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A review by the_gandy_man
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
2.75
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I mean it's fine. It's kinda boring at parts. The plot is pretty lame and the characters are just ok. The near-future dystopian world is interesting, but it feels pretty basic. The usually book did enough to keep me interested, but it rarely did more.
The whole hyper-empathy thing is weird. It feels out of place in an otherwise very grounded setting. If it were central to the story, like "what if near future dystopia but some people feel pain when others feel pain", then it would work better since it would be THE thing the book is making a point about. But it's treated as more of a side thing. Like we're gonna tell this very realistic story and then also make up a magic disease to make a side point about empathy.
I have mixed feelings about Earthseed. The idea of going to space as a sort of divine goal is really cool, afterlife through humanity living on and spreading across the stars. It feels too much like she's just atheist, and then assigning new words to fundamental truths that aren't notable or interesting. Like "God is change". No, change is change, you've just decided to call it God. The space thing is the only unique idea that actually gives Earthseed some merit in my opinion. The rest is just philosophical babble that doesn't really say anything. And so it's not especially convincing how willing people are to become her disciples.
The whole hyper-empathy thing is weird. It feels out of place in an otherwise very grounded setting. If it were central to the story, like "what if near future dystopia but some people feel pain when others feel pain", then it would work better since it would be THE thing the book is making a point about. But it's treated as more of a side thing. Like we're gonna tell this very realistic story and then also make up a magic disease to make a side point about empathy.
I have mixed feelings about Earthseed. The idea of going to space as a sort of divine goal is really cool, afterlife through humanity living on and spreading across the stars. It feels too much like she's just atheist, and then assigning new words to fundamental truths that aren't notable or interesting. Like "God is change". No, change is change, you've just decided to call it God. The space thing is the only unique idea that actually gives Earthseed some merit in my opinion. The rest is just philosophical babble that doesn't really say anything. And so it's not especially convincing how willing people are to become her disciples.