A New York Times Notable Book: In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future. “A stunner.” —Flea, musician and actor, TheWall Street Journal 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, Lauren’s father, a … defended enclave, Lauren’s 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, Lauren’s 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.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.
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Octavia Butler (whom died in Feburary 2006) was considered as one of the great female science-fiction authors mentioned in the same breath as Ursula LeGuin, Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and James Tiptree Jr (real name Alice Sheldon). Butler’s novels explored gender and racial themes in a science-fiction context and Parable of the Sower …
A sobering read of a possible future America, that no sane, reasonable person would think possible. Probably the same thing people in Nazi Germany, the USSR, PRC, and DPRK thought before it became their reality.
I’m a big fan of the dystopian genre and clearly this book belongs in the genre’s must read list. I like the set-up which is eerily reminiscent of a not too distant America gone wrong – even the dates could turn out prophetic, the book begins in 2024. America has lost its way through some mix of environmental disaster, corporate greed gone wrong …