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594 reviews for:
Lilith's Brood: The Complete Xenogenesis Trilogy (The Xenogenesis Trilogy)
Octavia E. Butler
4.37 AVERAGE
594 reviews for:
Lilith's Brood: The Complete Xenogenesis Trilogy (The Xenogenesis Trilogy)
Octavia E. Butler
4.37 AVERAGE
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Pretty freaky. All kinds of alien sex goin on in this one. I think I would have preferred much more worldbuilding than there was in this, but it was cool as it was also, to slowly get to know the Oankali. By the third book I really understood their life impulses, just having spent enough time with them, you know? I guess I didn't fully understand the three groups (stayers, leavers, and mergers). Finished on the beach in Union Pier, MI
I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about it. My immediate thoughts after putting it down was disappointment ni had high expectations after listening to a podcast exposing the horror and and racial undertones. It was slower than I wanted. But reflecting on it I’m coming away with more topics I’d have loved to discuss with someone. I think this deserved a more intentional and critical read than I gave it. Would be a solid book club addition.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
This book gives me so many Colonized Feelings™️. Every single time.
I feel like Octavia Butler does a really good job showing how colonization destroys those it colonizes AND the colonizer. Everything she writes is multi layered and complex. Everything is connected.
I feel like Octavia Butler does a really good job showing how colonization destroys those it colonizes AND the colonizer. Everything she writes is multi layered and complex. Everything is connected.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Misogyny, Sexual assault, Violence
Minor: Suicide
Complete trilogy together. Very easy to move right into the next book. Altogether an excellent story with great depth and scope. Well done.
Makes me wish the Oankali were here - though I would maybe be a resister...
Octavia Butler's writing is just amazing.
Octavia Butler's writing is just amazing.
dark
hopeful
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Each of the three books had a different point of view: first Lilith, the human woman the aliens choose to be their middleman with resuscitated humans; then, years later, a descendant living on-planet; then, years after that, another descendant facing an unforeseen problem. An interesting idea--aliens happened to come by right after humans finally engaged in nuclear war, rescued some survivors, and proceeded to genetically modify illnesses out of them to repopulate the earth...but only as part of their own interspecies mating program (you're all sterilized unless you join up with them), the aliens being a species who exist by taking genetic material from other species they encounter to improve their own genetics, making their prospective partners addicted to their pheromones; humans, obviously, are not okay with this--but disappointing how in the end no-one really calls the Oankali on their exploitative, lying-by-omission, roofie-ish, this-feels-kinda-rapey crap. I mean, they eventually realize how their human mates grow to resent the addiction and its accompanying repelling factor. Why not genetically modify that roofie-ing impulse out of yourselves while you're at it?
The trilogy wraps up the individual narrator's major story arc, but doesn't resolve the overarching arc of how this whole interaction will work out. Will it go as planned, or not? It wasn't a bad ending, exactly, it just didn't feel like a strong, conclusive ending.
The trilogy wraps up the individual narrator's major story arc, but doesn't resolve the overarching arc of how this whole interaction will work out. Will it go as planned, or not? It wasn't a bad ending, exactly, it just didn't feel like a strong, conclusive ending.
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
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
A complicated series with major themes of consent, love, fidelity, colonialism and more. As the humans and Oankali interact, the clash of cultures, sometimes presented as a biological drive or essentialism, are explored with nuance and frankness. As a fair warning, the ways Oankali especially talk about consent (your words say no but your body says yes) could be triggering for some. Additionally, the Oankali, and many humans’, understanding of disability and healing may also be triggering. The Oankali have a deeply felt need to “heal” the life forms they come in contact with and there is only an implied resistance to what that means for humans. While human resistance in the books does center on bodily autonomy and self-determination, there is not an explicit discussion of disability in a positive way. The role that cancer plays in the human-Oankali relationship is probably the only positive discussion of disability and it is the Oankali who see it as valuable. They acknowledge the pain and death it causes and also see its rapid cell growth as a way to make life saving healing possible. Throughout the book they use what they’ve learned from cancer to heal bullet wounds, regrow lost limbs, and prevent cancer altogether. While cancer is ultimately a commodity in their “trade” with humanity, the Oankali in a way recognize what disability can be besides what human societies have often seen as a burden.
Overall, it’s important to remember when these books were written and what the societal discussions around consent and disability were. I think this series offers a lot to think about in those discussions and I also would not rely on these books for resolutions to those discussions.
While I don’t think the books every explicitly use the term colonize when talking about what the Oankali are doing, it’s hard to not see the parallels.They plan to take over and extract all they can from earth, they subjugate all the humans to what they believe is their superior and more logical will, and then place many humans in a kind of partial death if they violently resist this takeover. The complicated relationships between humans and Oankali give an insight into colonial interpersonal dynamics, raising questions of coercion, betrayal, survival, and what life after contact can be. The fact that the human war that took place before the narrative of the books wiped out primarily North America and Europe puts the situation of the remaining humans and the parallel to our real world colonialism into an even starker light. Yet again the black and brown people of the world are dealing with first contact and having their wills suppressed because their captors believe that their (human) civilizations were doomed to fail, unable to progress the human species beyond their “biological contradictions”. The insights we get into both colonizer and colonized/resisting ways of thinking are illuminating.
I would recommend this book for people who want classic Afro-futurist sci-fi as long as they are prepared for some of the themes mentioned above.
Overall, it’s important to remember when these books were written and what the societal discussions around consent and disability were. I think this series offers a lot to think about in those discussions and I also would not rely on these books for resolutions to those discussions.
While I don’t think the books every explicitly use the term colonize when talking about what the Oankali are doing, it’s hard to not see the parallels.
I would recommend this book for people who want classic Afro-futurist sci-fi as long as they are prepared for some of the themes mentioned above.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Death, Violence
Moderate: Ableism, Gun violence, Rape, Colonisation, War
Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide
This is my first entry into science fiction. I read the entire series. Octavia Butler can certainly build vast worlds and keep it captivating. The series slowly ebbs toward the alien perspective and seems to end abruptly. It was a lot to process!