Rating: 
Summary: Things that make you go . . . hummm?
Review: A very heavy read. Octavia Butler launches the reader into the America of the future. The story is set in southern California during the years 2024 through 2027 where, through the journal entries of Lauren Olimina, we learn of the savage and degenerative state of the nation. A nation where the ability to feel the pain of others is a disease that could lead to death; where communities and neighborhoods are walled off for protection from the less fortunate. Violence is rampant. Citizens are armed to capacity. Fear permeates your every thought and action. "Parable of the Sower" is an engaging read on so many levels. The narrative is highly symbolic and open. The story is framed in the biblical tradition yet it calls to question our notions of God and religion as they relate to the survival of the individual spirit and community. Although futuristic in setting, the story renders an immediacy that was at times uncomfortable for me to fully digest. In the year of 2003, 2025 doesn't seem that far off. Although I found the prose clear and concise, I wasn't able to devour the book with the eager anticipation that I would typically apply to a novel as well developed as this one. I didn't understand this self-imposed resistance to surrendering myself completely to the story. It became clear to me midway through the text that - unlike most really great novels that I've read - with "Parable of the Sower", I didn't necessarily want to know what would happen next. The unfolding of the story generated more angst in me than curiosity. On a subconscious level, had I slipped into a comfortable denial of what could occur to a people who have been failed by their religion, their governments, family, neighbors, and friends. As America stands at the ready for war with Iraq, had the future of the nation as imagined by Butler become too close to reality? Any novel that causes this type of internal reflection deserves wide spread readership. Published originally in 1993, "Parable of the Sower" spans the past, present and future as it depicts a nation that has lost its connection to everything. This is my first read by this award-winning author. I have a lot of catching up to do. Highly Recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: Gripping
Review: Other than her short stories -- which I wish she would write more of -- this is my favorite of Butler's works that I have read so far. It's a smart, engaging book, with an edgy, unpredictable plot and her most compelling heroine. Lauren Olamina is a crazy genius, and it is her self-confidence in her own genius that makes her come off so lifelike. Her voice is chilling in her ruthlessness, yet warm and engaging in her determination and empathy. The fire and ice combination works, and telling the story in the first person was a very smart move. Much like her heroine, Butler's vision of the future is astonishingly bleak, yet curiously without despair. There are some very nice touches, like the feral dogs and the terrifying water stations (which evoke much of the same panic as war-torn Lithuania in Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections"). The book's only missteps are the flat side characters (especially the drug-crazed homicidal punks), and the Earthseed religion, which comes off as rather half-baked. Nonetheless, a very compelling read.
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Summary: Excellent book
Review: I love all of Octavia Butler's books. If you've never read any of her, I recommend this one or Lilith's Brood to start.
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Summary: Post-apocalyptic religion creation stories
Review: I read this as part of reading Butler's entire oeuvre in preparation for an essay that I was writing about a common theme in her work. With some authors such a task would be daunting, either because of the volume of writing or the disparate nature of their output. So far, as I can tell, Butler's limited publications fall into four distinct groups: her early novels in the Patternist series; Kindred, a standalone novel of time travel and slavery; the Xenogenesis trilogy; and the current group of books, likely to go by the heading of Earthseed. The new novel, Parable of the Talents, is the second in the series, which I have on my shelf to be read, but I wanted to make sure I started at the beginning. In 2030 the U.S. is a nation under siege from within. Violence and new drugs have combined to make the cities war zones, where the citizens live in suburban walled enclaves and must go out in groups or well-armed to shop or work. One drug in particular, which causes the user to find fire so fascinating that he or she immediately turns to arson, wreaks total havoc. This is a post-apocalyptic society, but instead of following a nuclear war or a plague, it is an implosion of the tensions that we have in society today magnified enormously. I don't care much for post-apocalypses, and it really doesn't matter if it happened because of war or drugs or plague. It is a setting that seems as if ordered from central casting. I've read it so many times that there is nothing new about it. Unfortunately, Butler does not change my opinion with this book. However, her characters and their concerns were somewhat new--especially the idea of creating a new religion that would help people live in these rough times and deal with the change, as well as her creation of a psychosomatic condition that causes empathy as a side-effect of a total cancer cure. Still, it was a rough 300 pages for me, made all the more so for its obvious set-up of a longer series. Butler's writing is accomplished and her characters believable. While I was not too excited by this novel, I am interested in seeing where she goes from here, now that all the set-up is complete.
Rating:
Summary: This book should be on high school reading lists
Review: This book should be on high school reading lists. I remember reading all sorts of classics when I was in high school about dysfunctional heroes who end up failing. This book was a pleasure to read. The only thing not dysfunctional is the soul of the teenage heroine: she lives in chaos and lawlessness; she has a handicap that she constantly needs to compensate for. Despite all that she becomes the leader and savior of a band of people. I couldn't put the book down. When I finished reading it, I felt inspired. Next to this book, The Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies and Brave New World pale by comparison. I wish I had read The Parable of the Sower when I was a teenager -- even at 40, I got a lot out of it.
Rating:
Summary: parable of the sower
Review: Parable of the Sower is one of the best books I have read in my short lifetime. Anyone who's an optimist might find it too depressing but it is truly a wonderful work. I've read some of Butler's other books, including Lilith's Brood, and I believe that the Parable books are much easier to read. while all of her books are captivating Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents were much easier to read and provide a completely unique, and pestamistic outlook on the future of the world. I would recommend these books to anyone who is not afraid of a good dose of darkness in what they read. (Also I enjoyed reading names of places I know well in both books, being from California.)
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Summary: Book 1 of Octavia Butler's Masterpiece, "Earthseed"
Review: This is the first of the two Earthseed novels, which are, by a slender margin, the best work of one of today's very finest writers. It is the coming of age of Lauren Oya Olamina in an all-too-believable near future dystopia in suburban Los Angeles, when hordes of homeless people roam the streets. Lauren is the daughter of a preacher, who lives in the walled, gated community of Robledo. Eventually her father disappears on his way home from work; there is little doubt that he has been robbed and murdered, but his widow can't collect his life insurance without a body to prove he is dead. Soon thereafter, the homeless hordes breach the gates of Robledo and rob and kill nearly all the residents thereof, but Lauren escapes alive, walks to somewhere in northern California, and as she walks, she gathers around her a handful of converts to Earthseed, her new religion, the two major tenets of which are that God is Change and that human destiny is to seed the planets of other stars with human communities. She meets and converts Bankole, who is also on his way north to visit relatives living on land he owns. Lauren and Bankole become lovers, and when they arrive at Bankole's land, they find his relatives murdered, and they found Acorn, the first Earthseed community. This brief synopsis may sound unbelievable, but with the details Butler weaves into the story, it becomes quite believable. Also, the coup of 2000, in which the Presidency was seized by the loser of the election with the criminal connivance of five members of the Supreme Court, and the total corruption of the faux President and his administration, make Butler's dystopic future seem all the more a realistic possibility. The story invites comparison with Edgar Pangborn's wonderful novel, "Davy," also one of the best I have ever read. A comparison of the two might be an excellent topic for a literature class assignment. Together with its sequel, "Parable of the Talents," this is one of the most gripping stories you will ever read, and very thought-provoking as well.
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Summary: The nightmares of our own world magnified
Review: One of the most haunting and disturbing (and, yes, depressing) books I've read in a while, Butler's novel is also one of the most satisfying; I've just ordered the sequel and eagerly await its arrival. The author's genius lies in her ability to create a world not unlike the one in which we live: there are no aliens and few technological advances embroidering her story. Instead, she takes our current afflictions (global warming, drug epidemics, lawless gangs, worsening schools, inner-city poverty) and projects them unabated thirty years into the future, creating a civilization that is just a single Great Depression away from our own--or, for that matter, one that already exists in many underdeveloped, war-torn countries... In this world, the United States has been overrun by drug-crazed gangs, water and food shortages, vigilante groups, and corporate towns. Lauren Olamina must cope not only with this dystopian nightmare but also her own debilitating and psychosomatically-induced empathy to feel the actual pain anyone experiences when hurt or killed in her sight. After the total destruction of her guarded and secluded neighborhood, she heads north, attracting along the way a ragtag band of homeless followers who eventually regard her as their leader. Much has been made of the "religious" aspect of the novel: some readers find that it resonates with the own beliefs, while others feel that the verses Lauren writes are trivial and her ideas simplistic. An interesting blend of Buddhism and early Christianity written in Taoist aphorisms, "Earthseed" is really nothing more than a realistic and understandable attempt by a teenager to cope with the daily horrors of the world in which she lives. Butler is certainly not trying ... to create a new religion; rather, she is showing how such philosophies are created and how desperate people sometimes (successfully) develop new principles to deal with harsh changes in their world. As Butler herself points out in an interview appended to the book, she created this religion for her fictional characters: "She didn't have to be always right, but she had to be reasonable." (Both the interview and reader's guide at the end of this trade paperback edition are unusually insightful.) Octavia Butler is the only science fiction writer ever to be awarded a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant. She deserves every penny.
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Summary: Could this be a glimpse of what lies ahead?
Review: Science fiction is sadly ignored, especially in the AA community. This book, however, is a fantastic introduction to the powerful words created by Octavia Butler. Not your stereotypical sci-fi (there are no spaceships, interplanetary wars, ray guns, etc.) but this book invites you to condsider what if: What if the world that you knew was filled with gated communities, corrupt police who will investigate a crime for money, drugs that so alter your mind that fire is akin to sex. This book will challenge what you beleive, your faith in a higher being, man , politics. A realistic view of what could be the future. I like to think that this book parallels the problems that we face today: the crack epidemic, religion, classism and crime. This is a book that should not be passed over but devoured.
Rating:
Summary: A thought-provoking book
Review: A nice work that lives up to its Nebula Award. Wonderful prose and character development - the story starts out "slow" with journal entries that develop the characters and setting, such as the portrayal of Lauren's relationship with her brother Keith. The last third of the book is when the catastrophic event occurs and the protagonist (Lauren) begins her journey. The story is also a philosophical journey centered on the (Buddhist?) concept that "God is Change".
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