Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1) in Around the World in 80 Books

Sep 24, 2020 Erica rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Deeply haunting and well drawn. I can't believe it was written in 2012, not 2020.

While I recommend reading this book, I should NOT have read it at this moment: it is set in the years 2026-27, and the US is a failed state. All police are corrupt; there is a new street drug, pyro, that makes arson better than sex, there are walls around every small community and the druggies and rapists and poor scrabble over them to take whatever they can find. There is no middle class. The future looks to be one ...more

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Jul 29, 2017 Nadine in NY Jones rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy-and-sci-fi, dystopian-and-post-apocalyptic

This was ... okay.

I usually have a hard time really being engaged by Butler's books; there is a certain remoteness about her characters that puts me off. It's like they aren't really engaged in their own story, and so I have a hard time, too. This book is no exception, but the plot is my catnip, and compelling. Dystopian future? walled communities? failed government? heroine who refuses to fall into lockstep,with everyone else? .... Yes! Sign me up!

But I don't think I'll sign up for the sequel. ...more

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Apr 25, 2014 Anie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: sff, own, female-protagonist, fiction, female-author, classics, 2015

It's not easy for me to describe why I loved this book so much. At first glance, it's a simple Exodus story, Moses out of Egypt, the story of a young woman as she becomes a prophet, leading her people to safety. That's a powerful type of story, but that's not why this is a powerful book. At second glance, we have Butler's writing -- the epistolary format, feeling real for once, showing us Lauren Olamina from the inside, still without letting us really know her -- because even Lauren Olamina's di ...more

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Apr 10, 2008 Madeleine rated it it was amazing

Shelves: series, favs, speculative-fiction

For 569 fantasy/sci-fi week. I started a few other books in the genre and really didn't like them, but I've been meaning to read this for a while and it's great. ...more

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