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Earthseed #1-2
Parable Series Collection 2 Books Set
Please Note That The Following Individual Books As Per Original ISBN and Cover Image In this Listing shall be Dispatched Parable Series Collection 2 Books Parable of the We are coming apart. We're a rope, breaking, a single strand at a time. America is a place of chaos, where violence rules and only the rich and powerful are safe. Lauren Olamina, a young woman with the extraordinary power to feel the pain of others as her own, records everything she sees of this broken world in her journal. Then, one terrible night, everything alters beyond recognition, and Lauren must make her voice heard for the sake of those she loves. Soon, her vision becomes reality and her dreams of a better way to live gain the power to change humanity forever. Parable of the In order for me to understand who I am, I must begin to understand who she was. Asha was born into a broken world. There are many things she needs to how her country could embrace a violent, far-right President promising to make America great again, why they turned a blind eye to the suffering - and the truth about her mother. In her journals, Lauren Olamina tells of a great love divided between her young daughter, her community and the revelation that led her to found a new faith that teaches 'God Is Change'.
720 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
1670 people are currently reading
5340 people want to read
About the author
Octavia E. Butler
103 books21.8k followersOctavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. She won both Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant.
After her father died, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. Extremely shy as a child, Octavia found an outlet at the library reading fantasy, and in writing. She began writing science fiction as a teenager. She attended community college during the Black Power movement, and while participating in a local writer's workshop was encouraged to attend the Clarion Workshop, which focused on science fiction.
She soon sold her first stories and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author that she was able to pursue writing full-time. Her books and short stories drew the favorable attention of the public and awards judges. She also taught writer's workshops, and eventually relocated to Washington state. Butler died of a stroke at the age of 58. Her papers are held in the research collection of the Huntington Library.
After her father died, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. Extremely shy as a child, Octavia found an outlet at the library reading fantasy, and in writing. She began writing science fiction as a teenager. She attended community college during the Black Power movement, and while participating in a local writer's workshop was encouraged to attend the Clarion Workshop, which focused on science fiction.
She soon sold her first stories and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author that she was able to pursue writing full-time. Her books and short stories drew the favorable attention of the public and awards judges. She also taught writer's workshops, and eventually relocated to Washington state. Butler died of a stroke at the age of 58. Her papers are held in the research collection of the Huntington Library.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 185 reviews
February 2, 2024
I don't know how I've made it through 53 years and not heard of this amazing author. Now that I've discovered her, it seems I may have some catching up to do. Earthseed is incredibly relevant to what's happening now. Even the President they elect has some of the same slogans as Trump. "Make America great again." I'm not sure what alternate America he and his supporters are from, but when has America ever been great? The concept of Earthseed as a way of life is astonishingly simple, and makes a great deal of sense. Olamina and her friends, family and community were some of the best characters I've ever read, and I know I'll be reading this book again in a year or so. I've already bought two other stories, which I'm looking forward to reading. Ms. Butler came up with an "end of the world as we know it," nightmare scenario. One which I could see happening. American christians in charge. Terrifying! Killing the poor, and homeless. Stealing children from families and enslaving anyone who's not up to par in their very biased opinions. Company owned towns, where the people work for scrips and eventually are owned by the companies. In the end it was about hope, and maybe starting over again on new planets. Seeding them with humans. Earthseed. This is one heck of a story that was scary and heartbreaking, and its also one that I'd recommend. Thanks to Open Road Media, and Netgalley for sending me an e-arc of this book.
6/2017
6/2017
August 12, 2018
There are two books in this set so I'm going to split up my review for each so anyone who doesn't want spoilers can stop reading after the first book's section because I don't think I can talk about the second one without giving things away.
The first book the Parable of the Sower follows Lauren the oldest child and only girl in a family of five living in a society degenerating in the near future. Socioeconomic, political, and environmental factors all come together to cause financial problems as well as shortage of resources and high crime. There are limited jobs that actually pay and most people are poor. Even though they're not rich Lauren's family is well off to live in a walled of neighborhood where her father is a preacher and her step mother a teacher. Regardless of her religious upbringing Lauren is constantly question what God actually is and eventually the answers to her questions form the beginnings of Earthseed, a personal belief system. Lauren also tries to steal herself for coming doom because she can't help but know that the safety of their neighborhood can't last and one day when drug users called Pyros who get off on setting fire set up the neighborhood in flames her preparation seems to pay off.
I really really enjoyed this the first book I would definitely give 5 stars. The world is so well developed and I got pulled in by how believable the story was. Butler clearly put a lot of time into the details and it paid off. I also loved Lauren and all the characters are well developed. I know a lot of people here want to read books with more PoC well a lot of the characters in this book are either Black or Latino. Literally 3/4ths are probably PoC and the story is well written with complex characters so here's a good option for those looking for more diversity.
I also found the whole earthseed ideology super fascinating, but only in the first one which I will explain later. The idea of 'God' being change and not worshiping god but shaping it to benefit you and anticipating change and using it to grow and improve is really cool to me. I like the autonomy it gives and I love the way it relates to my own experiences even if it's just a fictional belief system. It really added to the whole story to weave that in with everything going on around Lauren. Definitely one of my favorite books.
The second book follows Lauren and Bankole’s daughter, Asha, who is taken away after an extremist is elected president and his followers take over earthseed, breaking it up and taking away the children to be raised away from their heathen parents. The story alternates between Asha's telling her story and Lauren telling hers to detail what happened after Acorn, the earthseed community, is taken over. It follows Lauren as she's held up to her escape and her search for her daughter and her urge to continue to spread the message of earthseed.
The second book was just as well written but it felt much messier and less enjoyable for me personally. I would say if I rated it separately it be at 3.5 stars. The constant switching of POV didn't do it for me, especially the two passages in POVs that weren't Lauren's or Asha's. It felt unnecessary. Also I didn't sympathize with Asha at all, I kept thinking like what a bitch, Lauren did try her best to find her and bringing about change in the world isn't easy but someone has to do it don't resent her for trying to make things better. I didn't like reading about the people at acorn being held and abused either and I know it's important social commentary but I just never enjoy reading about people being in awful painful situations and unlike in the first one there wasn't as much hope or purpose to it. It just didn't appeal to me but I can see why people would like it, I think maybe I just like softer discussions about abstract ideas not ones illustrated through harsh consequences even when its fictional.
The first book the Parable of the Sower follows Lauren the oldest child and only girl in a family of five living in a society degenerating in the near future. Socioeconomic, political, and environmental factors all come together to cause financial problems as well as shortage of resources and high crime. There are limited jobs that actually pay and most people are poor. Even though they're not rich Lauren's family is well off to live in a walled of neighborhood where her father is a preacher and her step mother a teacher. Regardless of her religious upbringing Lauren is constantly question what God actually is and eventually the answers to her questions form the beginnings of Earthseed, a personal belief system. Lauren also tries to steal herself for coming doom because she can't help but know that the safety of their neighborhood can't last and one day when drug users called Pyros who get off on setting fire set up the neighborhood in flames her preparation seems to pay off.
I really really enjoyed this the first book I would definitely give 5 stars. The world is so well developed and I got pulled in by how believable the story was. Butler clearly put a lot of time into the details and it paid off. I also loved Lauren and all the characters are well developed. I know a lot of people here want to read books with more PoC well a lot of the characters in this book are either Black or Latino. Literally 3/4ths are probably PoC and the story is well written with complex characters so here's a good option for those looking for more diversity.
I also found the whole earthseed ideology super fascinating, but only in the first one which I will explain later. The idea of 'God' being change and not worshiping god but shaping it to benefit you and anticipating change and using it to grow and improve is really cool to me. I like the autonomy it gives and I love the way it relates to my own experiences even if it's just a fictional belief system. It really added to the whole story to weave that in with everything going on around Lauren. Definitely one of my favorite books.
The second book follows Lauren and Bankole’s daughter, Asha, who is taken away after an extremist is elected president and his followers take over earthseed, breaking it up and taking away the children to be raised away from their heathen parents. The story alternates between Asha's telling her story and Lauren telling hers to detail what happened after Acorn, the earthseed community, is taken over. It follows Lauren as she's held up to her escape and her search for her daughter and her urge to continue to spread the message of earthseed.
The second book was just as well written but it felt much messier and less enjoyable for me personally. I would say if I rated it separately it be at 3.5 stars. The constant switching of POV didn't do it for me, especially the two passages in POVs that weren't Lauren's or Asha's. It felt unnecessary. Also I didn't sympathize with Asha at all, I kept thinking like what a bitch, Lauren did try her best to find her and bringing about change in the world isn't easy but someone has to do it don't resent her for trying to make things better. I didn't like reading about the people at acorn being held and abused either and I know it's important social commentary but I just never enjoy reading about people being in awful painful situations and unlike in the first one there wasn't as much hope or purpose to it. It just didn't appeal to me but I can see why people would like it, I think maybe I just like softer discussions about abstract ideas not ones illustrated through harsh consequences even when its fictional.
September 28, 2017
These books wrecked me. As one of my friends said, "They are so prophetic of the times we're living through now, I can't make myself re-read them."
Yes, that. Chilling, nauseating, hopeful, crushing, thoughtful, miserable, uplifting... I am totally in awe of Butler. This writing would be enough were it merely this human, but the way she sees what is going on *right now* verges on the psychic.
They are a must-read, but they are not an easy or simple read. I couldn't read them before bed; I had to find times to sit in the bright sunlight to ward off the chill that reading them brought.
I only hope she's more wrong than she appears to have been, so far.
Yes, that. Chilling, nauseating, hopeful, crushing, thoughtful, miserable, uplifting... I am totally in awe of Butler. This writing would be enough were it merely this human, but the way she sees what is going on *right now* verges on the psychic.
They are a must-read, but they are not an easy or simple read. I couldn't read them before bed; I had to find times to sit in the bright sunlight to ward off the chill that reading them brought.
I only hope she's more wrong than she appears to have been, so far.
October 11, 2021
Wow. What a reread. I wasn't ready, I suppose, when I first read these books back around 10 years ago, in 2011 or 2012. They did move me, but after another 10 years of experiencing enough denial, enough of people simply refusing to believe the truth, now I can see this book very differently, particularly Parable of the Talents.
And now, having written two more books, I can see the process that Olamina went through to build a seed, and the need for a major difficult goal and a plan to get there.
That's what I've been working on intensively over the last year, but actually since about 2009 pondering the ideas.
This book, and the three movements that it spawned, have given me hope that my own book, that lays out a plan for kind of society in about 60 to 80 years, is possible. Education and adaptability are both possible.
And empathy, even too much empathy, is not a bad thing.
Thank you to our prophet, to Octavia butler.
And now, having written two more books, I can see the process that Olamina went through to build a seed, and the need for a major difficult goal and a plan to get there.
That's what I've been working on intensively over the last year, but actually since about 2009 pondering the ideas.
This book, and the three movements that it spawned, have given me hope that my own book, that lays out a plan for kind of society in about 60 to 80 years, is possible. Education and adaptability are both possible.
And empathy, even too much empathy, is not a bad thing.
Thank you to our prophet, to Octavia butler.
September 14, 2018
This is a two-book set: Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. The books are scary as hell and not in a horror book sort of way but in a “this could really happen” scary kind of way. Butler paints a bleak near-future America where climate change, economic collapse, societal collapse causes a global apocalypse. At times there is hope but along the way horrific events happen to people in their struggle. I am running through the gamut of emotions after reading this. One of the best post-apocalyptic books I have read. It makes you think.
January 17, 2025
One of my favorites ❤️
May 15, 2012
It's hard to rate/review an omnibus edition like this, particularly when it contains a duology and an unrelated work. All three are good works, and taken together, I'd call this a strong 4-star book.
Parable of the Sower paints a realistic and frightening picture of a collapsing American society and, aside from the pseudo-religious aspects, is quite good. By itself, I would rate Parable of the Sower a strong 4 stars.
Parable of the Talents is fair, but the longer timeframe detracts from the story a bit. By itself, I would rate Parable of the Talents 3 stars.
Kindred, the stand-alone work in this volume, is the highlight of the compilation, and a truly outstanding novel. By itself, I would rate Kindred 5 stars.
Parable of the Sower paints a realistic and frightening picture of a collapsing American society and, aside from the pseudo-religious aspects, is quite good. By itself, I would rate Parable of the Sower a strong 4 stars.
Parable of the Talents is fair, but the longer timeframe detracts from the story a bit. By itself, I would rate Parable of the Talents 3 stars.
Kindred, the stand-alone work in this volume, is the highlight of the compilation, and a truly outstanding novel. By itself, I would rate Kindred 5 stars.
December 7, 2020
This is my second read of the novel (I'm teaching it this semester) and I'll admit that it's more terrifying than the first time I read it. Butler is THE master of the dystopian novel, period.
September 27, 2018
Brilliant and way ahead of her time
As an avid reader of sci fi, I was immediately engaged and willing to read EVERYTHING Ms. Butler wrote while in high school. She shares a perspective of humanity that includes people who look like me!! I am so grateful to her and appreciate her sharing her gift much like Olamina shared Earthseed. And with the state of this country right now, she has given me hope that humanity will one day reach adulthood...
As an avid reader of sci fi, I was immediately engaged and willing to read EVERYTHING Ms. Butler wrote while in high school. She shares a perspective of humanity that includes people who look like me!! I am so grateful to her and appreciate her sharing her gift much like Olamina shared Earthseed. And with the state of this country right now, she has given me hope that humanity will one day reach adulthood...
December 24, 2018
Blew my mind! Why did I just hear of Octavia Butler? Her writing is what I've been looking for these last few years of reading meh sci-fi. And she wrote this in what 1993? Wrote of a terrible tyrannous candidate for president who ran on the platform "make America great again". That's a direct quote from the book...she wrote it and saw it more than twenty years before it happened.
March 31, 2021
Reviews written individually under Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents
June 24, 2024
1) "All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
God Is Change.
EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING"
2) "For whatever it's worth, here's what I believe. It took me a lot of time to understand it, then a lot more time with a dictionary and a thesaurus to say it just right—just the way it has to be. In the past year, it's gone through twenty-five or thirty lumpy, incoherent rewrites. This is the right one, the true one. This is the one I keep coming back to:
God is Power—
Infinite,
Irresistible,
Inexorable,
Indifferent.
And yet, God is Pliable—
Trickster,
Teacher,
Chaos,
Clay.
God exists to be shaped.
God is Change.
This is the literal truth."
3) "Sometimes naming a thing—giving it a name or discovering its name—helps one to begin to understand it. Knowing the name of a thing and knowing what that thing is for gives me even more of a handle on it. The particular God-is-Change belief system that seems right to me will be called Earthseed. I've tried to name it before. Failing that, I've tried to leave it unnamed. Neither effort has made me comfortable. Name plus purpose equals focus for me. Well, today, I found the name, found it while I was weeding the back garden and thinking about the way plants seed themselves, windborne, animalborne, waterborne, far from their parent plants. They have no ability at all to travel great distances under their own power, and yet, they do travel. Even they don't have to just sit in one place and wait to be wiped out. There are islands thousands of miles from anywhere—the Hawaiian Islands, for example, and Easter Island—where plants seeded themselves and grew long before any humans arrived.
Earthseed.
I am Earthseed. Anyone can be. Someday, I think there will be a lot of us. And I think we'll have to seed ourselves farther and farther from this dying place."
4) "I have read that the period of upheaval that journalists have begun to refer to as 'the Apocalypse' or more commonly, more bitterly, 'the Pox' lasted from 2015 through 2030—a decade and a half of chaos. This is untrue. The Pox has been a much longer torment. It began well before 2015, perhaps even before the turn of the millennium. It has not ended."
5) "Jarret condemns the burnings, but does so in such mild language that his people are free to hear what they want to hear. As for the beatings, the tarring and feathering, and the destruction of 'heathen houses of devil-worship,' he has a simple answer: 'Join us! Our doors are open to every nationality, every race! Leave your sinful past behind, and become one of us. Help us to make America great again.'"
6) "Partnership is giving, taking, learning, teaching, offering the greatest possible benefit while doing the least possible harm. Partnership is mutualistic symbiosis. Partnership is life.
Any entity, any process that cannot or should not be resisted or avoided must somehow be partnered. Partner one another. Partner diverse communities. Partner life. Partner any world that is your home. Partner God. Only in partnership can we thrive, grow, Change. Only in partnership can we live."
7) "'We need the stars, Bankole. We need purpose! We need the image the Destiny gives us of ourselves as a growing, purposeful species. We need to become the adult species that the Destiny can help us become! If we're to be anything other than smooth dinosaurs who evolve, specialize, and die, we need the stars. That's why the Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars. I know you don't want to hear verses right now, but that one is... a major key to us, to human beings, I mean. When we have no difficult, long-term purpose to strive toward, we fight each other. We destroy ourselves. We have these chaotic, apocalyptic periods of murderous craziness.'"
8) "Dreamasks—also known as head cages, dream books, or simply, Masks—were new then, and were beginning to edge out some of the virtual-reality stuff. Even the early ones were cheap—big ski-mask-like devices with goggles over the eyes. Wearing them made people look not-quite-human. But the masks made computer-stimulated and guided dreams available to the public, and people loved them. Dreamasks were related to old-fashioned lie detectors, to slave collars, and to a frighteningly efficient form of audiovisual subliminal suggestion. In spite of the way they looked, Dreamasks were lightweight, clothlike, and comfortable. Each one offered wearers a whole series of adventures in which they could identify with any of several characters. They could live their character's fictional life complete with realistic sensation. They could submerge themselves in other, simpler, happier lives. The poor could enjoy the illusion of wealth, the ugly could be beautiful, the sick could be healthy, the timid could be bold..."
9) "'I wonder whether it was your abduction that made your father give up on Jarret.'
'Give up on him?'
'On him and on the United States. He's left the country, after all.'
After a moment, she nodded. 'Yes. Although I'm still having trouble thinking of Alaska as a foreign country. I guess that should be easy now, since the war. But it doesn't matter. None of this matters. I mean, those people—that man and his kids who you just fed—they matter, but no one cares about them. Those kids are the future if they don't starve to death. But if they manage to grow up, what kind of men will they be?'
'That's what Earthseed was about,' I said. 'I wanted us to understand what we could be, what we could do. I wanted to give us a focus, a goal, something big enough, complex enough, difficult enough, and in the end, radical enough to make us become more than we ever have been. We keep falling into the same ditches, you know? I mean, we learn more and more about the physical universe, more about our own bodies, more technology, but somehow, down through history, we go on building empires of one kind or another, then destroying them in one way or another. We go on having stupid wars that we justify and get passionate about, but in the end, all they do is kill huge numbers of people, maim others, impoverish still more, spread disease and hunger, and set the stage for the next war. And when we look at all of that in history, we just shrug our shoulders and say, well, that's the way things are. That's the way things always have been.'
'It is,' Len said.
'It is,' I repeated. 'There seem to be solid biological reasons why we are the way we are. If there weren't, the cycles wouldn't keep replaying. The human species is a kind of animal, of course. But we can do something no other animal species has ever had the option to do. We can choose: We can go on building and destroying until we either destroy ourselves or destroy the ability of our world to sustain us. Or we can make something more of ourselves. We can grow up. We can leave the nest. We can fulfill the Destiny, make homes for ourselves among the stars, and become some combination of what we want to become and whatever our new environments challenge us to become. Our new worlds will remake us as we remake them. And some of the new people who emerge from all this will develop new ways to cope. They'll have to. That will break the old cycle, even if it's only to begin a new one, a different one.
'Earthseed is about preparing to fulfill the Destiny. It's about learning to live in partnership with one another in small communities, and at the same time, working out a sustainable partnership with our environment. It's about treating education and adaptability as the absolute essentials that they are. It's...' I glanced at Len, caught a little smile on her face, and wound down. 'It's about a lot more than that,' I said. 'But those are the bones.'"
10) "To survive,
Know the past.
Let it touch you.
Then let
The past Go."
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
God Is Change.
EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING"
2) "For whatever it's worth, here's what I believe. It took me a lot of time to understand it, then a lot more time with a dictionary and a thesaurus to say it just right—just the way it has to be. In the past year, it's gone through twenty-five or thirty lumpy, incoherent rewrites. This is the right one, the true one. This is the one I keep coming back to:
God is Power—
Infinite,
Irresistible,
Inexorable,
Indifferent.
And yet, God is Pliable—
Trickster,
Teacher,
Chaos,
Clay.
God exists to be shaped.
God is Change.
This is the literal truth."
3) "Sometimes naming a thing—giving it a name or discovering its name—helps one to begin to understand it. Knowing the name of a thing and knowing what that thing is for gives me even more of a handle on it. The particular God-is-Change belief system that seems right to me will be called Earthseed. I've tried to name it before. Failing that, I've tried to leave it unnamed. Neither effort has made me comfortable. Name plus purpose equals focus for me. Well, today, I found the name, found it while I was weeding the back garden and thinking about the way plants seed themselves, windborne, animalborne, waterborne, far from their parent plants. They have no ability at all to travel great distances under their own power, and yet, they do travel. Even they don't have to just sit in one place and wait to be wiped out. There are islands thousands of miles from anywhere—the Hawaiian Islands, for example, and Easter Island—where plants seeded themselves and grew long before any humans arrived.
Earthseed.
I am Earthseed. Anyone can be. Someday, I think there will be a lot of us. And I think we'll have to seed ourselves farther and farther from this dying place."
4) "I have read that the period of upheaval that journalists have begun to refer to as 'the Apocalypse' or more commonly, more bitterly, 'the Pox' lasted from 2015 through 2030—a decade and a half of chaos. This is untrue. The Pox has been a much longer torment. It began well before 2015, perhaps even before the turn of the millennium. It has not ended."
5) "Jarret condemns the burnings, but does so in such mild language that his people are free to hear what they want to hear. As for the beatings, the tarring and feathering, and the destruction of 'heathen houses of devil-worship,' he has a simple answer: 'Join us! Our doors are open to every nationality, every race! Leave your sinful past behind, and become one of us. Help us to make America great again.'"
6) "Partnership is giving, taking, learning, teaching, offering the greatest possible benefit while doing the least possible harm. Partnership is mutualistic symbiosis. Partnership is life.
Any entity, any process that cannot or should not be resisted or avoided must somehow be partnered. Partner one another. Partner diverse communities. Partner life. Partner any world that is your home. Partner God. Only in partnership can we thrive, grow, Change. Only in partnership can we live."
7) "'We need the stars, Bankole. We need purpose! We need the image the Destiny gives us of ourselves as a growing, purposeful species. We need to become the adult species that the Destiny can help us become! If we're to be anything other than smooth dinosaurs who evolve, specialize, and die, we need the stars. That's why the Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars. I know you don't want to hear verses right now, but that one is... a major key to us, to human beings, I mean. When we have no difficult, long-term purpose to strive toward, we fight each other. We destroy ourselves. We have these chaotic, apocalyptic periods of murderous craziness.'"
8) "Dreamasks—also known as head cages, dream books, or simply, Masks—were new then, and were beginning to edge out some of the virtual-reality stuff. Even the early ones were cheap—big ski-mask-like devices with goggles over the eyes. Wearing them made people look not-quite-human. But the masks made computer-stimulated and guided dreams available to the public, and people loved them. Dreamasks were related to old-fashioned lie detectors, to slave collars, and to a frighteningly efficient form of audiovisual subliminal suggestion. In spite of the way they looked, Dreamasks were lightweight, clothlike, and comfortable. Each one offered wearers a whole series of adventures in which they could identify with any of several characters. They could live their character's fictional life complete with realistic sensation. They could submerge themselves in other, simpler, happier lives. The poor could enjoy the illusion of wealth, the ugly could be beautiful, the sick could be healthy, the timid could be bold..."
9) "'I wonder whether it was your abduction that made your father give up on Jarret.'
'Give up on him?'
'On him and on the United States. He's left the country, after all.'
After a moment, she nodded. 'Yes. Although I'm still having trouble thinking of Alaska as a foreign country. I guess that should be easy now, since the war. But it doesn't matter. None of this matters. I mean, those people—that man and his kids who you just fed—they matter, but no one cares about them. Those kids are the future if they don't starve to death. But if they manage to grow up, what kind of men will they be?'
'That's what Earthseed was about,' I said. 'I wanted us to understand what we could be, what we could do. I wanted to give us a focus, a goal, something big enough, complex enough, difficult enough, and in the end, radical enough to make us become more than we ever have been. We keep falling into the same ditches, you know? I mean, we learn more and more about the physical universe, more about our own bodies, more technology, but somehow, down through history, we go on building empires of one kind or another, then destroying them in one way or another. We go on having stupid wars that we justify and get passionate about, but in the end, all they do is kill huge numbers of people, maim others, impoverish still more, spread disease and hunger, and set the stage for the next war. And when we look at all of that in history, we just shrug our shoulders and say, well, that's the way things are. That's the way things always have been.'
'It is,' Len said.
'It is,' I repeated. 'There seem to be solid biological reasons why we are the way we are. If there weren't, the cycles wouldn't keep replaying. The human species is a kind of animal, of course. But we can do something no other animal species has ever had the option to do. We can choose: We can go on building and destroying until we either destroy ourselves or destroy the ability of our world to sustain us. Or we can make something more of ourselves. We can grow up. We can leave the nest. We can fulfill the Destiny, make homes for ourselves among the stars, and become some combination of what we want to become and whatever our new environments challenge us to become. Our new worlds will remake us as we remake them. And some of the new people who emerge from all this will develop new ways to cope. They'll have to. That will break the old cycle, even if it's only to begin a new one, a different one.
'Earthseed is about preparing to fulfill the Destiny. It's about learning to live in partnership with one another in small communities, and at the same time, working out a sustainable partnership with our environment. It's about treating education and adaptability as the absolute essentials that they are. It's...' I glanced at Len, caught a little smile on her face, and wound down. 'It's about a lot more than that,' I said. 'But those are the bones.'"
10) "To survive,
Know the past.
Let it touch you.
Then let
The past Go."
June 17, 2017
I remember reading this before, in 2 separate books, and wishing I hadn't read the second, but that was as a young adult. Book I was about hope, somewhat uplifting, while book II showed the struggle, setbacks and complications. I didn't want to think about the complications; I wanted a simpler happy ending. Now I'm older, I can appreciate the increased realism. It certainly isn't as fun, nor as easy, but it resonates at a different level.
Parable of the Sower is set in the United States in the near future, 2024, a nation slowly crumbling. It's no longer safe to go outside enclosed communities, dangerous drugs are now rampant, and life seems more like survival rather than progress. Lauren Oya Olamina is a relatively normal teenager, but her questioning leads her to build, or discover, a new life philosophy she calls "Earthseed", one that offers hope. But if she wants to develop Earthseed farther, she risks everything she knows and has, including her own life.
Parable of the Talents takes the story one step further, and is told from journals of different people. Some are from the future, looking back at older journals, giving a sense of foreboding: we know what will happen, but must watch to see how. History repeats itself; political leaders rise and fall, and communities or nations rise and fall with them.
It's impossible to read this and not consider your own beliefs. Olamina doesn't follow any established religion, making Earthseed almost more of a cult, though it is a more benevolent one. Much of Earthseed is consistent with many other tenets of faith: build a community, live together harmoniously, be the best you can be. Olamina's dream takes it past that though. The scary part of Talents is because most people - if honest - will have to question their own likely position: What would I do? What would I say? Would I act, or watch? Would I stay, or would I flee? Some of those cannot be answered, but I hope that in preconsidering, I would make better choices now.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Parable of the Sower is set in the United States in the near future, 2024, a nation slowly crumbling. It's no longer safe to go outside enclosed communities, dangerous drugs are now rampant, and life seems more like survival rather than progress. Lauren Oya Olamina is a relatively normal teenager, but her questioning leads her to build, or discover, a new life philosophy she calls "Earthseed", one that offers hope. But if she wants to develop Earthseed farther, she risks everything she knows and has, including her own life.
Parable of the Talents takes the story one step further, and is told from journals of different people. Some are from the future, looking back at older journals, giving a sense of foreboding: we know what will happen, but must watch to see how. History repeats itself; political leaders rise and fall, and communities or nations rise and fall with them.
It's impossible to read this and not consider your own beliefs. Olamina doesn't follow any established religion, making Earthseed almost more of a cult, though it is a more benevolent one. Much of Earthseed is consistent with many other tenets of faith: build a community, live together harmoniously, be the best you can be. Olamina's dream takes it past that though. The scary part of Talents is because most people - if honest - will have to question their own likely position: What would I do? What would I say? Would I act, or watch? Would I stay, or would I flee? Some of those cannot be answered, but I hope that in preconsidering, I would make better choices now.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
January 6, 2021
Profoundly Human
I had difficulty reading this series. It struck me on a deeply visceral level, especially in light of the incredibly prescient parallels between events in the book and our current political climate. It is unsettling, painful, and raw, but it is deeply human. In that lies its terrible beauty and its necessity.
I had difficulty reading this series. It struck me on a deeply visceral level, especially in light of the incredibly prescient parallels between events in the book and our current political climate. It is unsettling, painful, and raw, but it is deeply human. In that lies its terrible beauty and its necessity.
October 16, 2009
This book was way before it time. It painted a bleak picture of our future as human beings. However, it also showed that friendship, love and trust are key to our survival and that no one can survive this life alone.
September 6, 2021
Buying the box set of these novels, parts one and two, found they also have a Goodreads review option.
Rather than do an individual review gathered both individual summary opinions here. Meaning it'll belong. Hopefully not boring. Even interesting because of the references to other books and ideas this series brought up for me during reading.
For anyone who wants to see either book separately:
Part one 👇🏼
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...
Part two 👇🏼
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
Or check out my Goodreads reading challenge to find my reviews quicker 👇🏼
https://www.goodreads.com/user_challe...
Part one👇🏼
Parable of the Sower doesn't disappoint. Set in the future from her time, but within reach had the author not passed away February 24, 2006, fiction by Octavia Butler.
The way the world looks lately seems compost for fiction made a reality within the now near future to the original writing speaking of life leading toward the later 2020s.
Current history is only recently in the past at this point. As near as I can understand based on the writing, if we lived in such a time, the world would have already suffered these events. Would be within the context of recent memories ourselves lived. Still alive when this takes place.
Every book read by Ms. Butler is another marvel of literature, to me. I’m very excited to begin Parable of the Talents following this review.
The hardback set is arriving today. Often when a book captivates me buy the print version. Preferable the first edition. Often former library books are well kept making them my favorite score. Plus, enjoy seeing the history of stamp borrows if it’s predating digital take over of Dewey Decimal.
For you younger folk, that’s library speak for card catalogs used back in the day to look up books in person at the library.
The librarian stamps the book with the date required for return or borrowed. Can’t recollect which it’s been so long.
Reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. No spoilers from me. If you’ve read this you know what horrific consequences follow societal collapse.
What fascinates me most is Earthseed: Books of the Living in part described within, “stumbling across the truth isn’t the same as making things up”.
Overdrive app description tells the core meaning so well, “God is change. That is the central truth of the Earthseed movement, whose unlikely prophet is 18-year-old Lauren Olamina.
The young woman's diary entries tell the story of her life amid a violent 21st-century hell of walled neighborhoods and drug-crazed pyromaniacs—and reveal her evolving Earthseed philosophy.
Against a backdrop of horror emerges a message of hope: if we are willing to embrace divine change, we will survive to fulfill our destiny among the stars.
Narrator Lynne Thigpen's melodious voice will hold you spellbound throughout this compelling parable of modern society.”
What struck me as most sorrowful, isn’t the way people act in regards to survival. But, forms of slavery and racism flourish within newly forged societal constructs that feel so hopeless as the world is on its ledge before the drop off into an abyss. People fear this more than agreeing to indentured or forced labor.
Bias from gender to color is rampant. Women posing as men to be a safe become necessity if possible.
All this gloom drives toward creating a place of Hope.
Having watched enough Walking Dead via various series or reading books like Max Brooks’ World War Z and Colson Whitehead’s Zone One plus McCarthy see hope as the only light. Although dimly lit.
As a believer in “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” as a means of faith and having studied the health of the diseased who live and overcome the odds all lie within this notion.
Studying Ms. Butler’s journals as an author know this is a theme she lives by. As a result, what she believed comes true in terms of her notoriety and belief in the quality of her work.
I’m very glad to have discovered this book in a reference on a tweet. Even happier the library has parts one and two. Of which I’m about to embark upon concluding this review.
Oftentimes do not only share a slice of the book is noted. If you like it so much often enjoy sharing other books resonating with similar feelings.
For children’s reviews add activity suggestions and theme options.
If you’re into fiction, end times, and apocalyptic happenstance with a possible hopeful result despite death, horrific gross nasty inclusions not for the faint of heart … me remembering the first time reading The Road with my son on audio.
When they ate a baby turned the book off. We needed to pause. Mortified of reality these people endured struggling through.
Highly recommend that book. The movie can’t come close to the justice of this epic journey of a boy and his father through the world toward Hope itself.
If you like this type of theme you will be sucked into Parable of the Sower as much.
This is definitely a 5 star for me. If you’re into non-stop anticipation with little relief this is definitely one for your reading list as soon as possible
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💯
Part two👇🏼
Not sure what exactly qualifies as a spoiler alert. I'm gonna share a few hints while describing my view, but do not quote sections.
I do share a strong sense of comparison in this story to my point of view of America as a veteran, anti-racist, and patriot though don't confuse me for an extremist who believes patriotism is a means of destruction, murder, or all that stuff I've seen people twist it to embrace.
Though, will remark in this novel the distortions of political and religious idolatry for self-aggrandizement are blatantly obvious to me.
The word patriotic means service and support to America and all it embolden including many faith practices and cultures.
As a veteran see myself as a patriot of service to you my fellow citizens. Not as a means of destruction we've seen to people places and things. But a means of building a nation that emboldens each of us to be our best for ourselves, friends, family, and the collective we call America.
If you read the review this might include a few highlights that hint at plot twists and situations that will either excite or maybe feel an Easter egg, or relevant hint is given away.
Overall I hope it encourages reading and creative thought about our world and what we can do to support the change we wish to see in the world as Gandhi encourages.
In Parable of the Talents (part two following Parable of the Sower) Octavia Butler writes about our future in a way I wouldn't have believed is fiction after the last half dozen years and previous two elections.
This story reminds me of Nostradamus predictions. References of the future were within his scope of understanding, but the comparisons of many staggeringly accurate by some opinions.
Ms. Butler’s references to a presidential candidate who burns witches at the stake could be metaphoric following the last two elections and divisiveness in America for what's happening within the divide.
From conspiracy theories at a level of action not just belief like the days of who killed Kenedy and are there aliens at Area 51.
People in 2020 today storm the American capital believing in a mysterious letter individual defined as the all knowing yet details have not come to pass. Not before people died on January 6th.
While listening to Chapter five it's difficult not to compare the similarities in character traits of Butler’s fictional president and system of the time with reality in recent times.
Strangely enough both periods are on the same timeline as we are currently living weirdly enough.
This story is written in years we have lived that was the author's future is now comparable to the immediate times in case you hadn’t read and are wondering of their comparison.
Extremists within the narrative reminded me of mass lynchings of Italians in the first quarter of the 1900s.
The governor of Louisiana who eventually became a senator organized the largest mass lynching in American history and everyone right up to the Whitehouse turned a blind eye and eventually when it was convenient converted Italians from beneath ‘negros’ to white European to further continue the suppression of people of color. Especially black Americans. Though if you are Irish, Jewish, Catholic, or any number of light-skinned dwellers within the American border are subjected to hate continuing through today.
This novel brings all these shameful arrogant subjective white America only if you're a certain kinda Christian narrative up within the journey through this fictional community of pain and suffering from as we learn Christian extremists.
While wholeheartedly being supported by knowledgeable or distorted mass social agreement and disbelief omission from the majority.
Though these extremists easily blend in and out of the mainstream. Raping and murder in the name of their god... of their imagination. Then going home to the rest of the world. Living secret lives out in the open.
My new phrase, moral blindness is the belief in something so much despite seeing the truth don't turn a cheek. Stair at the truth with subjective blindness to the obvious for fear of your own inner agreements will corrupt the narrative and disrupt the safety of your world. To hell with everyone else as long as the observer gets to keep their own piece of psuedo peace.
Idolatry is a word that comes to mind though in their own way defending righteousness pervert wickedly.
The main character who typically is referenced by her last name Olamina mentions being on tour toward the very end of the book and stopping in Iowa City, Iowa close to where I happen to be at the moment. I was like “wow, of all the places she picked. I'd definitely of bought a ticket.” :)
Other books have had similar connections to my location, like The Lovely Bones. As I listen on audio here the name of the town I was living in Pennsylvania as the place the girl was kidnapped and murdered.
Check out a copy 👇🏼
https://amzn.to/3yNQNzo
In Stephen King’s Later was happily surprised to be in my home turf of NYC and upstate throughout the story.
For a copy check out the Overdrive or Libby app or 👇🏼
https://amzn.to/3jQnSGF
These types of connections cause a side effect of reality within fiction that grabs my attention a little deeper because I'm already in those places and familiar with the landscape.
Another topographical connection to this and book one, Parable of the Sower, is my sister lives in the area where a large portion of this continuous story takes place, Eureka, California, and the surrounding areas.
Considering the first book PotS begins by stating 2024 and I soon find out the main character is born in 2009 feels an invitation to compare the real world with fiction.
Hauntingly note we are not as overcome in America today as this two-part tale outwardly. But, the undercurrent of metaphor and reality holds some truth.
Privately for me can only control my environment and life to a point, but within this do what I'm able to make a difference not just locally, but globally.
I think if nothing else the main character demonstrates when a collective of people arrive together to make the world a better place it only takes one person to lead and set the tone.
This can be true for hurtful people, as well. Both exist within the story. One prevails when for a time there doesn't appear to be away.
One topic that came up for me in regards to anti-racism or taking action against harming people of color is the strong sense of injustice that contributes to the tone of this incredible work of literary art, to me.
Over my studies and research of man's inhumanity to man in America, in particular, have discovered a pattern of behavior that's been around for hundreds of year's though only newly revealed during my literary journey and a book club review with a church earlier this year about racism and Christianity held by a multicultural church locally.
I've struggled with manipulation of Christianity bad actors and the personal descriptions of slaves like Frederick Douglas or those mentioned in Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This is Our Song plus the two-part PBS series named the same which I highly recommend.
Christian slave owners were the worst Mr. Douglas describes and why.
PDF of Fredrick Douglas’s autobiography 👇🏼
https://resources.saylor.org/wwwresou...
Or, facts of church history, such as, slave owners change the bible to suit their captivity of humans for financial gain to deter people from learning God freed slaves fearing revolt.
Mr. Gate’s book 👇🏼
https://amzn.to/3yQa3w7
Considering all this and more am very much on the side of Lauren Oya Olamina and could see myself joining Earthseed.
I think for me of all the sad parts, and there are many, Lauren’s daughter Larken being taken by Christian America. Then given for adoption illegally. Eventually by the brother who Lauren saves from contemporary enslavement, Mark, does zero to inform Lauren Larken is found at three years old and alive for all those years... This part of the story compelled me to experience pain right along with the character.
Toward the end of the book, America is aware of the atrocities and yet still Larken was known by her adopted name following in her thirties finding a way to meet her mother, despite being lied to she is dead by her uncle is so indoctrinated to fear and hate doesn't ever connect in a way that opens complete healing for all.
So much pain, sorrow, and hope.
I wonder if the daughter hadn't been taken and given to a family in the name of indoctrination of Christian America would Earthseed have had the focus of Olamina?
In a way, it appears this was a fitting ending. Looking back, the new world was better with this blossoming community and the evil president's ways who has long since been beaten by a new presidents were faded and the truth of the rapes, murders, and slave camps to indoctrinate were revealed.
I'm glad at least the mother and daughter had the chance to reunite. But that Earthseed became what it is designed to be by faith in God and the expansion of who he is to this ever-growing community.
To me, Christianity is a man-made community, just like Earthseed. God would dwell where all he is breathes life for principles of love and peace to flourish creatively.
So many fictional parallels and metaphors to our world today we're crazy fun to compare.
This two part series was fun to discover following the last half dozen years politically, socially, and what I've witnessed from a faith perspective as a Christian.
I've been saddened by the violence and so many disturbing things people have done within the hypocrisy of their beliefs in America.
A saying many years ago I coined, church is for hypocrites. They need someplace to go cause nobody else wants them around :)
I very much enjoyed this book. Ms. Butler's vision and creative fiction amazes, inspires, and encourages me to think in new fictitious ways as a writer.
Besides borrowing book one and this, book two from the library on the Overdrive app bought the hardbound box set for my shelf to enjoy and read through again.
Box set available here. Though, there are no more new hardcover copies 👇🏼
https://amzn.to/2WSjs9C
The hardback first editions are way outta my price range. But this box set is a joy for continuous enjoyment and to add to the heirloom collection of books being collected to pass down to future generations.
My next OB novel is Dawn. Scored a first edition hardcover with dust jacket is a prime condition from abebooks.com. The library carried all copies of her work because its easier to listen to audio or kindle audio. Though, with Speechify can convert print to text.
Mentioning these tips if you are a bibliophile, too. Ideas to find books you love the library might not have, but you want to read. And, ways to listen in case you're a slow steady reader like me.
I find audio a favorite way to get lost in a story while doing a project. Plus, I'm able to consume more literature. Another bonus is as a native New Yorker finds enjoyment from books where the storyteller is talking fast like someone from the city where I grew up in Brooklyn.
One of my escorts on road trips is Stephen King novels at 2.5 % faster speed. Super intense on the edge of my seat enjoyment adding to the sci-fi horror fear.
Of everything I’ve ever read find Ms. Butler to be one of my favorite writers creatively over all. She’s done such a magnificent job captivating my imagination I’m excited to read more of her work.
One thing I've noticed from other reviewers is her style is not for everyone. So they leave a one-star review.
I find these helpful for me to share with you about not just this story, but others that inspire me to think further.
If this book doesn't fit your enjoyment circle of genre style maybe another recommended will.
Literacy takes on many forms. Not just reading, but learning. And, as Lauren shares often it's about exploring, research, reaching further with our imaginations. Going where no man has gone before (hint without spoiler :)
Hope this overview including a few other options helps you explore whole new worlds of literature, genre’, and ideas for ways to, in the words of my Combat Flip Flops gear, “be a better human.”
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💯
PS- check out why I support Combat Flip Flops clearing unexploded ordnance in places like Vietnam America left behind to educating young girls in war-torn countries we serve as troops in a way to end the war through literacy. Plus, helping hurting veterans struggling to reenter family and civilian life after difficulties of war check them out 👇🏼
https://www.combatflipflops.com/pages...
Rather than do an individual review gathered both individual summary opinions here. Meaning it'll belong. Hopefully not boring. Even interesting because of the references to other books and ideas this series brought up for me during reading.
For anyone who wants to see either book separately:
Part one 👇🏼
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...
Part two 👇🏼
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
Or check out my Goodreads reading challenge to find my reviews quicker 👇🏼
https://www.goodreads.com/user_challe...
Part one👇🏼
Parable of the Sower doesn't disappoint. Set in the future from her time, but within reach had the author not passed away February 24, 2006, fiction by Octavia Butler.
The way the world looks lately seems compost for fiction made a reality within the now near future to the original writing speaking of life leading toward the later 2020s.
Current history is only recently in the past at this point. As near as I can understand based on the writing, if we lived in such a time, the world would have already suffered these events. Would be within the context of recent memories ourselves lived. Still alive when this takes place.
Every book read by Ms. Butler is another marvel of literature, to me. I’m very excited to begin Parable of the Talents following this review.
The hardback set is arriving today. Often when a book captivates me buy the print version. Preferable the first edition. Often former library books are well kept making them my favorite score. Plus, enjoy seeing the history of stamp borrows if it’s predating digital take over of Dewey Decimal.
For you younger folk, that’s library speak for card catalogs used back in the day to look up books in person at the library.
The librarian stamps the book with the date required for return or borrowed. Can’t recollect which it’s been so long.
Reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. No spoilers from me. If you’ve read this you know what horrific consequences follow societal collapse.
What fascinates me most is Earthseed: Books of the Living in part described within, “stumbling across the truth isn’t the same as making things up”.
Overdrive app description tells the core meaning so well, “God is change. That is the central truth of the Earthseed movement, whose unlikely prophet is 18-year-old Lauren Olamina.
The young woman's diary entries tell the story of her life amid a violent 21st-century hell of walled neighborhoods and drug-crazed pyromaniacs—and reveal her evolving Earthseed philosophy.
Against a backdrop of horror emerges a message of hope: if we are willing to embrace divine change, we will survive to fulfill our destiny among the stars.
Narrator Lynne Thigpen's melodious voice will hold you spellbound throughout this compelling parable of modern society.”
What struck me as most sorrowful, isn’t the way people act in regards to survival. But, forms of slavery and racism flourish within newly forged societal constructs that feel so hopeless as the world is on its ledge before the drop off into an abyss. People fear this more than agreeing to indentured or forced labor.
Bias from gender to color is rampant. Women posing as men to be a safe become necessity if possible.
All this gloom drives toward creating a place of Hope.
Having watched enough Walking Dead via various series or reading books like Max Brooks’ World War Z and Colson Whitehead’s Zone One plus McCarthy see hope as the only light. Although dimly lit.
As a believer in “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” as a means of faith and having studied the health of the diseased who live and overcome the odds all lie within this notion.
Studying Ms. Butler’s journals as an author know this is a theme she lives by. As a result, what she believed comes true in terms of her notoriety and belief in the quality of her work.
I’m very glad to have discovered this book in a reference on a tweet. Even happier the library has parts one and two. Of which I’m about to embark upon concluding this review.
Oftentimes do not only share a slice of the book is noted. If you like it so much often enjoy sharing other books resonating with similar feelings.
For children’s reviews add activity suggestions and theme options.
If you’re into fiction, end times, and apocalyptic happenstance with a possible hopeful result despite death, horrific gross nasty inclusions not for the faint of heart … me remembering the first time reading The Road with my son on audio.
When they ate a baby turned the book off. We needed to pause. Mortified of reality these people endured struggling through.
Highly recommend that book. The movie can’t come close to the justice of this epic journey of a boy and his father through the world toward Hope itself.
If you like this type of theme you will be sucked into Parable of the Sower as much.
This is definitely a 5 star for me. If you’re into non-stop anticipation with little relief this is definitely one for your reading list as soon as possible
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💯
Part two👇🏼
Not sure what exactly qualifies as a spoiler alert. I'm gonna share a few hints while describing my view, but do not quote sections.
I do share a strong sense of comparison in this story to my point of view of America as a veteran, anti-racist, and patriot though don't confuse me for an extremist who believes patriotism is a means of destruction, murder, or all that stuff I've seen people twist it to embrace.
Though, will remark in this novel the distortions of political and religious idolatry for self-aggrandizement are blatantly obvious to me.
The word patriotic means service and support to America and all it embolden including many faith practices and cultures.
As a veteran see myself as a patriot of service to you my fellow citizens. Not as a means of destruction we've seen to people places and things. But a means of building a nation that emboldens each of us to be our best for ourselves, friends, family, and the collective we call America.
If you read the review this might include a few highlights that hint at plot twists and situations that will either excite or maybe feel an Easter egg, or relevant hint is given away.
Overall I hope it encourages reading and creative thought about our world and what we can do to support the change we wish to see in the world as Gandhi encourages.
In Parable of the Talents (part two following Parable of the Sower) Octavia Butler writes about our future in a way I wouldn't have believed is fiction after the last half dozen years and previous two elections.
This story reminds me of Nostradamus predictions. References of the future were within his scope of understanding, but the comparisons of many staggeringly accurate by some opinions.
Ms. Butler’s references to a presidential candidate who burns witches at the stake could be metaphoric following the last two elections and divisiveness in America for what's happening within the divide.
From conspiracy theories at a level of action not just belief like the days of who killed Kenedy and are there aliens at Area 51.
People in 2020 today storm the American capital believing in a mysterious letter individual defined as the all knowing yet details have not come to pass. Not before people died on January 6th.
While listening to Chapter five it's difficult not to compare the similarities in character traits of Butler’s fictional president and system of the time with reality in recent times.
Strangely enough both periods are on the same timeline as we are currently living weirdly enough.
This story is written in years we have lived that was the author's future is now comparable to the immediate times in case you hadn’t read and are wondering of their comparison.
Extremists within the narrative reminded me of mass lynchings of Italians in the first quarter of the 1900s.
The governor of Louisiana who eventually became a senator organized the largest mass lynching in American history and everyone right up to the Whitehouse turned a blind eye and eventually when it was convenient converted Italians from beneath ‘negros’ to white European to further continue the suppression of people of color. Especially black Americans. Though if you are Irish, Jewish, Catholic, or any number of light-skinned dwellers within the American border are subjected to hate continuing through today.
This novel brings all these shameful arrogant subjective white America only if you're a certain kinda Christian narrative up within the journey through this fictional community of pain and suffering from as we learn Christian extremists.
While wholeheartedly being supported by knowledgeable or distorted mass social agreement and disbelief omission from the majority.
Though these extremists easily blend in and out of the mainstream. Raping and murder in the name of their god... of their imagination. Then going home to the rest of the world. Living secret lives out in the open.
My new phrase, moral blindness is the belief in something so much despite seeing the truth don't turn a cheek. Stair at the truth with subjective blindness to the obvious for fear of your own inner agreements will corrupt the narrative and disrupt the safety of your world. To hell with everyone else as long as the observer gets to keep their own piece of psuedo peace.
Idolatry is a word that comes to mind though in their own way defending righteousness pervert wickedly.
The main character who typically is referenced by her last name Olamina mentions being on tour toward the very end of the book and stopping in Iowa City, Iowa close to where I happen to be at the moment. I was like “wow, of all the places she picked. I'd definitely of bought a ticket.” :)
Other books have had similar connections to my location, like The Lovely Bones. As I listen on audio here the name of the town I was living in Pennsylvania as the place the girl was kidnapped and murdered.
Check out a copy 👇🏼
https://amzn.to/3yNQNzo
In Stephen King’s Later was happily surprised to be in my home turf of NYC and upstate throughout the story.
For a copy check out the Overdrive or Libby app or 👇🏼
https://amzn.to/3jQnSGF
These types of connections cause a side effect of reality within fiction that grabs my attention a little deeper because I'm already in those places and familiar with the landscape.
Another topographical connection to this and book one, Parable of the Sower, is my sister lives in the area where a large portion of this continuous story takes place, Eureka, California, and the surrounding areas.
Considering the first book PotS begins by stating 2024 and I soon find out the main character is born in 2009 feels an invitation to compare the real world with fiction.
Hauntingly note we are not as overcome in America today as this two-part tale outwardly. But, the undercurrent of metaphor and reality holds some truth.
Privately for me can only control my environment and life to a point, but within this do what I'm able to make a difference not just locally, but globally.
I think if nothing else the main character demonstrates when a collective of people arrive together to make the world a better place it only takes one person to lead and set the tone.
This can be true for hurtful people, as well. Both exist within the story. One prevails when for a time there doesn't appear to be away.
One topic that came up for me in regards to anti-racism or taking action against harming people of color is the strong sense of injustice that contributes to the tone of this incredible work of literary art, to me.
Over my studies and research of man's inhumanity to man in America, in particular, have discovered a pattern of behavior that's been around for hundreds of year's though only newly revealed during my literary journey and a book club review with a church earlier this year about racism and Christianity held by a multicultural church locally.
I've struggled with manipulation of Christianity bad actors and the personal descriptions of slaves like Frederick Douglas or those mentioned in Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This is Our Song plus the two-part PBS series named the same which I highly recommend.
Christian slave owners were the worst Mr. Douglas describes and why.
PDF of Fredrick Douglas’s autobiography 👇🏼
https://resources.saylor.org/wwwresou...
Or, facts of church history, such as, slave owners change the bible to suit their captivity of humans for financial gain to deter people from learning God freed slaves fearing revolt.
Mr. Gate’s book 👇🏼
https://amzn.to/3yQa3w7
Considering all this and more am very much on the side of Lauren Oya Olamina and could see myself joining Earthseed.
I think for me of all the sad parts, and there are many, Lauren’s daughter Larken being taken by Christian America. Then given for adoption illegally. Eventually by the brother who Lauren saves from contemporary enslavement, Mark, does zero to inform Lauren Larken is found at three years old and alive for all those years... This part of the story compelled me to experience pain right along with the character.
Toward the end of the book, America is aware of the atrocities and yet still Larken was known by her adopted name following in her thirties finding a way to meet her mother, despite being lied to she is dead by her uncle is so indoctrinated to fear and hate doesn't ever connect in a way that opens complete healing for all.
So much pain, sorrow, and hope.
I wonder if the daughter hadn't been taken and given to a family in the name of indoctrination of Christian America would Earthseed have had the focus of Olamina?
In a way, it appears this was a fitting ending. Looking back, the new world was better with this blossoming community and the evil president's ways who has long since been beaten by a new presidents were faded and the truth of the rapes, murders, and slave camps to indoctrinate were revealed.
I'm glad at least the mother and daughter had the chance to reunite. But that Earthseed became what it is designed to be by faith in God and the expansion of who he is to this ever-growing community.
To me, Christianity is a man-made community, just like Earthseed. God would dwell where all he is breathes life for principles of love and peace to flourish creatively.
So many fictional parallels and metaphors to our world today we're crazy fun to compare.
This two part series was fun to discover following the last half dozen years politically, socially, and what I've witnessed from a faith perspective as a Christian.
I've been saddened by the violence and so many disturbing things people have done within the hypocrisy of their beliefs in America.
A saying many years ago I coined, church is for hypocrites. They need someplace to go cause nobody else wants them around :)
I very much enjoyed this book. Ms. Butler's vision and creative fiction amazes, inspires, and encourages me to think in new fictitious ways as a writer.
Besides borrowing book one and this, book two from the library on the Overdrive app bought the hardbound box set for my shelf to enjoy and read through again.
Box set available here. Though, there are no more new hardcover copies 👇🏼
https://amzn.to/2WSjs9C
The hardback first editions are way outta my price range. But this box set is a joy for continuous enjoyment and to add to the heirloom collection of books being collected to pass down to future generations.
My next OB novel is Dawn. Scored a first edition hardcover with dust jacket is a prime condition from abebooks.com. The library carried all copies of her work because its easier to listen to audio or kindle audio. Though, with Speechify can convert print to text.
Mentioning these tips if you are a bibliophile, too. Ideas to find books you love the library might not have, but you want to read. And, ways to listen in case you're a slow steady reader like me.
I find audio a favorite way to get lost in a story while doing a project. Plus, I'm able to consume more literature. Another bonus is as a native New Yorker finds enjoyment from books where the storyteller is talking fast like someone from the city where I grew up in Brooklyn.
One of my escorts on road trips is Stephen King novels at 2.5 % faster speed. Super intense on the edge of my seat enjoyment adding to the sci-fi horror fear.
Of everything I’ve ever read find Ms. Butler to be one of my favorite writers creatively over all. She’s done such a magnificent job captivating my imagination I’m excited to read more of her work.
One thing I've noticed from other reviewers is her style is not for everyone. So they leave a one-star review.
I find these helpful for me to share with you about not just this story, but others that inspire me to think further.
If this book doesn't fit your enjoyment circle of genre style maybe another recommended will.
Literacy takes on many forms. Not just reading, but learning. And, as Lauren shares often it's about exploring, research, reaching further with our imaginations. Going where no man has gone before (hint without spoiler :)
Hope this overview including a few other options helps you explore whole new worlds of literature, genre’, and ideas for ways to, in the words of my Combat Flip Flops gear, “be a better human.”
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💯
PS- check out why I support Combat Flip Flops clearing unexploded ordnance in places like Vietnam America left behind to educating young girls in war-torn countries we serve as troops in a way to end the war through literacy. Plus, helping hurting veterans struggling to reenter family and civilian life after difficulties of war check them out 👇🏼
https://www.combatflipflops.com/pages...
August 3, 2020
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.
March 30, 2012
Parable of the Sower, young adult girl, Lauren, who was birthed from a drug mother, at 15 and father turning 55 on the same day, goes through various stories, religion, and wonders if it is all a hypocrisy for the peace and to get along speech. There are a glimpse of so many incidents, characters, and people described in her world/community and her thoughts of her father as a Baptist preacher and married to a Spanish wife (her step-mother). (So far, there seems to be more telling like a storyteller in this book). As the story progressed, Lauren got her wish to leave her inhabitants after the death of her father (body not found) and earthquakes in CA. She takes a friend and her boyfriend, then later drifters, and the story doesn't quite read syfy to me. The only things it is futuristic (timeline starts in 2024, Lauren has her own religion and God is CHANGE to her, not male or female, and most events are normal to me).
Rate this book: 3 stars (liked it, mediocre read, numerous characters to follow but Lauren seems to be the main character).
Parable of the Talents shares the journals of Taylor Franklin Bankole and Lauren Oya "Olamina" as their daughter named after Lauren reads them (Larkin, named Lauren and her father Laurence). Earthseed (in my terms is simply we are the seed of the earth also known as the dust of the earth) but described as a cult of strange people who lived in the hills that are crazy foolish people who believe in a god of change--talent is based on the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25, which is the Earthseed (movement). This story grabbed my interest to continue reading the pages to see how everything is put together as far as the movement Lauren created as a destiny of survival but later got caught into a slavery-collared community. Slavery again in 2027 and beyond...but one to survive has to learn their captors motives, ways, and habits and use this to find a way of escape!
4 stars
Kindred: Edana "Dana" is able to travel into her past century and cross into time and space to see her deceased ancestors. This book is amazing, and thought of writing something similar but see it is done! I hope someday I can write as well. Loving this story thus far.
5 stars.
Rate this book: 3 stars (liked it, mediocre read, numerous characters to follow but Lauren seems to be the main character).
Parable of the Talents shares the journals of Taylor Franklin Bankole and Lauren Oya "Olamina" as their daughter named after Lauren reads them (Larkin, named Lauren and her father Laurence). Earthseed (in my terms is simply we are the seed of the earth also known as the dust of the earth) but described as a cult of strange people who lived in the hills that are crazy foolish people who believe in a god of change--talent is based on the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25, which is the Earthseed (movement). This story grabbed my interest to continue reading the pages to see how everything is put together as far as the movement Lauren created as a destiny of survival but later got caught into a slavery-collared community. Slavery again in 2027 and beyond...but one to survive has to learn their captors motives, ways, and habits and use this to find a way of escape!
4 stars
Kindred: Edana "Dana" is able to travel into her past century and cross into time and space to see her deceased ancestors. This book is amazing, and thought of writing something similar but see it is done! I hope someday I can write as well. Loving this story thus far.
5 stars.
February 14, 2021
I found this to be a really difficult read; Butler’s observations of religion, human nature, violence, and cruelty are devastating, but they also made this utterly fantastic. Her subtle use of science fiction, and tensions of race and sex, are brilliant. I devoured these books. They ignited many intense emotions while reading: anger, frustration, hope, excitement, joy, fear, and simply awe throughout.
July 18, 2020
I'll save some thoughts for the review of the individual last book and reserve this to talk about the overall series.
I've noticed with Octavia Butler's works that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This series was no exception. The themes of slavery, religious zealotry, and the complex structure of families was introduced in the first book and brought to a satisfying conclusion in the second.
One thing I noticed is that our protagonist, Lauren, notes that she wrote her Earthseed verses to be as simple as possible so that people would understand the deeper meaning. I feel that this was also a sentiment Butler held. While the words of this series are simple, the ideas they convey are not. These two books are ones that were easy to understand but had a lot of depth if you take the time to listen closely.
I've noticed with Octavia Butler's works that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This series was no exception. The themes of slavery, religious zealotry, and the complex structure of families was introduced in the first book and brought to a satisfying conclusion in the second.
One thing I noticed is that our protagonist, Lauren, notes that she wrote her Earthseed verses to be as simple as possible so that people would understand the deeper meaning. I feel that this was also a sentiment Butler held. While the words of this series are simple, the ideas they convey are not. These two books are ones that were easy to understand but had a lot of depth if you take the time to listen closely.
April 14, 2019
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.
November 25, 2009
I have read all of Ms. Butler's books. However, the "Parables" are by far my favorite. It's a lot scarier to set sci fi in the immediate future than 100 years ago. Expecially living in the desert of southern California, I can relate to her apocalyptic tales of anarchy.
June 19, 2010
Not really into sci-fi? I'm not either. Yet these three books are amazing. What's up genre fiction?
March 20, 2021
Wow...simply wow...how did I miss her? Stunning work, frightening and difficult to read only because she pulls no punches about the dystopian America she imagines...and prophetic...but I hope and pray we are able to not go 'there'. She saw so clearly where we might be headed and I hope, ( and this 20+ years ago!) because of the open wounds that have been created by the past 5 years that maybe we will be able to fix some of this. Seldom do I find a writer in any genre who has a totally new perspective and black writers have been doing most of this for me. Butler had the same effect on me using the vehicle of science fiction that 'The Hate You Give' had...creating an open doorway into another world...Butler's was dream-like, bad dream-like and imaginary, the other, totally real. Her understanding and use of all the experiences of black history, slavery, shame, violence as well as the history of 19th c. indentured workers in 'factory-towns' (which affected so many not just the black population) was used to weave a frighteningly realistic tale. That being said, I will read something else before tackling her second book...so much despair, destruction, graphic violence, death, greed, drugs etc. even couched in a hopeful premise, I need some light relief.
July 20, 2020
I'll save some thoughts for the review of the individual last book and reserve this to talk about the overall series.
I've noticed with Octavia Butler's works that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This series was no exception. The themes of slavery, religious zealotry, and the complex structure of families was introduced in the first book and brought to a satisfying conclusion in the second.
One thing I noticed is that our protagonist, Lauren, notes that she wrote her Earthseed verses to be as simple as possible so that people would understand the deeper meaning. I feel that this was also a sentiment Butler held. While the words of this series are simple, the ideas they convey are not. These two books are ones that were easy to understand but had a lot of depth if you take the time to listen closely.
I've noticed with Octavia Butler's works that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This series was no exception. The themes of slavery, religious zealotry, and the complex structure of families was introduced in the first book and brought to a satisfying conclusion in the second.
One thing I noticed is that our protagonist, Lauren, notes that she wrote her Earthseed verses to be as simple as possible so that people would understand the deeper meaning. I feel that this was also a sentiment Butler held. While the words of this series are simple, the ideas they convey are not. These two books are ones that were easy to understand but had a lot of depth if you take the time to listen closely.
October 20, 2024
Reading both Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents was a profound experience. Lauren Olamina and her Earthseed teachings will not be leaving my psyche/consciousness for a very long time, if ever.
"All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
God is Change."
Octavia E. Butler is a gifted and transcendent storyteller whose writings, while at times challenging, make a Reader's life worth living.
"All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
God is Change."
Octavia E. Butler is a gifted and transcendent storyteller whose writings, while at times challenging, make a Reader's life worth living.
March 31, 2020
I really liked Parable of the Sower. Solid post-apocalyptic setting, great characters.
Parable of the Talents introduced Asha, who I couldn't stand. She has access to all these journals and records, and yet she chooses her uncle? It's just hard for me to sympathize with. I get that Butler likes to make us empathize with apparent villains by showing us characters who love them, but it just didn't work here as well as in the rest of her work.
I also didn't enjoy
Parable of the Talents introduced Asha, who I couldn't stand. She has access to all these journals and records, and yet she chooses her uncle? It's just hard for me to sympathize with. I get that Butler likes to make us empathize with apparent villains by showing us characters who love them, but it just didn't work here as well as in the rest of her work.
I also didn't enjoy
September 10, 2022
4.5/5 Just brilliant, and so engaging.
AND FRIGHTENING.
I thought MAGA was a Trump thing...
Christian America is terrifying. How is this so relevant today?
Mrs. Butler is truly a master; got me to read diligently when I am in a deep reading slump.
AND FRIGHTENING.
I thought MAGA was a Trump thing...
Christian America is terrifying. How is this so relevant today?
Mrs. Butler is truly a master; got me to read diligently when I am in a deep reading slump.
April 16, 2024
I read the Parable of the Sower earlier this year, incredible book, Butler speculated crisis in California and across America really well, she wrote the novel in 1993 and based it off 2024 and beyond. The novel is raw, authentic, glory, and hard to put down once you start.
January 2, 2022
This is a work of fiction but could easily start a new religion. In the book, Earthseed is a religion that purports that we(humankind) are Earthseed, meant to take root among the stars, beginning humankind's adulthood. Its enemies are Christian zealots who consider the Earthseed movement a heathen cult. The main character, Lauren Olamina, conceives of Earthseed as truth. God is Change.
The story itself has a rather unsatisfactory ending, but completely believable in the selfrighteousness of "Christians."
The story itself has a rather unsatisfactory ending, but completely believable in the selfrighteousness of "Christians."
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