In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future.
Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.
When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean …
In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future.
Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.
When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.
On a second read, I feel a lot differently than I did the first time around. I can't separate uncomfortable feelings of reading about a teenager basically starting a cult and attracting people who are at their absolute most vulnerable to join. It doesn't sit well with me to read about Lauren's glee to "raise babies in Earthseed." And the intense, intense, dehumanization and otherizing of people using drugs, making them into physically unrecognizable monsters, is something I can't get past. If Lauren has hyper-empathy, and is more sensitive to people in need of help, then why does the buck stop with people using drugs?
Finally taking the time to read more Butler, after weirdly mentally saving her books. This definitely hit differently reading it amidst a pandemic, sometimes among unhealthily smoky air outside my space. The world building and the way we learn with and from Lauren is remarkable. The complete humanity of characters is also something. The cautionary tale of our near reality is still strong.
Review of "Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the sower" on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
This book is dark and heavy, so I'll start with trigger warnings: religion, violence, rape, slavery, cannibalism, environmental devastation.
The story is dark, and provocative, yet thoughtful and causes one to ponder on the various social issues such as racism, slavery, power, gender equity, etc. This book should be read as a journey and not the destination. To me, it was very much like Odyssey but much deeper and profound.
The novel contains strong religious themes, as the name of the book suggests. The religion parts of the book often include arguments for and against various aspects of the religion.
I enjoyed the author's view of California on the brink of apocalypse, from geography to the imagines social structures.
This book has been written almost 30 years ago. Yet, in 2021 the subject is still current.
I wished I had to read this book in high school or college instead …
This book is dark and heavy, so I'll start with trigger warnings: religion, violence, rape, slavery, cannibalism, environmental devastation.
The story is dark, and provocative, yet thoughtful and causes one to ponder on the various social issues such as racism, slavery, power, gender equity, etc. This book should be read as a journey and not the destination. To me, it was very much like Odyssey but much deeper and profound.
The novel contains strong religious themes, as the name of the book suggests. The religion parts of the book often include arguments for and against various aspects of the religion.
I enjoyed the author's view of California on the brink of apocalypse, from geography to the imagines social structures.
This book has been written almost 30 years ago. Yet, in 2021 the subject is still current.
I wished I had to read this book in high school or college instead of Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice. There is so many argumentative essays one could write about them, so many more pertinent issues one can discuss.
When I heard an old interview of Octavia Butler on NPR, I was both very impressed and very surprised that I had never heard of her. She won a MacArthur Fellowship, Hugo, and Nebula awards. At the time, there were so few women's names in science fiction, and even fewer who were African American.
This is stronger in many respects on re-read, somehow my dystopia lens last time glossed the climate youth aspect, the neurodiversity aspect, the ways she keeps the story focused on community and change at the same time so structurally.
This book is so good and about halfway through I thought to figure out when it was written and then nearly fainted from shock. This woman was a prophet.
Once he's made everyone who isn't like him sound evil, then he can blame them for problems they didn't cause. That's easier than trying to fix the problems.
This book cuts deep. The bleak and truly dystopian world portrayed here is very, very close to home. Because of how topical the book felt I expected this book to be published in 2015 or 2016, but no, the first publication was 1993!
This book was too real and possible. The memories of the dumpster fire of 2020 are not yet a distant memory, America is crumbling under the 45th President and I read this story the same week there was a failed coup on the US Capitol building. At a time I want escapism Parable of the Sower was an extension of reality. It was not only a glimpse in to what if but what will.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road …
Once he's made everyone who isn't like him sound evil, then he can blame them for problems they didn't cause. That's easier than trying to fix the problems.
This book cuts deep. The bleak and truly dystopian world portrayed here is very, very close to home. Because of how topical the book felt I expected this book to be published in 2015 or 2016, but no, the first publication was 1993!
This book was too real and possible. The memories of the dumpster fire of 2020 are not yet a distant memory, America is crumbling under the 45th President and I read this story the same week there was a failed coup on the US Capitol building. At a time I want escapism Parable of the Sower was an extension of reality. It was not only a glimpse in to what if but what will.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road is a rough read, yet Parable of the Sower was more difficult for how prophetic it feels.
Take the following line from the book: Interesting that they fear Edward Jay Smith's supposed incompetence more than they fear Jarret's obvious tyranny.
Do a simple find and replace on a few characters and you have something that happened repeatedly Interesting that they fear Hillary Rodham Clinton's supposed incompetence more than they fear Donald's obvious tyranny.
The American events under Jarret's Presidency land uncomfortably close to reality. I found myself reeling from the similarities to real life that I was overlooking the story being told. A story of survival and hope, of looking for ways to improve society and have harmony. Cults have a bad connotation as being extreme and brainwashing their members and Earthseed would be criticized just as harshly in the fictional world Butler wrote of as it would be in real life.
Yet Andrew Steel Jarret was able to scare, divide, and bully people, first into electing him President, then into letting him fix the country for them. He didn't get to do everything he wanted to do. He was capable of much greater fascism. So were his most avid followers.
I needed a few chapters to understand the narrative perspectives and focus on the timelines and from there I was hooked. However, for all the pro's of Earthseed #1 I'm not sure the science fiction/fantasy part of the story is enough to keep me reading. Butler writes an enjoyable book but the story was almost too real for me to continue. I expect the next book to focus on the interstellar missions of Earthseed, and that creeps out of my genre preference and I lose interest.
Top marks for a brutally honest and frightening book that can be relevant and engaging nearly 30 years after it was written.
Review of "Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the sower" on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I accidentally wound up with both the novel and the graphic novel based on the novel of Parable of the Sower. I read them together, reading ahead a bit in one, then going back to the other and reading to catch up and a bit ahead again. Wow, the story is excellent, and all the characters were really very interesting and complex.
blew my mind, changed the way i see the world and my fears and vision of future. but gave me hope. Realllly hard to drive n a freeway in so called los angeles and stare at the land on the sides.......
Review of "Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the sower" on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Parable of the Sower: Graphic Novel by Octavia E. Butler, adaptation by Damian Duffy and John Jennings
This is a tricky one to review. On the one hand, there is the stellar story behind this adaption. Butler was a master of the field, weaving powerful prose with profound ideas to create something transcendent, at times. The Parable of the Sower novel is deep, and compelling, and important.
It is a story of humanity in danger, of faith and creed and hope. It is about race and love and humanity. It is a story worth reading, for anyone.
The idea of a graphic novel adaptation is a good one. I like graphic novels. It can be tricky, though, to adapt books to visual form (just like to movies) because you can't do everything. You have to balance the words and the pictures, so some words get left out. Obviously, it can …
Parable of the Sower: Graphic Novel by Octavia E. Butler, adaptation by Damian Duffy and John Jennings
This is a tricky one to review. On the one hand, there is the stellar story behind this adaption. Butler was a master of the field, weaving powerful prose with profound ideas to create something transcendent, at times. The Parable of the Sower novel is deep, and compelling, and important.
It is a story of humanity in danger, of faith and creed and hope. It is about race and love and humanity. It is a story worth reading, for anyone.
The idea of a graphic novel adaptation is a good one. I like graphic novels. It can be tricky, though, to adapt books to visual form (just like to movies) because you can't do everything. You have to balance the words and the pictures, so some words get left out. Obviously, it can work, as the comics creators behind this one created a wonderful award-winning adaptation of Kindred.
But judging that success is wholly dependent upon the art, and the art in this eARC is not finished. I assume so, anyway, because these are sketches, The faces aren't drawn at all in some panels, with the guidelines there to show where eyes, mouth etc. go. Some characters are fully drawn in, but many are barely ghosts. There is no coloring at all.
So I can't judge the art. I'm sure it will be fine when it's done, but it's not done, so I can only judge the verbal adaptation: the cuts and changes made to fit a novel to a graphic format.
And that is all pretty smooth. It works to focus on the dialog, mostly. It can be hard in some scenes, without the accompanying art, to know who is talking to whom. The action can be hard to follow as well.
But the characters come through. The narrative beats hit, and the story works, which is to be expected, since this is Octavia Butler's story.
I just wish I could see how it works as a graphic novel.
Not unlike a lot of Octavia Butler readers, this is the first book of hers I read. And I will definitely be reading more. I just like how she thinks and tells a story. I thought this was going to be some kind of grand adventure, and while it does have some elements that are adventurous, it's more character development and philosophy. Yes, it's a bit preachy, but I didn't mind. It felt real. The thoughts of the narrator felt real. The actions felt real. The deaths felt real.
I picked this up because I love sci-fi and even dystopian, but mostly because I'm sick of stories that follow the people on the top - King's and queens, military men and women, the ultra rich.
Narration was perfect for the material. Almost monotonous, but to me it never felt wrong.
