Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel: The powerful and compelling sequel to the dystopian classic Parable of the Sower Lauren Olamina was only eighteen when her family was killed, and anarchy encroached on her Southern California home. She fled the war zone for the hope of quiet and safety in the north. There she founded Acorn, a peaceful community based on a religion of her creation, … religion of her creation, called Earthseed, whose central tenet is that God is change. Five years later, Lauren has married a doctor and given birth to a daughter. Acorn is beginning to thrive. But outside the tranquil group’s walls, America is changing for the worse.
Presidential candidate Andrew Steele Jarret wins national fame by preaching a return to the values of the American golden age. To his marauding followers, who are identified by their crosses and black robes, this is a call to arms to end religious tolerance and racial equality–a brutal doctrine they enforce by machine gun. And as this band of violent extremists sets its deadly sights on Earthseed, Acorn is plunged into a harrowing fight for its very survival.
Taking its place alongside Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Butler’s eerily prophetic novel offers a terrifying vision of our potential future, but also one of hope.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.
more
Octavia Butler was the first SF author to receive a MacArthur Genius Award. ‘Parable’, published in 1998, is an intense dystopian story of the near future in which climate change and economic pressures have lead to widespread – though not universal, collapse of US civilization (violence, slavery, etc.). In a surprising bit, the “big bad” who rides to power fanning the flames of fear, hate and greed uses the catch phrase, “Help us make America great again.” I recommend this book, but it is not a feel-good story. Even though it ends with the promise of better times, they come at great cost.
Hard to believe this author could foresee the possible downfall of the US in a way that is so consistent with the past 4 years.
There has not been a novel that caused such discomfort, challenge my assumptions, or made me defensive while reading like Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler. It is the sequel to Parable of the Sower and continues Lauren Olamina’s quest to create a new religion, Earthseed, in a believable and frightening post-apocalyptic America reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or the movie, Book of Eli starring Denzel Washington.
If the novel’s title sounds familiar, then you would recognize it as one of Jesus’ most popular parables from the New Testament Book of Matthew, Chapter 25:14-30. The parable deals with a master giving out talents to his servants and those who received multiple talents could add more from what they were given. While, the servant who only received one talent could not multiply his portion and got punished by his master because of it.
With that parable as the novel’s backdrop, Butler continues with Lauren’s story in an epistolary format through the eyes of her daughter, Larkin. She discovers her mother’s writings and is determined to learn about this woman who create this strange religion that came between their relationship.
Lauren’s writings revealed a bleak and terrifying America where an alt-right Texan Senator Andrew Jarrett becomes president. Jarrett’s campaign slogan was the same one that a certain presidential candidate has adopted. Butler’s prescience appeared throughout the novel and made it the most challenging parts for me as a reader.
However, I felt Butler went into caricature with Jarrett and the alt-right’s version Christian America as the antagonist of the novel. I believed in some of the scenarios of wanting America to return to its Christian heritage (not historically accurate) being believable. Butler did not provide enough motivation or depth to the antagonist that would have made the story even better. It seemed as the author through Lauren’s letters wanted to unload on right-wing ideology. That wanting to unload on a ideology is less effective in a work of fiction.
Despite that objection, Butler wrote a blunt and powerful novel. Also, she is an excellent storyteller and regardless of my discomfort I kept turning the pages until the end. Butler has deserved her reputation as a giant in science fiction and the Parable books cemented her legacy.
I highly recommend Parable of the Talents. But, I would suggest that you read Parable of the Sower first. They are two halves of a whole work of art and you will get the full effect of Lauren’s attempt in trying to create Earthseed.
Unfortunately, boring and lower reading level. I couldn’t finish; my time is better spent on more challenging works. Maybe it’s destined to be a teen cult classic.
I think one of Butler’s many Talents was predicting the future. It was impossible not to think of Donald Trump when she was writing about demagogue and fascist President Jarrett. With that said, I found this less compelling than Sower, and at times a bit repetitive with not much happening. There is no doubt Butler was an extremely talented writer, and I did enjoy the story, just not as much as I was hoping.
prescient! Complex characters trying to survive in a world that is only a step past our own
Ms Butler continues to impress. A terribly underrated writer with an imagination that blows me away. I wonder how minds like this work but I’ll take it and enjoy every book I can find with her name on it.
Amazingly predictive ( and philosophical) dystopian fiction.
Even better than the first book. I couldn’t put it down. One of the best dystopian novels I have ever read.
Butler was clearly a visionary. This book could have been written last year.
This is a more than worthwhile sequel to the better known first part of the Earthseed series, The Parable of the Sower. It continues to build on the dystopian future of the original while developing the characters and showing a logical way out and a return to civilization. The author is careful to not offer easy solutions but fully embracing that the way forward has plenty of hardship and that not everyone makes it whole.
Octavia Butler is one of my new go to authors. I wish I had discovered her earlier then the last few years. Butler writes brilliantly and her worlds are imaginative yet believable. I’ve even quoted from this book.