Parable of The Sower by Octavia E. Butler
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Web ID: 11775336Scary....
"Parable of the Sower," written by Octavia Butler, is a compelling and unsettling exploration of a dystopian future shaped by climate change, social chaos, and economic disparity. Set in the year 2024, the narrative follows Lauren Olamina, a young woman with hyperempathy—a condition that allows her to feel the pain and emotions of others. This unique trait serves as both a gift and a burden in a world where survival is increasingly difficult. "Parable of the Sower" is not just a survival story; it is a call to action, urging readers to consider the consequences of inaction in the face of societal collapse. Butler's masterful storytelling, combined with her thought-provoking themes, makes this novel an essential read for anyone interested in speculative fiction that challenges us to reflect on our present and future. It prompts us to ask what it means to be human in a constantly changing world and find hope even in the most desperate circumstances.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
*Everyone* Should Read This
A dystopian novel unlike any other. It is impossible to pigeonhole this book as its scope goes beyond that of a sci-fi novel as it begs the big questions of life that are magnified under the boot of a world falling apart. It’s both gripping and introspective.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Alarmingly prescient!
This was written in the early 90's but Butler was so spot-on with a lot of the ways she extrapolated society's then-problems into her version of the 2020's that its quite disconcerting. The writing style is accessible but intelligent, the characters and situations all feel real and believable, and I'll eventually get to reading the follow-up title. I could see myself believe in Earthseed.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Great book highly recommended
This is a dystopian sci-fi set in the 2020s. Published in 1993, the novel has an eerily prophetic feel about it. It starts off feeling almost young adult given the age of the protag. But it doesn't stay there. The quality of depth and quality of the writing bring it closer to a literary novel. In the story, society is collapsing, gangs are roving the land, government is corrupt and powerless. Lauren Olamina loses her entire family to gangs. Even before the destruction of her family and community that launches her on her quest, an idea is geminating in her for a religious concept she calls Earthseed. It provides a frame of reference for her to understand God in the chaos of her world. She and two other survivors from her neighborhood decide to head north from the Los Angeles area. There are stories things I better in northern CA and Washington and Oregon and Canada. But the journey is extremely dangerous and there is no guarantee of success. Along the way, she meets other people who join her. There is always the process learning to trust them which requires observing and testing them. Eventually the group grows to nine plus several children. The process of bonding into a ‘family’ is done with an eye on how difficult it is to achieve such bonding when most of the people she meets are likely to rob, rape, murder, and burn. But the bonds form and the way Butler does it is realistic in the story world she has created. What I like best about this novel is characters are what keep me in a story. This is probably the most important element of a story for me. I don’t have to like them, but I have to believe they are real and capable of doing what they do. Capable means emotionally and psychologically as well as physically, relationally, and mentally. Butler does this with her protag, Lauren. And with her other major and significant secondary characters. Her minor characters are also unique and believable I also like the way Butler shows the humanity of people in a world amazingly like the world of Mad Max. Lauren’s little group comes together, working through fear, lack of trust, and the view that everyone you meet is a potential killer. The group becomes a family the fights and bicker with each other. They also unite to fight off every attack. They mourn when members of the group die. They marvel when other members come together to support, encourage, and love each other. I highly recommend this as a great read. Even if you don't like dystopian, read it. You'll be surprised.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Disturbingly realistic
This book was written in the early to mid 90s and is classified as science fiction. Now 30 years later it is closer to reality than I am comfortable with. The protagonist, Lauren, a teenage girl, is strong and impressive. I couldn't put the book down. I ran out to B&N and bought the sequel as soon as I got close to the end. It's a good read.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
A Chilling Prediction of our Time
After a sort of slow, but necessary, beginning, where a distant America is illustrated in the throes of economic crisis, environmental decline, and something resembling anarchy, readers are thrown head first into the worst imaginable dystopia, one we may be heading towards ourselves. Set in Southern California in the late 2020's, Octavia Butler manages to predict from her time of writing, the late 1990's, where we as a country would be headed. Included in her predictions are wildfires, rising sea levels, increasing drug addiction, as well as technology addiction, and the beginnings of religious fundamentalist groups that preach love and do only harm.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
A Parable for Our Times
This is a late review: I actually read this back in March when everything was shut down because there was a pandemic raging through the world. Basic supplies were hard to come by, and it seemed nearly everything in life was upended, redirected, or shut down completely. Streets were eerily quiet, and the very nature of commerce and other human interaction as we know it started to be questioned. That was the worst time possible to read Parable of the Sower, or perhaps the best, for the societal shutdown lent an uncanny backdrop and perhaps even cautionary instruction to the experience of reading this work from Octavia Butler. Set in a dystopian near-future, the novel takes place in a United States in which there was some sort of collapse in the 1990s, after which the country fell into ever-increasing poverty and exploitative power. People live in walled communities to protect themselves from the violence and rampant crime of the outside world, but the safety of those walls are increasingly undermined by the violence and havoc of the society that surrounds them. People keep waiting for things to go back to the way they were, but, when that doesn’t happen, year after year, it does not alter the general perception that they’re just “hanging in there” until things go back to the way things used to be. The paradigm has shifted, and there will never be a world again as they remember it, it is extinct. In this world, the protagonist, Lauren Olamina sees that the backward-looking hope for a better future merely blinds people and makes them less likely to make decisions that might help them to survive in the new world and the world to come. She sees a path, a uniting force: Change. She travels through her broken world, providing help to her companions any way that she can, and always gently proposing the truths she finds by considering first that if we must name god, his name is Change. Like I said, this is a terrifying book to read in the time of Covid. But an important one. An instructional one. I’m glad I read it when I did, it gave so much weight to the story.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Eye-opening.
The California that Butler writes about in this 1993 novel is in essence where California is headed towards today. The story takes place in the early 2020’s. Much of California is a wasteland, depleted of resources and occupied by bands of thieves who are addicted to a drug called Pyro. This drug makes them want to burn down everything around them, including innocent people taking shelter for the night. Lauren Olamina is only 15-years-old but has witnessed some horrible things. She, along with her family are the lucky ones. They live in a gated community with other families who support and protect one another when they can. But anytime anyone in the community leaves the protection of those gates, no one knows if they will ever make it back because it’s bad out there. A simple trip for supplies is never simple when desperate people want what you have. Even within the gates, each night they are subjected to thieves jumping the wall to pillage and destroy. Lauren, at such a young age is taught to shoot and yes, to kill. The only catch is that Lauren is a “sharer”. She suffers from an illness of empathy and can feel the pain and pleasure of others. There are few like her, but when she chooses to shoot someone she has to be sure because she could end up crippled by their pain if she doesn’t kill them outright. Nothing lasts forever. Lauren is eventually forced to leave the safety of her community and hooks up with others also looking to survive. Her plan is to start a new community once she finds the right place. If you are familiar with the Bible at all, you will recognize the title choice for this book. The Parable of the Sower is all about planting seeds. Some take, others don’t. What survives are the plants with deep roots. In this case, trusting one another and putting your life on the line to protect someone you hardly know for the sake of community is how such a community will survive. This was a very hard book to read during this pandemic. The pace is a little slow and the writing is the type that you must sit with for awhile. Reading about a California that has been decimated by climate change and seeing how its inhabitants deal with the lack of water and other resources was a tad depressing but also eye-opening. Butler always seems to know what’s coming and she didn’t hold back here. California is walking a fine line. We are battling drought, brush fires that force our power grids to shutdown as a preventative measure, increased poverty and homelessness. NOT to mention what the rest of the country is battling right now, the pandemic. Chilling. Parable of the Sower is a worthwhile read. Just know that if you read it now, it might take some time to get through and might send you into a downward spiral temporarily but I enjoyed the writing quite a bit.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com