A Door Into Ocean (Elysium Cycle)
"In her ambitious second SF novel (after Still Forms on Foxfield)  biology professor Slonczewski has created an intriguing ocean world with  its own culture and biological adaptations. Particularly ingenious are  the clickflies, insects that collectively serve as both a living  computer and a communications network. But the book has problems with  its rigid ideological structure. On one side is the planet Valedon, a  patriarchal, capitalist, mechanistic and militaristic society. On the  other is Valedon's watery moon Shora, an all-female society based on  life sciences and the principle of sharing. It gets by without any  government, shuns the mechanical and, knowing its limits, lives in  harmony with nature. In the inevitable confrontation, Shora uses  Gandhian techniques of passive resistance to thwart Valedon's troops.  Fortunately, this schematic political framework is enlivened by the  full-blooded characters who negotiate between the two cultures."