Reviews

I love Octavia Butler's writing. She has such a way with words, making simple sentences poetry, and I think that Parable of the Sower really goes hard in that way because so much of the book is framed around Lauren trying very explicitly to choose the best possible words for her Earthseed verses. The world in this book is fascinating and I think the way it was built so organically was a masterclass in whatever the opposite of exposition dumping is. I wanted to know more about the end of the world, but I don't disagree with the choice to keep it vague. I'm curious to see if more is revealed in the sequel.

I did feel that this felt almost like a prologue more than a self-standing book, perhaps because I don't know that Lauren grew/changed much over the book. Her goal at the beginning is

to be prepared for if/when she has to escape the neighbourhood and also to propagate Earthseed

and at the end

she has escaped the neighbourhood, gained the start of an Earthseed community and found a place to settle down.

It feels like she had a goal and she achieved it. There were struggles and conflicts, she definitely didn't have an easy time of it, but by necessity she is very smart and I can't remember her making any mistakes. That's not necessarily a criticism, as I can think of other books that share this trait (The Martian comes to mind) but it's something I think I was thinking about more because I've been thinking about character development in my own writing a lot recently. I also don't know that her sharing had a lot of payoff. It was an interesting element and it added huge stakes, but it would have been a very similar story without it, so I'm curious to see if there's more there in the sequel.

elizabethmcspencer's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

fedak's review against another edition

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4.0

Less bleak than “The Road” but not by much and this clearly influenced that latter work. Much enjoyed the dystopian near future view of post climate change California.

Didn’t much care for the B story of the protagonist starting her own religion and the poetry and philosophical discussions that surrounded it.

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