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kim4673's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
readmoreyall's review against another edition
5.0
Wow. What a pair of books to read in 2017. Beautiful and terrifying. Told in a mixture of journals, this story will haunt you. And maybe convert you.
teachinsci's review against another edition
5.0
Fabulous and thought-provoking
A pair of novels that were dark and frightening and uplifting and full of hope.
Butler tells a story set in the near future. This is a future which has (fortunately for those of us who would have to live in it) not yet come to pass. It is a future which easily could come to pass just as Butler has predicted. As always, her characters were strong yet vulnerable. The backdrop is a realistic world with more problems than solutions.
I cannot express how much I enjoyed this book. The story moved at the right pace throughout. The second book is told through a series of flashbacks and journal excerpts of the main characters each of which moves the story forward.
All in all, maybe it is too soon to process exactly what I liked so much, but I can emphatically and unreservedly recommend this series.
A pair of novels that were dark and frightening and uplifting and full of hope.
Butler tells a story set in the near future. This is a future which has (fortunately for those of us who would have to live in it) not yet come to pass. It is a future which easily could come to pass just as Butler has predicted. As always, her characters were strong yet vulnerable. The backdrop is a realistic world with more problems than solutions.
I cannot express how much I enjoyed this book. The story moved at the right pace throughout. The second book is told through a series of flashbacks and journal excerpts of the main characters each of which moves the story forward.
All in all, maybe it is too soon to process exactly what I liked so much, but I can emphatically and unreservedly recommend this series.
par4dox's review
2.0
About 1/4 through the first book, I sadly realized the writing was full of "fat", which means too much exposition -- every little detail is way over-explained which, for me, bogged the story down and made it boring. There's a fine balance between detail and pacing and I got the impression that Butler was leaning too heavily on detail. I found myself flipping through pages of non-plot related exposition to see if things picked up and it didn't seem like it so I walked away. Even though unrealistic that a young girl would be developing a religion, the journal entries of the girl starting Earthseed were great though, I would like to read just that.
saidahgilbert's review against another edition
5.0
Totally gripping story. I enjoyed the first book more than the second one though. I did not like the POV character for the second book which brought down my enjoyment of the story particularly because she kept inserting her thoughts. Another thing I didn't like was not learning the name or sex of the POV character for both books until a few chapters in. If I hadn't read a synopsis of these books before I wouldn't even have known that both protagonists were female. However, that was a minor point and didn't detract from my understanding of the story.
sonofatreus's review against another edition
5.0
Parable of the Sower (5/5)
The entire time I was reading this, I kept thinking of two other books: McCarthy's The Road and Herbert's Dune. It is vaguely post-apocalyptic, with a small group of people traveling along a dangerous road toward some vague hope of prosperity. At the same time, the protagonist is actively working on creating a new religion. Much of that is done out of sight of the other characters, as journal entries that the reader sees. The "apocalypse" that took place seems to be a combination of political failure and climate change (it is set in mid- to late 2020s California).
It's hard to say what genre this is. It is generally classified as sci-fi, I think, which is fair enough. The protagonist, and a few others, are "sharers" who can perceive other people's pleasure or pain. It's explicitly not a superpower but a side-effect of a certain pharmaceutical drug. There are also some people addicted to a drug that makes them crave seeing fire, so they go around burning things. The technology is vague. They have some things we don't but other things, like mobile communication, is largely absent (it shows up in the sequel).
Parable of the Talents (4/5)
Here, Butler leans much more directly into the political nature of the apocalypse. Now, the story is told by Olamina, the protagonist from the Parable of Sowers, and her daughter Larkin/Asha. The US has been taken over by the Christian America, an extremist Christian organization that opposes the "heathens" like the members of Earthseed. I really wasn't expecting this based on the first book. It gets into slavery (which returns to the US thanks to the folks of CA), religion, cults, etc. and does a good job of it. I mostly didn't like the structure of the book, told from two perspectives. Larkin's voice has hindsight, while Olamina's doesn't, and the tension between those was frustrating at times. I was also a little put off knowing that there was another book planned but Butler died before finishing it. It would have been great to see Earthseed spreading to the stars.
The entire time I was reading this, I kept thinking of two other books: McCarthy's The Road and Herbert's Dune. It is vaguely post-apocalyptic, with a small group of people traveling along a dangerous road toward some vague hope of prosperity. At the same time, the protagonist is actively working on creating a new religion. Much of that is done out of sight of the other characters, as journal entries that the reader sees. The "apocalypse" that took place seems to be a combination of political failure and climate change (it is set in mid- to late 2020s California).
It's hard to say what genre this is. It is generally classified as sci-fi, I think, which is fair enough. The protagonist, and a few others, are "sharers" who can perceive other people's pleasure or pain. It's explicitly not a superpower but a side-effect of a certain pharmaceutical drug. There are also some people addicted to a drug that makes them crave seeing fire, so they go around burning things. The technology is vague. They have some things we don't but other things, like mobile communication, is largely absent (it shows up in the sequel).
Parable of the Talents (4/5)
Here, Butler leans much more directly into the political nature of the apocalypse. Now, the story is told by Olamina, the protagonist from the Parable of Sowers, and her daughter Larkin/Asha. The US has been taken over by the Christian America, an extremist Christian organization that opposes the "heathens" like the members of Earthseed. I really wasn't expecting this based on the first book. It gets into slavery (which returns to the US thanks to the folks of CA), religion, cults, etc. and does a good job of it. I mostly didn't like the structure of the book, told from two perspectives. Larkin's voice has hindsight, while Olamina's doesn't, and the tension between those was frustrating at times. I was also a little put off knowing that there was another book planned but Butler died before finishing it. It would have been great to see Earthseed spreading to the stars.
eubankssd's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
jazzypizzaz's review against another edition
5.0
Most dystopian novels seem eerily prescient these days -- just a few more wrong turns away from our present future -- but Earthseed by far seems like written history, which sends chills up my spine. Butler has a straightforward grounded power in her prose that makes you believe in the veracity of the content -- not unlike her protagonist. In this dystopian America, horrifying things happen and Butler pulls no punches here, but the way it's told is never gritty for shock value -- not glossed over but not dwelt on in an exploitative way. Simply it's what happens.
Despite the pessimism involved in foreseeing how terrible human nature can be, there's optimism intertwined in the main theme of change. Even when the worst things happen, people have agency to shape their environments -- but it takes dedication, community, and *timing*. Olamina spends these novels attempting to "terraform" small communities on Earth, so to speak, as the seed for humanity to terraform new worlds. She's met with difficulty every step of the way, storms and disease and uprooting that kills her seeds, but plant enough and eventually some grow, then spread. There's a constant process of both creating new life and overcoming loss, building and rebuilding and rebuilding again. It's a depressing future, but there's deep inspiration between the hardship.
There's also a tension between community vs survival vs freedom throughout the first book especially. Like three sides of a triangle, you need all to accomplish anything, but they also work against each other to create conflict.
Earthseed itself was written as a self-help buzzword religion, and its "verses" are not particularly mind-blowing or powerful by themselves. But then again, I'm resistant to this type of spiritual nonsense, and despite this I found myself mulling it over over the course of the day (though admittedly more about the Destiny for space travel than anything else). It's not NOT true, what Olamina writes as Earthseed, but does it really matter if we view God as change? I'm not quite convinced, and the books try really hard to sell the reader on this. That said, I *could* see how her simple plain words could settle into people's consciousness, take root, and flower into something more -- importantly because they are combined with tangible action.
Despite the pessimism involved in foreseeing how terrible human nature can be, there's optimism intertwined in the main theme of change. Even when the worst things happen, people have agency to shape their environments -- but it takes dedication, community, and *timing*. Olamina spends these novels attempting to "terraform" small communities on Earth, so to speak, as the seed for humanity to terraform new worlds. She's met with difficulty every step of the way, storms and disease and uprooting that kills her seeds, but plant enough and eventually some grow, then spread. There's a constant process of both creating new life and overcoming loss, building and rebuilding and rebuilding again. It's a depressing future, but there's deep inspiration between the hardship.
There's also a tension between community vs survival vs freedom throughout the first book especially. Like three sides of a triangle, you need all to accomplish anything, but they also work against each other to create conflict.
Earthseed itself was written as a self-help buzzword religion, and its "verses" are not particularly mind-blowing or powerful by themselves. But then again, I'm resistant to this type of spiritual nonsense, and despite this I found myself mulling it over over the course of the day (though admittedly more about the Destiny for space travel than anything else). It's not NOT true, what Olamina writes as Earthseed, but does it really matter if we view God as change? I'm not quite convinced, and the books try really hard to sell the reader on this. That said, I *could* see how her simple plain words could settle into people's consciousness, take root, and flower into something more -- importantly because they are combined with tangible action.
thewallner's review
Library loan was returned before I could finish. Plan to re-check out.
nvcdesi's review against another edition
5.0
Octavia Butler does it again. Absolutely brilliantly written. She weaves in so much cultural awareness and forethought into this beautiful narrative. Captivating, thrilling, and mind expanding.
Wonder what the world will look like during the apocalypse? Heads up, it’s probably not zombies & aliens or even nuclear war. Octavia will show you an image that is a mix of too clairvoyant for when she wrote it & just alien enough to our normal way of life to make you question how stable our society actually is.
Wonder what the world will look like during the apocalypse? Heads up, it’s probably not zombies & aliens or even nuclear war. Octavia will show you an image that is a mix of too clairvoyant for when she wrote it & just alien enough to our normal way of life to make you question how stable our society actually is.