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Parable of the Sower
(Earthseed #1)
by
In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future.
Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a cu ...more
Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a cu ...more
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Paperback, 345 pages
Published
January 1st 2000
by Grand Central Publishing
(first published October 1993)
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Start your review of Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)

I am embarrassed to say I had never read Octavia Butler before. I’m happy I finally corrected this glaring oversight. This novel set in the near future is so frighteningly prescient it is difficult to read. The year is 2026. American society is rapidly breaking down thanks to global warning, economic stagnation and wealth disparity. 18-year-old Lauren Olamina lives with her family in a walled-off middle class neighborhood outside LA, but she knows that their little island of relative safety will
...more

I am going to start this review off by asking a theoretical question. There is a huge wave coming, it will wash you and everyone you love out to sea. What do you do? Do you back up away from the water? Move to higher ground? Build a boat to ride it out? Or do you turn your back on it, play on the beach and pretend that it isn’t coming? Now imagine that it isn’t a wave of water, but a wave of violence, crime and people that will be unstoppable. No wall will hold them back. You may have nowhere id
...more

‘The world is full of painful stories.’
When the world falls apart and people are beset by intense suffering and sadness, many turn to religion for the assuring promise of a better place beyond death. In Parable of the Sower, an intensely riveting and disquieting vision of America’s collapse by Octavia Butler, teenage Lauren Olamina instead asks why should we resign ourselves to hope in paradise after death when we could rise up with the power to fight the suffering we face while alive to embrace ...more
When the world falls apart and people are beset by intense suffering and sadness, many turn to religion for the assuring promise of a better place beyond death. In Parable of the Sower, an intensely riveting and disquieting vision of America’s collapse by Octavia Butler, teenage Lauren Olamina instead asks why should we resign ourselves to hope in paradise after death when we could rise up with the power to fight the suffering we face while alive to embrace ...more

For a long time I had naively held on to the notion that Octavia E. Butler is the African American counterpart to Ursula K. Le Guin - an assumption begotten out of the commonality that both their creations despite being shoehorned into the genre of science/speculative fiction epitomize realities of institutionalized sociopolitical inequities. Not only has my first foray into Butler's literary landscapes altered that idea greatly but compounded my respect for Le Guin's masterful way of letting th
...more

"A lot of things changed for the survivors...It took a plague to make some of the people realize that things could change."

2024 is bleak, very bleak! The following years are even darker. The United States looks like it is in its death throes. In Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler presents a society broken into enclaves, all fighting for their survival. But outside their walls, it's worse. Unfortunately, that's where our hyper-empathy syndrome heroine, Lauren Olamina, is headed. There's a lot ...more

2024 is bleak, very bleak! The following years are even darker. The United States looks like it is in its death throes. In Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler presents a society broken into enclaves, all fighting for their survival. But outside their walls, it's worse. Unfortunately, that's where our hyper-empathy syndrome heroine, Lauren Olamina, is headed. There's a lot ...more

I read this book in its entirety on the bus from New York back to Baltimore. It's a strange thing reading a dystopian novel on public transportation. After every chapter I paused and looked around: at the cars traveling in both directions, obeying commonly accepted rules of the road; and at the forty five strangers sitting around me, all adopting a social contract in which we sit quietly for three hours, keep our own personal space, and leave others to their seats, their money, their food, their
...more

Parable of the Sower isn't the easiest book to read. The prose is clear and uncomplicated, but the content can be hard to take. This is a close-to-home dystopia, one which I found hard to dismiss as improbable. And the world that it depicts is cruel and ugly. Even the well-meaning must do ugly things to survive.
This is science fiction only in the most technical sense. Sure, it's set in a hypothetical future, and the main character, Lauren, has an uncanny/(super)natural ability to feel the pain o ...more
This is science fiction only in the most technical sense. Sure, it's set in a hypothetical future, and the main character, Lauren, has an uncanny/(super)natural ability to feel the pain o ...more

Abandoning this book at about 30%. I just can't finish it. Feels too much like a young adult novel, which isn't necessarily a problem in and of itself - but dialogue is boring me. I am not a huge sci-fi/dystopia fan, so it really needs to grab me if I am going to read it. This one just isn't working for me personally. Not going to rate this one as a result. Too many other books waiting to be read!
...more

I often wonder about religion. Its roots, its power, its consequences. When looking at the religion that had the biggest influence on my life, I sometimes wonder if that belief system isn't just a biography that got out of hand. We've got the life of Jesus described to us, the good deeds he did and the things he had to say, and people picked it up, learnt it, liked it, loved it, embraced it, fought for it, killed for it, died for it. Whoa, that escalated quickly. Such a tiny harmless thing as a
...more

When I started reading this book I immediately felt inclined to rate it five stars even before finishing the first sentence. Hardly fair or reasonable I know, but that's love. I have loved Octavia Butler since reading Wild Seeds a couple of years ago, I went on to read Kindred and the Lilith's Brood trilogy which only solidified my love for this dear departed lady and all she stood for.
Having said that, I initially felt a little disappointed with the first chapter of Parable of the Sower beca ...more
Having said that, I initially felt a little disappointed with the first chapter of Parable of the Sower beca ...more

Mar 25, 2016
Obsidian
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
genres-for-everyone-dws
I only gave this book 2.5 stars but rounded it up to 3 stars on Goodreads due to Goodreads not having half stars available.
So I always hate it when I notice friends who I follow and trust for book recs loved a book and I ended up disliking it. I feel badly about it and then I feel guilty because I write a review talking about things that they really enjoyed.
I read this book as part of Dead Writers Society Genre Challenge for the month of March. I can say I loved the other book I read and thoug ...more
So I always hate it when I notice friends who I follow and trust for book recs loved a book and I ended up disliking it. I feel badly about it and then I feel guilty because I write a review talking about things that they really enjoyed.
I read this book as part of Dead Writers Society Genre Challenge for the month of March. I can say I loved the other book I read and thoug ...more


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I read PARABLE OF THE SOWER for the first time as a teenager and I'm kind of surprised at how much I've forgotten/how much went over my head. It's a typical post-apocalyptic book in some ways, but revolutionary in others. First, it's peopled with a very diverse cast, with black, Asian, and Latino characters, to the point that they overshadow any Caucasian characters. California is one of the most ethnically diverse states in the U.S., so ...more

Unsettling and powerful, like The Road with a Black female protagonist and more BIPOC characters overall. In some ways I dislike using The Road as a comparison given that white people’s art is not the standard, and Octavia Butler creates a whole world of her own in Parable of the Sower. First published in 1993, this dystopian novel flashes forward to 2025, when the United States has descended into chaos and what remains includes a country pervaded by disease, war, and chronic water shortages. La
...more

On second reading, I think Butler's riff on post-apocalyptic travails hit me harder than the first time. After seeing the devastation in New Orleans on television and talking to friends and others whose relatives made it out of the city, the concepts of civilisation falling apart and humanity's worst nature coming to the forefront seem a lot closer and more likely... events in general since I first read the book have certainly not reached anywhere close to what Butler predicts in this novel - (w
...more

Dec 18, 2009
Ron
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science-fiction,
apochalypse-or-post
(Feb 2016, adjusted rating down after reading Dawn. Butler did do much better.)
This might have been the must-read dystopia of the 90s. Perhaps it's because Butler tries too hard. Or readers can't see past the obvious shortcomings.
Dystopias have been with us since 1984 and Brave New World, and Utopia's since Mores and even Plato's Timaeus. But Parable of the Sower could have been this generation's dystopia. A really engaging, challenging story of believable, empathetic characters. Great social co ...more
This might have been the must-read dystopia of the 90s. Perhaps it's because Butler tries too hard. Or readers can't see past the obvious shortcomings.
Dystopias have been with us since 1984 and Brave New World, and Utopia's since Mores and even Plato's Timaeus. But Parable of the Sower could have been this generation's dystopia. A really engaging, challenging story of believable, empathetic characters. Great social co ...more

Dec 27, 2020
Amerie
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2020-faves,
amerie-s-book-club
AMERIE'S BOOK CLUB January 2021 Selection!
Harsh, heartbreaking, hopeful. And unapologetically 👏🏽 un👏🏽sub👏🏽tle. Yes.
In Parable of the Sower, Octavia E. Butler looks both forward and backward, and she does not flinch from humanity’s atrocities. The story not only reflects life in broadstrokes—climate change, power, feminism, racism—but also in intimate detail as we follow wise and rarely-gifted fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina on her journey toward safety, discovery, and a new belief system. My hea ...more
Harsh, heartbreaking, hopeful. And unapologetically 👏🏽 un👏🏽sub👏🏽tle. Yes.
In Parable of the Sower, Octavia E. Butler looks both forward and backward, and she does not flinch from humanity’s atrocities. The story not only reflects life in broadstrokes—climate change, power, feminism, racism—but also in intimate detail as we follow wise and rarely-gifted fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina on her journey toward safety, discovery, and a new belief system. My hea ...more

The best & worst thing about this book is just how realistic it is.
In the world we live in now, with such instant access to crises all over the world as they unfold, it makes sense that some of us are more than a little uneasy over the idea of the future.
I want to say things can only get better, but that’s exactly the type of narrow outlook that leads us right back into repeating the worst mistakes our history has to offer.
This book follows a young girl & her perseverance through a world ravaged ...more
In the world we live in now, with such instant access to crises all over the world as they unfold, it makes sense that some of us are more than a little uneasy over the idea of the future.
I want to say things can only get better, but that’s exactly the type of narrow outlook that leads us right back into repeating the worst mistakes our history has to offer.
This book follows a young girl & her perseverance through a world ravaged ...more

"I stared down the hill from our camp where just a glint of water was visible in the distance through the trees and bushes. The world is full of painful stories. Sometimes it seems as though there aren’t any other kind and yet I found myself thinking how beautiful that glint of water was through the trees."
There is only one word to describe the world that Butler built in Parable of the Sower and that word is
BRUTAL.
I recently read a review of one of her other books, Kindred, in which the reviewe ...more
There is only one word to describe the world that Butler built in Parable of the Sower and that word is
BRUTAL.
I recently read a review of one of her other books, Kindred, in which the reviewe ...more

“When unattended environmental and economic crises lead to social chaos, not even gated communities are safe.”
I fell in love very hard with Octavia Butler’s work when I read “Kindred” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), and even more so when I read “Bloodchild” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). I honestly can’t believe it took me this long to get to another one of her books! Especially as “Parable of the Sower” is a rather prescient kind of post-apocalyptic novel, the kind that ...more
I fell in love very hard with Octavia Butler’s work when I read “Kindred” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), and even more so when I read “Bloodchild” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). I honestly can’t believe it took me this long to get to another one of her books! Especially as “Parable of the Sower” is a rather prescient kind of post-apocalyptic novel, the kind that ...more

This was a compulsive page-turner for me.
Compared with at least one contemporary USian perspective, say, that of the low waged service worker, Lauren lives in one version of utopia: a close-knit community, like a village, shaped by an ethics of care and mutual support. She does not have to work, except to share the unalienated labour of social reproduction (childcare, food preparation, education of the young) which leaves her time to pursue her own preoccupations*. The person in her family who p ...more
Compared with at least one contemporary USian perspective, say, that of the low waged service worker, Lauren lives in one version of utopia: a close-knit community, like a village, shaped by an ethics of care and mutual support. She does not have to work, except to share the unalienated labour of social reproduction (childcare, food preparation, education of the young) which leaves her time to pursue her own preoccupations*. The person in her family who p ...more

Parable of the Sower?
More like "Parable of the RAPEYRAPERAPERAPE!" What Gospel is this again? Where exactly is the good news? "A rapist scattered rape on a rapescape, and some rapes caused unending trauma, and other rapes caused unending despair, but still other rapes created Strong Female Protagonists, and they would never let any man take Advantage of Them Again."
Mindnumbingly stupid and insulting to actual real assault victims everywhere.
I stopped reading 40 pages in.
Hooray, another "gritty ...more
More like "Parable of the RAPEYRAPERAPERAPE!" What Gospel is this again? Where exactly is the good news? "A rapist scattered rape on a rapescape, and some rapes caused unending trauma, and other rapes caused unending despair, but still other rapes created Strong Female Protagonists, and they would never let any man take Advantage of Them Again."
Mindnumbingly stupid and insulting to actual real assault victims everywhere.
I stopped reading 40 pages in.
Hooray, another "gritty ...more

Read this for my #endoftheworldbookclub. Such a bleak and horrible story, but incredibly compelling at the same time.

I liked this mostly for the unique structure and voice. The author does a great job establishing a near-future dystopia that is both intriguing and at the same time engaging. The main character is a young girl who is an em-path. Readers read for emotion, so this setup is an excellent way to display a great breadth of emotions. The structure is a diary each episode or day is a chapter heading or scene break. The story is in narrative and rarely goes into scene this keeps the reader from dropping
...more

Apr 12, 2013
Monica
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
female-author-fic,
aoc,
scifi-earth,
pub_1990s,
scifi-dystopia,
popular,
series-aargh,
aoc-female,
scifi-climate
I enjoyed reading this book and look forward to "Parable of Talents". This was my first Octavia Butler novel, and it was entirely different than I expected. I am a sci fi fan and this book did not entirely fit that description (this is not a criticism). Butler was able to immerse me into a world that was scary and brutal, yet not altogether unfathomable. In my mind, that is what was scariest. She diagramed a world of the poor and more or less ignored, only occasionally giving the reader a glimps
...more

The premise was catchy, but I had no idea it would basically turn into an endless episode of Dystopian God Talk and be mired in some pretty godawful pedantic prose that reminded me of Twilight at its worst, such as:
I waited until I heard Cory go to her room and shut the door. Then I got up, shut my door, moved my lamp so the light wouldn't show under the door, then turned it on and opened my grandmother's Bible.
Good gravy. D:
Cue the epic "Bella puts a CD in a player" scene that, somehow, has be ...more
I waited until I heard Cory go to her room and shut the door. Then I got up, shut my door, moved my lamp so the light wouldn't show under the door, then turned it on and opened my grandmother's Bible.
Good gravy. D:
Cue the epic "Bella puts a CD in a player" scene that, somehow, has be ...more

Oh my! I can’t stop thinking about this book. I want to read the next part right away, but I have borrowed books from friends that I need to finish first.
I thought this book blew Butler’s “Xenogenesis” series out of the water.
But you also have to look at it this way, Religion is a subject that I am constantly studying. So seeing Butler’s created religion was mind blowing.
Other aspects of this story also ring true. Butler wrote this story towards the end of the 20th Century and set it in 2024 t ...more
I thought this book blew Butler’s “Xenogenesis” series out of the water.
But you also have to look at it this way, Religion is a subject that I am constantly studying. So seeing Butler’s created religion was mind blowing.
Other aspects of this story also ring true. Butler wrote this story towards the end of the 20th Century and set it in 2024 t ...more

Mar 17, 2010
Jennifer (formerly Eccentric Muse)
rated it
really liked it
Recommended to Jennifer (formerly Eccentric Muse) by:
jo
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.

I read this book is a perfect YA Dystopia. One word for this book: believable. The characters are believable and sympathetic. The setting is grim dark, and yet believable. It might be one of my best reads for 2017.
At first, The dystopia setting seems mundane without any special kind of disaster. the bleak situation seems so realistic, I admit some aspects of them already facts, not science fiction. I could engage with some of them due to similarities with Jakarta's 1998 riot. (view spoiler) ...more
At first, The dystopia setting seems mundane without any special kind of disaster. the bleak situation seems so realistic, I admit some aspects of them already facts, not science fiction. I could engage with some of them due to similarities with Jakarta's 1998 riot. (view spoiler) ...more
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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Hugo & Nebula Awa...: January 2022 -- Parable of the Sower -- Spoilers allowed | 22 | 31 | Mar 12, 2022 08:54AM | |
Huntsville-Madiso...: How Octavia Butler's Legacy Was Born Out of a Bad Science-Fiction Movie | 3 | 16 | Feb 25, 2022 09:06AM |
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Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. She won both Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant.
After her father died, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. Extremely shy as a child, Octavia found an outlet at the li ...more
After her father died, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. Extremely shy as a child, Octavia found an outlet at the li ...more
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