Leigh Kimmel’s Reviews > Parable of the Talents > Status Update

How Marc followed in his father's footsteps and became the preacher for a makeshift church under an old carport -- and the horrors that arose when the city fathers decided to clean out all the poor people

A story of survival in an incredibly perilous world -- and then the town fathers decide to clear out the riff-raff.

The horror of the destruction of Lauren's childhood community, from a different perspective that makes us realize just how lucky she was, compared to the rest of her family.

Struggling to get people to move away from dangerous cliffs, after several members of their community died when the land under their homes was washed away.

Lauren rescues her brother from duress vile, but Dan fails to find his kidnapped sisters, and in despair flees. Now we also have the writings of Lauren's brother Marcos, in addition to the framing story of her child. It's a very different feeling from Parable of the Sower.

Horror mounts upon horror, as Lauren must deal with a slaver who's dealing in mutilated sex slaves, not laborers.

Visiting a town where a slaver operates

The election, and now the tiny community of Acorn must prepare for the consequences.

Climate change was just beginning to become a Thing when this was written, IIRC. At least the extrapolations in this book are less extreme (and thus more plausible) than those in some works. OTOH, works like Waterworld edge onto farce territory in some places, and probably would've worked better if Played For Laughs, while this book is a serious examination of human nature via sf extrapolation.

Lauren's continuing struggles to make a community out of the broken bits and pieces of humanity that are flung onto the shores of the island she'd created, the tiny community that is Acorn. The discussions of whether greater engagement with the outside world is a way to gain protection from evil, or will create greater vulnerability to it.