The Sharers of Shora certainly are a nation of women on the faraway moon in the far future. These are pacifists, these are highly advanced in biological sciences, and they reproduce by parthenogenesis-because you can find no males. Conflict erupts whenever a militaristic neighboring civilization transmits an army to build up their ocean globe.

A groundbreaking work both of feminist research fiction and of world-building, hard technology fiction, A Door into Ocean is the novel that solidified Joan Slonczewski’s status as a significant science fiction article writer.