Science Fiction Aficionados discussion

I'm very excited for this series read - I read Parable of the Sower years ago and loved it, but hadn't gotten back to read the rest. I can't wait to talk about this one and the books after.

This will be my second Butler (after Kindred). I've heard her other books are more heavily SF than Kindred, so I'm interested to see what she does with a more genre-oriented approach.

Also curious to see what she does with the Biblically-themed title.

Have read four other books by Butler, all got four stars off me. About half way through this one and loving it so far, if it keeps being this good it just might end up with one of my rather rare five star ratings.

The sequel, Parable of the Talents, is on sale for Kindle right now at 0.25. Doesn't get much better than that!

My first Butler book. This starts out rough right away in the background descriptions -- not a nice world.

So glad I took advice here to read this one, An amazing book.

Finished tonight. Interesting read.

10% in. I'm a fan of Butler's prose style- very clean and to the point while still powerful.

So far, I'd say this book falls into the category of "well executed, but not what I felt like reading."

I'm on Chapter 20. This book really drew me in.

I think this is the most plausible dystopia I've ever read, pushing The Handmaid's Tale into second place. What do the rest of you think?

It was very plausible but I prefer dystopian works that are a little darker. The Road is the darkest one I have read. Though this book was good.

What is funny is how much press this book is getting right now. Recently works like 1984, It Can't Happen Here, and The Handmaid's Tale have had increased sales. Yet, I've read some articles that say that this book is more relevant.

It does remind me of the 80's and 90's where people were always talking about how the Japanese were buying our country.

I'm over halfway through and I really like her style.

Kirsten *Make Margaret Atwood Fiction Again!" wrote: "What is funny is how much press this book is getting right now. Recently works like 1984, It Can't Happen Here, and The Handmaid's Tale have had increased sales. Yet, I've read some articles that s..."

And it is perfect for your awesome GR name tag! :)

David wrote: "It was very plausible but I prefer dystopian works that are a little darker. The Road is the darkest one I have read. Though this book was good."

I need to read The Road sometime. Could you say why you felt Parable of the Sower wasn't dark enough? It seemed plenty dark to me until maybe the last couple chapters.

The road showed the same parse style with control of the number of elements and did a better job in presenting isolation and thereby focus on just the characters. The Road was so dark that I had once stopped reading it as it was too dark and otherworldly. Your mileage can and will be different.

I actually found the first half of the book so dark I even had a little trouble getting through it, though I am very glad I persisted as I liked the second half quite a bit. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as Butler's other works I've read, but I still found it a fascinating, thought-provoking read overall. My gf and I recorded a discussion of the novel for my podcast if anyone is interested in listening.

http://gribcast.libsyn.com/gribcast-0...