Rating: 
Summary: Dystopia at its best
Review: It is true that this book isn't for everyone. It is not apretty book. It is filled with pain, chaos and endless human suffering, but it is wonderfully written. This is the first book by Octavia Butler I got to read. This writer was a discovery, for me. It is also true that there are minor flaws in this book. But the comment of one of the reviewers here who said that those who loved this book "ought to get out more" really surprised me. It really is the other way around. What's described in this book is already happening in many third-world countries, and could very possibly happen even in countries like the U.S., if only something pushed us over the edge. And that's the biggest problem I find with Parable Of The Sower: it is hard for me to believe that the future described (which is only 20 years away) would JUST happen. Without any major, nation-wide catastrophe, all of a sudden there is complete dystopia. Change in climate, however severe, would never be able to bring about the chaos pictured in this book. It's just hard to believe than only in 20 years, the most powerful country in the world is going to fall apart and be plagued by slavery, lawlessness, illiteracy, corruption, hatred and fear. Socio-economical conditions like that take decades to develop. It took the USSR nearly a century (70+ years), to turn into the mess it is now - and still it's not as frightening as the future in Parable Of The Sower. It would all sound better if the author set her story in a further future - like the end of the 21st century or so. It would all make more sense. The whole Earthseed thing was rather unbelievable as well, not the concept itself, but the idea that anyone would buy it as a religion and follow it. Selected verses did ring true to me and were really well-written. However, it's not something I'd call a religion, and it's not likely to ever succeed in the real world. But don't forget that the protagonist who created it is only human, and is only 18. I liked her as a character, but I did not like her as a person. The arrogance with which she spoke and certain things that she did ticked me off now and then. This only proves just how well-defined this character is. And this is the point I think some are missing: she might be wrong in her every step. Her life is not a saint's testimony, it's only one story of one person's life. See it as you please.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, a different take on the apocolypse book.
Review: Humanity is facinated with the concept of the world coming to an end. Almost every world religion has their end times tail, and this book works on the premise that you will be interested in Mrs. Butler's version of it. It doesn't dissappoint, esp. if you are a fan of the genra. However, I found myself more interested in the road trip of sorts, than I was with the concept of Earthseed. While Earthseed was interesting, and I found it had many good points, I occasionally wished the book would have a little less to do with the religion. However, I was not distracted by it, and to most people, after reading their reviews, enjoy those parts, so maybe I am just and odd person. Other good books if you liked this would be: Into the Forest. That was also a good book, and I am sure you would enjoy it as well.
Rating:
Summary: Parable of the Wordsmith
Review: Octavia Butler astounded me. A long time fan of science fiction, I had never read Sci-fi written by a black woman before. Her directness of thought is engrossing. "Parable of the Sower" is two stories moving alongside each other - the story of a young girl facing the harsh realities of life in a semi-apocalyptic future, and the story of Earthseed, a new religion with the goal of taking Humanity to the stars. In my opinion the author makes a direct social statement, among others, that some of us must leave this world someday. Butler is astute in noting that in a world of popular Jerry Springer and unpopular NASA the only way to attain the mass resources for space travel in meaningful numbers - is to make it the people's religion. Star travel as the Cathedral of our times, that work which whole generations must work towards, the marvel of the age. And this thrilling message is delivered in a novel that I could not put down. Having been vague about the plot on purpose, I hope you will take it on yourself to read and explore a beautiful and frightening mind.
Rating: 
Summary: Marvellously written
Review: I started reading Octavia Butler's book when I was at school in Atlanta. A friend lent me a copy of "Wild Seed" and I was riveted from page one and could not put it down. Octavia Butler is one of the best science-fiction writers to come out of the 20th century. Her pages are filled with characters that are believable even though she often puts them in 'out-of-this-world situations.' In "Parable of Sower" she introduces the reader to Lauren, a young girl with the unenviable ability to feel the pain of others. A "talent" her father has taught her to hide from others outside her family. The world Lauren is living in is slowly descending into anarchy and Lauren, is living with her family in a small enclave, protected by her Minister father, who thinks one day everything will go back to normal. Lauren however knows that the walls that protect them will not stand forever, and she prepares to leave before it is too late but it is already too late and her family and friends are raped, murdered and mutilated by a vicious gang of drug-addicts. With two fellow survivors Lauren sets off on a quest that will lead them halfway across America, gathering others along the way, such as two young prostitutes on the run from their pimp father, a middle aged Academic, an orphaned child but to name a few. A tentative alliance is forged, one that will enable them all to live through the dreadful times ahead. Lauren carries with her a strange new belief, that of Earthseed, a creed that will one-day lead to the stars and a life beyond a corrupted earth. As she and her slowly growing band of followers' search for sanctuary she preaches Earthseed to them, and soon begins to recruit coverts among her fellow travellers. "Parable of the Sower," is a haunting novel of a world in transition, where only the strong, the cruel and the vicious survive. The weak and the sick are either killed for enslaved. As Lauren and her followers' head for a farm where they hope to find a home, the young girl is witness to history repeating itself. Slavery is making a come back and people like herself who can feel the pain of others are being sought by unscrupulous men and women who have seen the benefit of such having workers that are in tune with the agonies of others. This is a dark novel of how easy it is for humanity to be bought to its knees, but it also a novel about dreams, desire, and the need for a new future. Earthseed might just be the answer to a dying planet's needs and Lauren could be the Prophet who makes it happen. Octavia Butler's writing is atmospheric, exciting, romantic and there is never a dull moment from the time you turn the first page. A marvellous book and I highly recommend it for first time science-fiction readers, as it is easy to get in to and understand.
Rating:
Summary: A painfully frightening vision of disaster and survival
Review: This is not so much a book as a prophecy - a prophecy of what America will become if we do not reverse the growing trend towards lawlessness and violence in our society, and indifference to the needs of communities in which it is growing. The protagonist is trapped in a world in which the damage has already been done and is too late to reverse. Her family struggles pathetically, like a middle class family in China in the Cultural Revolution, to desperately cling to normality as the society descends into choas all around them. Their struggle is all the more heartbreaking because, unlike the victims in most horror stories, they do everything right. There is no time when we can yell at them "you fool - why didn't you -" and thereby safely dismiss thier plight as the inevitable consequences of stupidity. Despite their commitment to peace they do not hesitate to use weapons to defend themselves. They try to avoid every possible risk, and generally try do everything we would have done to preserve themselves and their little scrap of a decent life, so when it is finally ripped away, it is chilling beyond words. Yet Butler is no Kafka or Poe, leading her readers blindly into a nightmare that knows no end. Rather, she has the courage to create a Moses who acts like a hero really does - intent first and foremost upon survival - avoiding unnecessary battles, but showing the bitter courage of a trapped animal when forced to defend herself and those who have come to rely upon her. By the end of the novel she and her own have survived - but like the survivors of the Holocaust, only barely. A fitting sequel would have the protagonist group turn into ruthless dispensers of frontier justice which they mercilessly impose in the name of a higher morality, until they finally become themselves oppressive tyrants which a new group of rebels rises to oppose - but I suppose that's hoping for too much.
Rating:
Summary: Stranger in La La Land
Review: Not since Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land has a novel had such a intoxicating mixture of religion, future dystopia, and science fiction. Butler has an uncanny eye for taking our present troubles (even if the novel is a few years old) and extrapolating a realistically frightening future. The burgeoning religion philosophy of Earthseed by the protagonist, Lauren Olamina, is done skillfully and with spirtual power. I recommend the book - an excellent read!
Rating: 
Summary: empty
Review: I found this alternately depressing and empty, not connected enough with today's real world to be inspiring on an immediate level, yet not far-out enough to be inspiring on a far-out level. There's a lot of adolescent-like musimg about the meaning of life, which might be paraphrased as "God is change, that's all I know, I can't explain it any further but I know it with a passionate certainty..." There's too much "I can't explain it but I'm really really sure."
Rating: 
Summary: Parable of the Sower
Review: I read this book for a class of mine. I think my religion professor is nuts for making me read this and write about it as a religion. Otherwise it is a good read. Parable offers a glimse of a twisted future. The religion itself offers beautiful prose, but i feel it needs to be more substantive. Anyway, I am not a science fiction fan but Octavia Butler has got talent and it shows in this book. I will surely be checking out her other stuff. Another note, I read this book over the weekend when my roomates were gone and I was alone. Do not do that, this book makes you get chills down your back every so often! Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: parable of dispair
Review: this was the most depressing book in the world. luckly i didn't buy the book by choice but only as part of a book club. If you looking for nothing good to occur, you've found it in this book. All that is bad about society, found wound up in these 300+ pages. I suppose the ultimate message was to keep plugging along depite the negativity, but who needs that lecture.
Rating:
Summary: I'm now hooked on supernatural fiction.
Review: I read this book for a retreat that I'm attending this year. I'm not naturally a fan of supernatural and was unaware of Octavia Butler. After I finished reading this one, I had to run to my local bookstore for Parable of the Talents, I was so intrigued and wanted to know more about Lauren Olamina and the Earthseed movement. Now that I've read both, I am a big fan of Octavia Butler.
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