![]() ![]() It makes sense that in a collapsing society frightened people would look for someone or something to follow. It is true that Joan of Arc achieved a great deal before her tragic end at the age of nineteen, but in a modern, end times setting, I am not sure how many people would accept an eighteen-year-old as their self-anointed spiritual and civic leader. With that being said, I am not sure how convincing I found her as a prophet. ![]() Under the gore and grit, there is a grim kind of optimism, and it is difficult not to get behind Lauren as she navigates the terrors of a civilisation in the process of unmaking itself, bringing a deep well of inner strength to the fight for survival. There were several plot points that had me raising my eyebrows, but overall I really liked this book. Each chapter begins with a quote from the ‘Book of the Living’, but the religion can be summed by its own simple mantra: God is Change. Despite her being the daughter of a Catholic preacher, her belief system has more in common with Buddhism. The novel follows her from 15-18, chronicling her progress as she undertakes a spiritual journey to found a new religion – Earthseed. Our protagonist is Lauren Olamina, an adolescent ‘hyperempath’ who feels others’ pain every time she observes them being hurt. Parable of the Sower is, at least on the surface, a less ambitious text. Kindred, with its time travel plot and strained interracial relationships, is a complex novel about the psychology of race. This is my second Butler read (I reviewed Kindredlast year), and from the first, I found it a simpler narrative than expected. However, the narrative remains relevant to discussions about climate change, and black protagonists are, to this day, uncommon in science fiction. ![]() Reading it nearly 30 years after publication, it is difficult to ignore that the setting – a drought-ridden future America crumbling into violence – has been explored many times since, and perhaps analysed with greater depth than can be found in these pages. Parable of the Sower is an apocalyptic dystopia, published in 1993. ![]()
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