thriller that is also beautifully told and engaging.

I had the luck to sit in on a class Griffith taught for Clarion West a couple of years ago. She is a consummate, careful wordsmith. The word “luminous” keeps appearing in reviews of her work, and that’s because it’s so beautifully crafted that it seems to glow from within.

The first three paragraphs of a piece set up so much. Here’s the first three of Ammonite, to give you a taste:

Marghe’s suit was still open at neck and wrist, and the helmet rested in the crook of her left arm. An ID flash was sealed to her should” “Marguerite Angelica Taishan, SEC.” The suit was wrinkled and smelled of just-unrolled plastic, and she felt heavy and awkward, even in the two-thirds gravity of orbital station Estrade.

She stood by the airlock at the inside end of A Section. THe door was already open. Waiting. She rested the fingertips of her right hand on the smooth ceramic of the raised hatch frame; it was cool, shocking after two days of the close human heat of A Section.

The sill of the airlock reached her knees; easy enough to step over. No great barrier. The lock chamber itself was two strides across. THe dar door was still closed, sealed to another sill, like this one. Four steps from here to B Section. Four steps. She had recontracted with SEC, endured six months of retraining on Earth, traveled eighteen months aboard the Terragin, and spent the last two days on the Estrade bumping elbows with the three-member crew, all to take those four steps.

#sfwapro

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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."

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You Should Read This: About Writing by Samuel R. Delany

The cover of About Writing by Samuel R. Delany, a writing guide recommended by Cat Rambo.
Delany says: "A reasonable concern -- in many a worry; and in few a hope -- is whether a creative writing teacher wishes to teach her or his students to write the way he or she writes. Emphatically that is not my enterprise. But the agenda here is no less personal. The thrust of these pieces is to teach writers to produce works I would enjoy reading. "
I can’t think of a better book to begin with than a writing book I go back to over and over again, both for teaching and to apply to my own writing. Be aware that many of these essays are also contained in The Jewel-Hinged Jaw.

What: About Writing, by Samuel R. Delany, is a book of writing advice that includes seven essays, four letters, and five interviews. Two essays are ones I go back to over and over again, “Thickening the Plot,” and “Characters.”

Who: People who will enjoy this book include all manner of writers, as well as anyone interested in Delany’s own awesome fiction.

When: You should read this when you’re feeling uninspired about your own writing or if you want some assurance that “writing to discover” is as valid an approach as plotting things out thoroughly.

Why: Delany is one of the foremost SF writers of our time. His work speaks not just to those beginning to write, but those well along their path. If, like me, you love his fiction, you’ll find About Writing sheds new light on those works.

Where and how: Read it someplace quiet, where you have space to stare off into the distance, thinking about what Delany has said. Read it straight through or else do what I do and dip in at various places. No matter what angle your approach takes, it’ll be rewarding.

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You Should Read This: Miss Mole by E.H. Young

The cover for Miss Mole, by E.H. Young, recommended fiction.
From the introduction by Sally Beauman: "This is, at first sight, a very odd book: it has an exceedingly odd, indeed unlikely, heroine, the eponymous Miss Mole, and an exceedingly odd style."
There are some books I go back to over and over again, and this is one of them, because I love the main character so much. Hannah Mole is engaging, delightful, and incredibly sympathetic. I originally found this book because it was a Virago Modern Classic (I found a TON of great reading through Virago, many of which will appear in weeks, months, and hopefully years to come), and it is, unfortunately, out of print nowadays. I sincerely hope it’s reissued sometime.

What: Miss Mole is a novel that won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1930. It is set in Radstowe and is, in many ways, a small town novel of manners.

Who: Read this if you love absorbing fiction that deals with small things: not wars or aliens or other monumental matters, but rather cases of crewel yarn gone astray or a pilfered mattress. Read this for characters that come alive and are exemplary of characters who are lovable while still shown with all their flaws.

When: Read this when you want an engrossing read, but also when you want to see the interior life and thoughts of a character conveyed in the most engaging way possible.

Why: Read it because Miss Mole is a heroine outside the norm, because she doesn’t care (or does she) what society says, and because she faces the consequences of past actions with bravery and good spirits.

Where and how: Read this on a rainy day, when you want a love story that is gentle and understated, on a day when you hear the characters’ murmuring in the sound of the falling rain.

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