Ammonite: A Woman's World (There are No Men in this Entire Novel)

 

2002 Edition Cover

Ammonite: A Woman's World

"Ammonite" is Nicola Griffith's first published novel, which follows the journey of anthropologist Marghe Taishan as she explores a companion planet to Earth, Grenchstom's Planet, which is inhabited entirely by women. Originally published in 1992, the novel fought against stereotypes of the time for what a female-oriented, tribal society story looks like. It has won several awards, including the 1993 Lambda Literary Award for LGBT themed fantasy sci-fi, the 1993 Otherwise Award (also known as the James Tiptree Jr. Award) for the exploration and understanding of gender within sci-fi or fantasy, and the 2008 Premio Italia award. It would make a great addition to our Lit and Media roster, as it deals with both dystopian and heavy gender topics.

Marghe has the opportunity to investigate Grenchstom's Planet (GP) as an employee of the Settlement and Education Councils (SEC) government agency. GP is a colony of Earth, but the planet and its people lost contact with Earth centuries before the novel's plot after a virus, referred to as "Jeep," destroyed the original colony by killing all of its men and traumatizing its few surviving women. The planet was initially placed under quarantine due to the virus, and no one was allowed in or out. Now, GP is being targeted for recolonization by the Durallium Company, which plans to exhaust the planet of its resources. Marghe is sent to the quarantined GP to study the native cultures while testing a potential vaccine for the Jeep virus. Through her exploration, Marghe discovers the planet's entirely female native population has learned how to reproduce without men, and is spread across several villages with different indigenous cultures. 

"It's a book about people, every variety of people—smart and stupid, kind and venal, indifferent and vicious, etc.—who all happen to be women."  

Nicola Griffith in an email interview by Holland SF, a Dutch Sci-Fi Magazine

Dystopian Elements

There are four major themes of dystopia within Ammonite: freedom, survival, control, and reproduction. Abandoning and quarantining an entire planet due to a deadly virus means both freedom for the people involved and survival of the fittest. Of the original colony, many crew members died from the virus as it spread. Only a few asymptomatic women were left living afterwards, with their bodies fending off death from the virus but still carrying it. 

The novel starts centuries later, when Marghe is given the opportunity of a lifetime to observe the female tribes living on the planet, which all share ancestry with the original colony. Marghe's exploration feels freeing to her, as she has no surveillance looking over her shoulder during her research, but soon discovers the hidden horrors of the planet. The surviving tribes have various societies and cultures ranging from agricultural, to nomadic, to pastoral, and do not feature most common elements found within established civilizations, such as cities, governments, and social hierarchy. As Kate MacDonald points out in her review of the book, social trading and the diplomatic relationships within an allegiance system called 'trata' are essential to daily living. 

1993 Edition Cover

Marghe recognizes that there is a looming threat of both government control and the secondary Durallium Company seeking to exploit Grenchstom's Planet, adding a suspenseful subplot to the novel as she attempts to protect its indigenous societies. The life of women within the tribes is similar to humanity's neolithic revolution, where people learn to cultivate crops and domesticate animals for food, rather than rely on foraging. Still, while there are foundations for complex societies on GP, the women see no need to initiate a formal civilization - making the potential takeover of the planet by these powerful organizations devastating.

Reproduction within Ammonite on Grenchstom's Planet can be described as meditational. Characters with the Jeep virus have the ability to conceive by connecting with their partners through spiritual relaxation. In a Goodreads review, Bryn Hammond praises how the novel places a wrench in human biology, and "by accident grants us more control over the body." The adaptation of this new reproduction that does not require men speaks of more than just an environmental shift, but a biological one.

How Gender is Explored

2007 Edition Cover

There are no male characters in this novel, and not even minor ones. This singular element changes all prospective social dynamics, and - add-on to that fact - all female cultures on the explored planet are tribal, and speak garbled versions of languages due to Earth's abandonment. Because of these differences, "society runs itself differently from how we know it," MacDonald states. Many tribes are peaceful and concentrate on a particular skillset within their social structures, with the exception of a violent, resource-deprived nomadic tribe that worships a death goddess. This aggressor group only exasperates the day-to-day fragile survival of the tribes, adding a interesting, masculine component into relationships and trade dynamics between the other female-oriented societal cultures.

Ammonite explores the development of a female-led society without hierarchy. Unlike in Naomi Alderman's The Power, which interprets how women take over a previously male-dominated society by intentionally or unintentionally using violent patriarchal methods as an example of leadership, the numerous peaceful tribes in Ammonite take individual leaders for specific tasks in the name of survival for the whole tribe, such as the agricultural tribe Ollfoss, which shares children between parental groups based upon the children's wellbeing and how they individually need to be raised for healthy development (MacDonald). Equality is prioritized among nearly all GP characters, although two characters that directly and negatively affect Marghe's journey on the planet believe otherwise, and make her journey that much more challenging. 

Works Cited:

Hammond, Bryn. Review of Ammonite, by Nicola Griffith. Goodreads, 10 May 2014. goodreads.com/review/show/916666894.

Griffith, Nicola. Ammonite. New York, Del Rey, 23 Dec. 1992. 

Macdonald, Kate. "Depth and Richness in Nicola Griffith's Ammonite." Kate Macdonald, 16 Mar. 2015, katemacdonald.net/2015/03/16/depth-and-richness-in-nicola-griffiths-ammonite/. Accessed 8 Dec. 2025.