In the third year of my undergraduate degree, Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred was on my reading list. It was and still is, one of the best books I have ever read. So, I have been meaning to read more of her works ever since.

So, when I saw Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents on NetGalley (because new editions were coming out), I had to request them.

Octavia. E. Butler is a fantastic writer, her description, characters and world-building are all spectacular, and I fall into her writing so easily, not even noticing that it’s already 27 years old.

This book originally came out in 1993, but the themes are so relevant for today. It’s like Butler glimpsed into the future at the scary reality that we might just be facing in our future. It’s jarringly hard to read because it’s so scarily believable.

In this world, there’s a huge divide between the rich and the poor, the homeless and the housed. The government has a tenuous hold on power and doesn’t have a clue what’s going on in the real world. And a lot of people are unemployed, forced to live in houses with the rest of their families. Even water takes most of their wages if they even have wages. It’s all frighteningly familiar, this book opens in 2024 and its a near-future that we can see becoming our reality.

Parable of the Sower is written as a series of diary entries. This meant we get a personal experience of the world Butler has created, and through Lauren, we found out what it’s like for someone to live in it.

Lauren is a compelling narrator, and an interesting one. She suffers from hyperempathy, a condition that means she feels the pain and pleasure of others. This was an interesting concept. It meant she was vulnerable in a way that others aren’t, and she really had to think about what she wanted to do before she did it. That meant we saw the world through her careful, examining eyes, and felt the true consequences of her actions whenever she decided to take them. This plot is haunting, and it’s sad. But it shows us the importance of hope, and how powerful that emotion can be.

However, I did find myself struggling with the religious ideas in this book. Lauren is very theological, and I didn’t realise at first, but the book is named after a parable in the Bible. The family Lauren is brought up in are religious, and she decides to split away from that and formulate her own ideas. There are strong themes of theology and philosophy in this book that I struggled to get my head around, but I did understand her motivations and some of the ideas as I got deeper into the book.

Parable of the Sower is a seamless blend of YA Dystopia and Classical Science Fiction. It’s not an enjoyable or easy read, it’s not a fun experience, it’s not a happy experience. But it’s important. It’s science fiction at its best, taking important ideas and showing us the truth in them.

The year is 2025 and the world has been thrown into chaos. Rich communities are being destroyed by thugs and drug dealers, people raped and murdered and houses looted and burnt down to cinders. Amidst all of the chaos, Lauren Olamina dreams of a society of her own and calls it Earthseed (Biblical reference). As she is forced to flee her walled community (the same wall that is supposed to keep evil out of their doorstep) with a handful of people, Lauren realizes that the world is more than people using their mind and resources on petty crimes.

Parable of the Sower is essentially a survival story. Lauren's hyperempathy makes it difficult to harm another soul but in order to survive, she has to pick up that gun and shoot. Lauren looses her brother to mindless violence and then her family to a tragic incident. Being from a Black, Hispanic family and travelling with both white and black people, Lauren tries to decide what kind of work each of them are suitable for, if they decide to join this community of hers, built from personal experiences and empathy. Butler exclaims how as a Black person, the only job available is that of a slave, no matter the year. This story was written way back when Dystopia wasn't even a genre, but what Butler builds through this story is plausible and extremely scary.

Butler questions the laws around worker's safety, religious preachings and dirty politics, considering them to be a major reason for the degradation in societal norms to the extent where no one is safe.

Parable of the Sower is an apocalyptic novel that highlights a government that has failed it's people. There is a lack of basic amenities and the loss of life seems to be a casual affair. Lauren, however, stands strong with her idea of a world where there's harmony, safety and happiness.

In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future. Parable of the Sower is on one hand an easy read - so great (unsurprisingly!) is Butler's writing, and on the other difficult. A harsh world, the dream of a new one. It's a haunting and great read.

This read as incredibly realistic and scarily real, with a world plunged into chaos due to environmental changes, water shortages and anarchy. We follow 15 year old Lauren as she struggles to protect her family while also opening the eyes of her community to the larger issues of the world via the founding of a new religion, instilling faith and hope to those who need it.

At it’s heart, this is a story about a young women trying to change her world for the better. She’s a small beacon of love and empathy in a world gone wrong, and an interesting look into religion and the commentary into how useful it can be for people. As someone who doesn’t follow any set religion, as an agnostic, I’m incredibly interesting in these social aspects to faith and community and Octavia Butler manages to fill her novel with great religious context without getting too preach.. It’s well crafted and inclusive. I will say, however, that after a while I did find my interest waining and the pace slowed significantly.

I also would have liked to have seen more of the outside world, as this feels very insular for most of the book. We are never really told what it is that’s caused the Earth to descend into chaos, or why, which would have helped set the scene better. However, I understand that this is the first in a series and would expect a broader expansion of the world in future books.

If you are a fan of Margaret Atwood, Vox, The Power or similar books, I would recommend this. Although written in 1993 it feels fresh and prescient. Described as a science fiction novel, I would definitely downplay the traditional science fiction elements - the whole story is set in America, in the not too distant future, ravaged by climate change and societal breakdown. The main character is a young Black woman, and I really enjoyed reading this type of dystopian, female centred novel from the slightly different historical perspective involved when thinking about slavery, mixed race relationships and America's historical context. In my opinion, this deserves to be as well known as the Handmaid's Tale. The sequel, The Parable of the Talents, follows on well.

A powerful dystopian book, but what is scary is that so much of this is now beginning to come true. Written over 20 years ago and set in 2020 this is a new edition being released but just as relevant now, if not more so with Trump, the rise of the right, climate change etc. A thought provoking and interesting read with lots of modern parallels. Recommended

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

My thanks to Headline for a digital edition via NetGalley of Octavia E. Butler’s ‘Parable of the Sower’ in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first in Butler’s acclaimed Earthseed series first published in 1993 and reissued on 20 August 2019 in a new paperback edition.

Set in the mid-2020s it depicts a United States torn apart by climate change, violence, and economic collapse. In 2016 Gloria Steinem wrote of it: “If there is one thing scarier than a dystopian novel about the future, it's one written in the past that has already begun to come true. This is what makes Parable of the Sower even more impressive than it was when first published'

The story is narrated by Lauren Oya Olamina, the daughter of a Baptist minister, who has hyperempathy syndrome. This causes her to feel pain and other sensations that she witnesses. After the gated community that she lives in with her family is attacked, Lauren and a few other survivors make a dangerous journey to find a safe place in which to settle.

Lauren has left behind the God of her father and created her own religion based on the concept that ‘God is change’. Lauren believes that humanity is fated to eventually travel beyond the Earth to settle other planets. The text is peppered with extracts from her writings entitled Earthseed: the Books of the Living.

I was glad to have the opportunity to finally read this novel and chose to buy its audiobook edition, narrated by Lynne Thigpen, so that I could combine my reading with listening.

I was a bit surprised by the degree of religious philosophy within it though I probably should have known from its title. Even as a non-Christian I was aware of this parable.

It depicts a dark view of society with random violence, rape and even cannibalism. It’s not an easy read especially in light of current events and awareness of the Anthropocene. Yet it is still conveys a message of hope.

I doubt that I can truly appreciate it on a single reading but feel that it was powerful and compelling. I am moving directly on to its sequel, ‘Parable of the Talents’.

I wanted to read a book by Octavia Butler for some time. and I'm glad I read this one finally.
It's a dystopian world in future looking at a time when climate change and hyper inflation affects power dynamics completely. Society gets divided more and more by race, gender and of course economic situations.

In this world, Lauren has power of hyper-empathy for pain. Noone knows except her family. However, it's a violent world and therefore a hard condition for her. Apart from it, she creates a new religion called Earthseed leaving behind the Baptist learnings.

So, it's a very interesting book bringing a lot of issues from our world to the table. I really enjoyed nd would recommend it.

Thanks a lot to NetGalley and the publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was originally published in 1993 but the world it depicts – California in the mid 2020s, torn apart by destructive climate change and drought and starkly divided into the haves (usually white and male) and the have-nots (children, females of all ages, those of non-European heritage…) – seems more like contemporary fiction than science-fiction at times. California has always been prone to drought and Butler, a native of the state, wrote this book at the end of a six-year dry period which must have made her research into the climate aspects of the story easier. The social aspects would have been the result of a life lived as a woman of colour – even in the more integrated areas like Sacramento she will have seen both prejudice and injustice towards those of African, Asian or even Native American origins.

The main character in the novel is Lauren, the daughter of a Baptist minister, who lives in a walled community with her family and a small number of others. The world outside of the community contains some jobs (not many, and not well-paid) but also huge amounts of danger from the truly destitute. This is a brutal world of drugs, rape, arson and starvation which makes life within the walled towns seem like a paradise. Inevitably, the towns are attacked, the homes burnt and the inhabitants killed – when this happens to Lauren’s home she must then escape, along with just two other survivors, to try and find a better life to the North where water is less scarce. As they travel they meet up with other travellers and the group eventually makes their way to a safer location, far from what remains of civilisation, and settle there to create a new community.

This book is definitely ‘speculative’ in the way it explores what a society divided by race, gender and economic power becomes when climate change and hyper-inflation deepen those divisions. Where it becomes more ‘science-fiction’ is in a condition which Lauren has – hyper-empathy. This is not empathy with emotions particularly but with pain and in such a violent world this causes her considerable problems. It is a secret from all but her family but, once she is on the road and must learn to kill or be killed, she has to reveal it to her companions. The other key aspect of the book is the force behind Lauren’s need to establish a new community which is based on religion. She has lost her belief in her father’s Baptist teachings and develops her own religion, Earthseed, which is based on the premise that God is Change and that humans can be agents of that change themselves. Her ultimate belief is that humans need to leave Earth behind and create their future in space.

I was so excited to read this after really enjoying Kindred earlier this year, but this book didn't work for me unfortunately

This book follows Lauren, a young girl living in a gated community in almost-post-apocalyptic America. It's 2024 and the world has gone to ruin. It hasn't rained for 6 years, food is scarce, and electricity has just run out. The ones inside of the community are the lucky ones, but they're quickly learning that the more they have the more they have to lose to those living beyond their fences. This follows Lauren's journey of religious self-discovery and hope in a hopeless world

I enjoyed the premise and the near-future California setting. There was a lot of talk about Christianity and religion and I really wasn't interested in any of it. It's a very slow moving story, it's not even particularly character-driven, more just world/environment-driven

Maybe because I have read many more enjoyable post-apocalyptic books, and watched similar films, that I didn't engage with this one. I can't help but judge it against other things with similar premises that I've enjoyed more. Perhaps if I'd read this when I was younger and first on my dystopian kick I might have enjoyed it more

I'm definitely in the minority as this is a greatly beloved book, but it just didn't work for me. I'd highly recommend Kindred if you want to read some Octavia E. Butler, but I didn't enjoy this one

A modern classic, Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler is set in a fictional future that feels more and more likely with every passing day. It is 2025 and the world has spun out of control. Drought is common and water is scarce and expensive, crime is rampant and criminals have virtual free reign and poverty is everywhere with entire families being forced to share one room and the resurgence of slavery where people become so indebted that they are essentially no longer regarded as people with rights but rather their employer's property.
In the midst of all this chaos Lauren Olamina lives with her family inside the walls of a community on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Her father is a Preacher, and along with several neighbours , he has built a relatively safe home for their families, until one tragic night when the compound is overrun. Lauren's unusual medical condition of hyper empathy, an extreme sensitivity to the pain of others which manifests in her own body means that she soon blacks out when the invaders start to attack and kill the people she has grown up with.
Reeling from the shocking death of most of her family and friends Lauren takes to the road with two other survivors, in search of a place to be safe, and a place where she can try to create a new community, following the religion she has slowly envisaged over the years, Earthseed, which is based on the idea that God is change, and that the ultimate destiny of mankind is to travel to the stars.
I loved the dystopian feel of the book and found the world as envisaged by Butler to be truly terrifying. The author does not shy away from being brutal or gruesome, and while it is never gratuitous or there for shock value, that does not mean that it is not shocking. I also found the idea of hyper empathy fascinating and the author did a really good job of integrating it into the book in a way that meant it really felt real. I did not mind the device of having the story be told through Lauren's writings and diary entries, but I have to admit that I was not a huge fan of the way the Earthseed philosophy was scattered through the book, it was a little heavy handed at times.
I read and reviewed a copy courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

When critics say a book or movie “transcends its genre” I tend to think two things. That the critic probably doesn’t like the genre that much and is throwing shade over all the other books or movies in it. Secondly, if I’m a fan of the genre, that I probably won’t like the book. So, I’m not going to say that ‘Parable of the Sower’ transcends the sci fi genre, but I will say that it’s bloody good and even if you don’t like sci fi you should read it. It’s probably also worth saying that I’m dismayed that I’ve never read Octavia Butler before. On the evidence of this book she’s an important sci fi author (as her multiple awards would suggest), one who carefully examines the human impact of the futures she is writing about as well as creating believable worlds and engaging stories.
If ‘Parable of the Sower’ were published today (it first came out over 25 years ago), the publisher might be tempted to class it as YA. It has a plucky young female protagonist, Lauren, who fights for what she believes in a future dystopia. I find YA as a term a bit of an annoying marketing gimmick, and whilst this book has elements that will appeal to ‘Hunger Games’ fans (lots of action and a great heroine) it’s also incredibly bleak and thoughtful. It reminded me of Jack Womack’s ‘Random Acts of Senseless Violence’ or Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ in its unflinching portrayal of a future America collapsing under the weight of its own ignorance.
The world Lauren lives in is riven by environmental calamity, prejudice and humanitarian abuses for profit. It’s unrelentingly grim and terrifying in that it’s not impossible to see how Trump’s America could evolve (remembering of course that it was written when he was still building hotels and appearing in ‘Home Alone 2’). Many of the inhabitants, including Lauren, have abnormalities caused by poorly tested prescription drugs. Lauren’s means that she can feel the pleasure or pain felt by those around her. Butler makes great use of this throughout the book, and the way it is interwoven with the broader themes means it never feels like a gimmick. Instead, as with everything else here, it’s convincing and involving, forcing the reader to care about what is happening on the page in a way that not many books manage.
I mentioned ‘The Road’ and ‘Random Acts of Senseless Violence’ at the start of the review. Both are excellent books, with similar themes to this one. Where ‘Parable of the Sower’ sets itself apart from them is in its examination of the spiritual side of human existence. This is something that can be hard to do well (just look at ‘The Stand’), but Butler absolutely nails it. The new religion that Lauren establishes is convincing and its impact on the people around her believable. The final section of the book, where this element comes to the fore, is both moving and wonderful, which is perhaps exactly what religion should be.