This ARC is hard to review.

I love Octavia Butler's Earthseed books, of which Parable of the Sower is the first. People have praised Butler time and time again for her prescient depiction of 2020s America and her hopeful Afrofuturist science fiction philosophy. Seriously, read those books.

This graphic novel is a faithful adaptation, and some artistic choices, like the voiceover boxes being the lined paper of Lauren Olamina's journal, already capture the protagonist's inner life well. BUT, it's hard to judge this ARC well because the art isn't anywhere close to done. There are a few panels here and there where Lauren's face is fully lined and shaded, but most of this advance copy is rough sketches. And I mean rough--it was hard to tell what most of the characters looked like besides Lauren, or even what was happening in some action scenes. That being said, what I DID see of the art was lovely, and the paneling choices themselves were pleasing. Once the book is released in January, I can see this rating going up to 5 stars. But for now, it's hard to extrapolate the end product from what I have.

Although this ARC has inconsistent art (still having some sketches, some outlines, some almost complete art) it is still as riveting as the original.

The distillation of the text into graphic novel sized bites and images is excellent. The art that is there, even the sketches, are full of movement and life.

This story has not only stood the test of time, but become more relevant with time. With a Netflix series on the horizon for this world, I anticipate the novel AND this graphic novel having a resurgence. Well worth adding to a GN collection in a middle school, high school, university, or public library.

Having enjoyed a biography on Octavia Butler about three years ago, I've been intending to look up some of her work ever since, but for one reason or another never got around to it, so when this one came up for consideration on Net Galley, I jumped at the chance. It's a graphic novel, so I figured it would be a relatively quick read, and the fact that this version is 276 pages long didn't daunt me, even though the print book itself is only about 75 pages longer! Unfortunately, it didn't work for me.

The first and most obvious problem was the unfinished nature graphics. An understandably huge part of a graphic novel is the graphics, but these looked like the artist had rough-sketched the images and then forgot to complete them, and no colorist ever came along to notice, The result is that every page is rough-sketched - as in, for example, there are no faces on many of the characters, or the face has the cross marking showing where the face center line and the eyes will be, or the entire panel has several overlaid outlines for characters and scenery, like it was rough-sketched out and then never cleaned up!

Initially, I had no idea if this was intentional, or if the comic is still a work in progress. Usually, if that's the case, there's something to indicate that, and at least a few of the panels are done to completion. After a search I did find a small note on one page indicating that it was a work in progress and that it's a combination of sketches, inks, and final art, but all of the art was in exactly the same state with no finished color panels anywhere to be seen. This isn't intended to be published until next January, so why not simply wait until more of it is done and send it out for review later - when we can see what the finished product will be like?! I've never seen a comic book sent out for review in this state. Never.

If that was the only problem, that would be one thing, but for me the story itself wasn't entertaining and wasn't very smart in places either. Set in the mid 2020's, the story focuses on a community in which resides Lauren Oya Olamina (Loo? Being originally from Britain, I couldn't take her seriously with those initials, but I let that slide). Lauren starts her own religion which sounds more like a real cult in that it advocates that humans - with no resources and no plan - leave Earth and settle on some other planet. Why that would make more sense than simply using the exorbitant cost of such a space flight to fix Earth seems to have been ignored, but since I haven't read that far (and Butler never did write that third part of what was intended to be a trilogy), it's hard to say. At this point I have no plans to read any further than the fifty percent of this that I made it through!

I couldn't tell from the rough drawings (which went all the way through the book - I skimmed to check) if this was an entirely African American or a mixed community. I assume it was mixed because there seems to have been an issue later with outside people they encounter not deeming mixed-race couples to be kosher, although again how that back-sliding occurred, I can't say. Nor can I tell who the people were who were breaking in - they were just outsiders, described vaguely as homeless, which begs the question as to why this community had so little charity. I know they didn't have much for themselves, but they did all right, yet never once did they seem to feel the need to try and help any of the outsiders who were clearly desperate enough to break in.

The biggest problem for me was how idiotic these people seemed to be inside the community. Despite continually harping on the danger posed by outsiders, it's only after people start breaking in and stealing that this ever-present threat of people breaking-in and stealing becomes an action item on their agenda! They start minimal patrols of two people, and even then these patrols don't use the guns they're issued. What's the point of the guns and all the target practice exactly, if you're never going to fire them, not even in warning?!

So yes, this community struck me as being exceedingly dumb. Apparently they have several keys to the gate, but they seem as lax in keeping an eye on the keys as Star Trek crews typically are in keeping an eye on the shuttle bay, leading to shuttles being routinely purloined. So no one keeps an eye on those keys either, and it really doesn't matter anyway because people can clearly get in without them. What happens eventually (so I understand, although I didn't read that far) is that the community predictably fails, and a hoard of refugees start a trek to the north, where conditions are apparently better. Why it took so long, I do not know!

This novel was written in the nineties and while Butler got climate change correct, she somehow seemed to think that everything: not just the environment, but the government, the military, the police, and whatever, would fail catastrophically within a quarter century. The military and government are never mentioned - not in the fifty percent of this that I could stand to read. The police are mentioned as a private organization which it's not worth the time and cost to call on anyway. For me the author failed to show how all of this could remotely come about in so short a time. We're just left with the unsupported claim that it did, and this is how things are now in this story. I need a little bit more depth for my fiction than this offered.

Consequently I cannot commend this as a worthy read, and especially not with such scrappy graphics and without even a page or two of samples of the finished product. This really ought to have been held back a month or two longer so that some pages at least could have been finished.

This was my first introduction to Butler's work, but I'll definitely be back for more. Her unique take on a dystopian America still feels futuristic, even though it's set in 2024 and was written in 1993. I decided to give this graphic novel adaptation a try since I thought the story would lend itself well to this form - there's so much intense imagery described. The story was incredible - both tragic and hopeful - as a young woman does all she can to survive during intensely threatening times. She decides to form her own religion called Earthseed, which she uses to propel her towards a safer future where God is trusted and relied upon fully. Despite some truly brutal descriptions of violence and death, there is still an inspiring purity to this text. Full disclosure: the ARC I was provided with by the publisher didn't have the final artwork included, so I don't feel like I can truly judge what the art will look like once the project is complete. However, overall, I felt this book was a great alternative to classic dystopian novels. The grit and heart of Butler's writing won me over completely.

*I received an earc in exchange for an honest revoew. All opinions are my own.

I don't read very many graphic novels but I loved this one. It was a pure work of art coupled with a provacative and haunting story.

I will definitely be keeping my eye out for the next installment in the graphic novel adaptation of this duology.

This is an excellent and detail-oriented adaptation of Butler's classic Parable of the Sower. Like the recent release of her novel Kindred in the same format, it omits very little of the original dialogue and internal thoughts of the protagonists, and captures the fear and excitement that the novel so beautifully balances.

Why read a graphic novel adaptation of a novel? For the same reason, one watches a movie adaptation of a novel. It adds a different aspect to the story. Often, if successful, such an adaptation can breathe new life to a story and flesh out things that were not as significant. This graphic novel tells the story of Butler's apocalyptic vision of the future in plain inked drawings, sometimes leaving characters in shadows and not fully illustrated. The story is broken down piece by piece in comic strip panels which highlight the pain and despair of Butler's novel which portrays a civilization which caved in on itself, with looters everywhere, and people wandering desperately up and down freeways looking for something anything cause it's all they have. The God Is change philosophy is offered in notebook-like tidbits that feels like a natural pet of the story. Overall, quite a worthwhile introduction to Butler's work.

This graphic novel is completely different to any others that I’ve read, I enjoyed the storyline, however the artwork distracted me from the plot quite a lot. It’s not the style which I most enjoy.

I believe this will be an extraordinary adaptation once it's complete, good sketches, I can definitely see where they are going and I like the direction. I look forward to adding this one to our collection, this world could use more Octavia Butler.

Interesting graphic novel adaptation of the Parable of the Sower. The art in this early draft was very sketchy, so it's hard to remark on that element, but it does seem to capture the haunting quality of Butler's original text.