The 1993 James Tiptree, Jr. Award

Judges:

Steve Brown (SPB), Susan Casper (SC), Jeanne Gomoll (coordinator) (JG), Ursula K. Le Guin (UKL), Maureen F. McHugh (MFM)

Commentary was harvested from correspondence among the judges and attributed by the judges' initials.

Winner of the 1993 James Tiptree, Jr. Award

Nicola Griffith, Ammonite, Del Rey, 1993

Griffith details a civilization-several generations old-composed entirely of women. Her novel displays uncommon skill, a compelling narrative and a sure grasp of the complexity of civilization. While avoiding rhetoric, cant and stereotype, Griffith's politics run subtle and deep. [SPB]
A well-written first novel of a world on which there are no males, the men having been killed by a virus long ago. The story is told through the eyes of a woman who goes there to study the society that has evolved. This is the story of how people interact, and the evolution and adaptation of the protagonist to a world that is different from the one she's always known. Also a novel which postulates that a society composed of only women would not be fundamentally different from one containing both genders. A real page-turner with beautifully well-drawn characters. [SC]
Ammonite is an interesting rite-of-passage novel in which the main character-Marghe-works out who she is and what she wants to do with her life. The culture of the planet Jeep-influenced by a virus fatal to most women and all men, that also facilitates genetic mixing and not-really-parthenogenic births-was fascinating and believable. This book is not based on "difference" gender philosophy (i.e., that women and men are basically psychologically different), and therefore, the women-only culture wasn't portrayed as a utopia for its lack of men. Greed and mindless violence exist in this culture as in ours. Its gender-bending message was that sexuality is only a minor part of human relationships. The characters all seem to take it for granted that sexual preference is an almost irrelevant aspect of understanding one another. In fact, the lack of men in this world is important only for the fact that because of it, Jeep is quarantined from the rest of the (mainly corrupt) Federation, until and if an vaccine is discovered. The human women on Jeep are never referred to as a lesbian community. They are simply a community of people, all of whom happen to be women.[JG]
A self-assured, unself-conscious, convincing depiction of a world without men, this is perhaps the strongest pure science fiction on the list-doing what only SF can do, and doing it with skill and brio. Is it a gender bender? It answers the question "When you eliminate one gender, what's left?" (a whole world, is the answer). but a lot of books like Moby Dick, eliminate one gender, and yet nobody thinks anything about it. I believe Kate Clinton has the answer: "When women go off together it's call separatism. When men go off together it's called Congress." [UKL]
When plague wipes out all the men and many of the women of a contingent of marines, a planet is declared quarantined. Marghe is sent to study the "natives," women left from an earlier colonization attempt which was also infected. Ammonite could have been a didactic novel or a utopian fiction, but Griffith has made her world of women complex and full of people both good and bad. [MFM]