Enjoy Parable Of The Sower (Earthseed, #1) Depicted By Octavia E. Butler Available As Print

a fantastic book to finish off my reading month! A fullstarts and possibly a new all time favorite.
A sweeping book which vividly describes a world falling apart through gang violence, government retreat and climate change, The ending is less satisfying than I had hoped but I enjoyed Butler her writing enormously
When it comes to strangers with guns, I told her, I think suspicion is more likely to keep you alive than trust.


A thoughtful book on a girl growing up in an incredible grim world with kids ofandroasting and eating a human leg, rape, killings and other atrocities.
Main character Lauren develops a philosophy of god being change, and is forced on a journey almost more grim than sitelinkThe Road by McCarthy.


From a gated community to the collapse of society, Lauren, born in, is a remarkably resilient and capable main character, who manages to bind a ragtag group to her and her philosophy.
She is a hyperempath, able to feel the pain of others around her, limiting her effectiveness in a world falling apart.


sitelinkOctavia E. Butler describes in a very vivid manner the/dystopia, with police violence and government retreat, measles and cholera epidemics and preppers being right.
Exoplanets and dead female astronauts play a part as well, but the overall state of the world is incredibly grim.
Climate change eroding coastline cities, dogs trying to eat babies,year olds being raped and people ripped apart by automatic weapon fire.
A new slavery emerges in these circumstances, corpocratic, with kids of people in debt being required to work off the debt of their parents.
A modern underground railway emerges as well,

While reading this book I was reminded of sitelinkMargaret Atwood her writing, except that sitelinkParable of the Sower is more grim and devastatingly clear eyed on what climate change and a breakdown of society would mean.

This is a deserved classic, not just in the genre but in literature in general,

Quotes:
Is it a sin against god to be poor

Intelligence is ongoing, continuous adaptability

People have been killing little kids since there have been people

I intend to survive

Not scared enough to use her brain apparently

Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to groups.


A biological conscience is better than no conscience at all

There is nothing safe about slavery

Commenting on scifi tropes

She wants a future she can understand and depend on, a future that looks a lot like her parents present.


We dont look for what we dont want to see

Im not good at denial and self deception

They have no power to improve their own lives but they do have the power to make other people their lives more miserable

God is change.
I hate god.

Shop in peace

We need our paranoia to keep us alive

We have to be very careful about how we let our needs shape us

Thes were crazy, but at least they were rich

Yes but only living people need food

I wonder what a badge is, except a license to steal sitelink
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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 postapocalyptic 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 it was refreshing to see a book that actually reflected that makeup,



Second, PARABLE OF THE SOWER isn't dated at all, It still feels contemporary. Many of the issues climate change, increase in criminal drug use, hyperinflation, racially charged violence, gangs are still relevant today.
The only thing that truly places a time stamp on this book are the lack of cell phones and internet, but those things don't really have a place in a postapocalyptic society anyway, which is maybe why this works.




Lauren lives in a cushy gated community with her preacher father, They've walled themselves off from the rest of the world with hightech razor wire and rely on themselves and no one else.
Lauren knows they have it good but isn't sure this is a sustainable way of life their relative ease is stirring up the resentment of outsiders, and she's afraid that their "safety" is making them soft and unprepared for what awaits them outside.




Spoiler Lauren is right and the worst does come to pass, only because nobody believed her or took her seriously, everyone is woefully unprepared.
Not Lauren, though. She's a great character. It's refreshing to see a female protagonist who makes good decisions, and is willing to do unsavory things if it means survival.
She isn't without a moral compass though in fact, in her journal, she's coming up with the tenets of her own religion, which she calls Earthseed.




The religious angle is a little weird and almost Heinleinesque, made more so by the fact that Lauren has something called "hyper empathy syndrome," which means that she feels the pain and the pleasure that she sees in the people around her.
I thought that was pretty weird, Psychic mumbo jumbo like that is pretty common in the scifi of thes, and man, did those authors love to preach.
PARABLE OF THE SOWER is different from those books in that it has strong female heroines, an ethnically diverse cast, morally ambiguous characters, and a genuinely and terrifyingly plausible world that sings a swan song for an earth that may be beyond salvation but also, maybe not.




.toIn, 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, Laurens father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages.
While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.


When fire destroys their compound, Laurens family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger.
With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.
Novela distópica, escrita por su protagonista en forma de diario, por lo que resulta dinámica al centrarse en su punto de vista.


Una lectura ágil por la habilidad de su autora para envolverte en una trama dura y creíble, con unos personajes carismáticos.


Qué bien escrita, Absolutamente recomendable.,The best amp 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 thats 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 amp her perseverance through a world ravaged by economic, environmental, and moral upheaval.
Diligently documenting verses of a religion she has founded, Earth Seed, she seeks to create a new community in which people can live peacefully amp prosper in the knowledge of truth.


One thing in particular that I love about this novel is the main character, Lauren Olamina, I would not categorize this as Young Adult, but Lauren is a young lady with a mind years beyond her age amp a consistent adherence to logic amp empathy.


While I read I just kept thinking of all the young characters Ive read, in both Young Adult amp Adult books alike, who make choices that defy reason for the sake of the plot.
Thats not to say Lauren is perfect, in fact shes glaringly flawed,

But her flaws were not at the center of every conflict this book had to offer,

Another, aspect of Lauren that I find fascinating is her HyperEmpathy Syndrome without experiencing any physical stimulus, Lauren is able to feel the pain amp pleasure she perceives others to feel.


Im sure many high educated scholars have analyzed this book, so without reading those I may be way off here, but the element of HyperEmpathy Syndrome felt to me like a commentary on how pain can be passed down through generations.


Early in the book its revealed that Laurens father believes her HyperEmpathy Syndrome was passed down to her because her mother abused drugs while pregnant.
The fact that it is just speculation for the characters, that a real source of this curse cannot be verified, feels like a parallel to how, people can be directly affected by the suffering of their ancestors.


The idea of human desperation amp selfishness sending us head first into a brutal apocalypse just makes my stomach turn.
But alongside it is the idea that personal hope can exist in even the worst possible scenarios is a lasting, powerful message that we have clung to since the beginning of time.


And thats why I think this is an important read,

There were places where it dragged just a bit for

me, mostly in the second half, And I also felt as though some of the characters were introduced so quickly that I didnt have time to get to know them the way I did with those introduced in the first half.


But ultimately this is a great book, and another checkmark on my list of Octavia Butler reads!

sitelinkThis review and other reviews of mine can be found on sitelinkBook Nest! Feb, adjusted rating down after reading sitelinkDawn.
Butler did do much better,

This might have been the mustread dystopia of thes, Perhaps it's because Butler tries too hard, Or readers can't see past the obvious shortcomings,

Dystopias have been with us since 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 commentary.

What's wrong One, her protagonist's "hyperempathy syndrome" is stupid and unnecessary, Hokey.

Two, in a society crumbling under natural and manmade disaster, public water, phones, electric shouldn't operate, And insurance Yeah, it didn't pay, but they shouldn't have expected it to, Scarce coffee but plentiful tea, Many such disconnects which throw the reader out of the story, Butler seemed to not understand that a solar water pump is actually an electric water pump, If the solar array is broken, an alternate probably lowvoltage DC electricity source may work,

Three, if Butler could have gotten past her own socialracial memories, she would serve herself better, Readers are subjected to no less than four lectures about "debt slavery, " Her sense of history and justice was just too twodimensional,

Four, Butler takespages to set up the story, Lots of preaching and repetition, Thirty should have sufficed.

Five, speaking of preaching, her Earthseed religion, while a realistic construction for the adolescent Lauren, slowed rather than propelled the story.
It is a logical construct for a teen in a changed and changing world and helps define her character, but Butler seemed selling it a la L.
Ron Hubbard. Readers could skip the "scripture" quotes as they really don't bear on anything other than Lauren's state of mind,

I understand and appreciate books by/about people undergoing a crisis of faith I do not appreciate books by/about people creating a religionespecially when they try to convert me before they've even explained what it is or why I should care.
This shortcoming is partly offset by Butler including credible characters who think Lauren's new faith is claptrap,

Like Ender's Game: unnaturally bright, mature individual overcomes both enemies and friends to save the world maybe.
Echoes of Ayn Rand which comparison probably sets Butler spinning in her grave,

Do read this book, Parable of the Sower could have been a great event in fiction, but isn't, I don't think sitelinkEnder's Game is either, but it came closer,

Reviseddue to helpful reader feedback,
Revisedto correct many typos and tense clashes Distopía dura y a veces difícil de leer pero que me ha gustado muchísimo.

Nos traslada al año, una época en la que el mundo se ha ido al garete por culpa del cambio climático, las diferentes crisis sociales y políticas que ha llevado a un aumento de la violencia y el consumo de drogas brutal, así como el aumento de la pobreza, la escasez de agua y seguridad.

Lauren es una adolescente que vive en un barrio cercado por un muro que la protege a ella, su familia y sus vecinos de todo eso violencia, pobreza, drogas.
. , pero a veces ni siquiera esos muros pueden impedir que la vida de ahí fuera termine alcanzándolos,
Octavia E. Butler nos plantea en este libro muchas cosas que tenemos delante y seguimos ignorando, habla de otro tipo de esclavitud diferente a la que describía en 'Parentesco'.
. . pero no tanto, habla de la religión, de la empatía, del dolor y la supervivencia,
Y siendo una lectura difícil a veces por lo que cuenta, logra al mismo tiempo atraparte brutalmente gracias a esa escritura ágil, a modo de diario de nuestra protagonista.

Una novela impactante y que consigue hacernos reflexionar, Me ha recordado a muchas sensaciones que me dejó 'El cuento de la criada', aunque realmente no hablen de lo mismo ni de la misma manera.

Tiene segunda parte que saldrá en castellano en octubre, Ésta se puede leer de manera independiente pero NECESITO ya la segunda,
.