R- Parable of the Sower (v,some x,b), Imago (v,x), Wildseed (v,some x,strong b), Clay's Ark (extreme v,slight x)
PG16- Dawn (some x,b), Adulthood Rites (v,some x), Mind of My Mind (v,some x)
Butler is incredible, but she is not comfortable. She confronts the reader with shocking images and portrays people in all their unnerving complexity. Yet she does not do so gratuitously, but rather with a fine-tuned sense of human emotions and a clear view of her goal. Her subjects are usually apocalyptic in style, and she delights in worlds on the brink of violent change. If you want to be moved, be taught, be led to the fountain of wisdom, read these books. If you want to relax and not think too much, don't. Don't say I didn't warn you.
The most disturbing novel of Butler's I have read is Wildseed. I have never seen another book with the same world premise. Doro, a man who personifies the power of the mind, has learned to leap from body to body, killing the minds of his hosts and leaving them behind like garbage. Anyanwu is a woman born centuries ago, a shapeshifter, mother of tribes, healer, protector. When they meet, they join in a titanic struggle for the future of all the strange ones, their world-wide tribe of rare talents that often drive them mad- as Doro and Anyanwu might be mad. But such things are irrelevent; only survival matters, survival and power. But two such irreconcilable people cannot share such awesome power. This novel contains excellent historical research from both Africa and the American colonies (North and South). It is also very different from most books in the genre.
The sequel to Wildseed is Mind of My Mind, about the final result of Doro's fearsome breeding program. Mary is a precious child, in the image of her creator, possibly the first of Doro's type to come into her own, if she survives. She could bring life or death to the world, or enslave the human race to her newly created race of telepaths. But Doro allows no one to compete with him. Anyanwu, now called Emma, stands by and watches the titanic struggle between a child who once loved Doro as her father and the man who would give anything to truly belong to a family. One of the most poignant of Butler's creations, this one had me on the edge of my seat, not because I was afraid, but because I genuinely cared about all of her characters, including that ultimate murderer Doro. Though the climax is inevitable, I kept wanting to hold it back, though the conclusion was honest and satisfying. A sequel in the best sense of that word, this is not a repeat of Wildseed, but rather a completely necessary story in its own right.
Clay's Ark is not as good as Butler's other works that I have read, but it's still better than many authors can produce. Using her traditional apocalyptic settings, Butler incorporates a regular Sci-Fi theme: an epidemic that doesn't kill everyone, but makes the survivors something other than human. That she chooses to set the story in a localized pocket of infected people and not to have the rest of the world going through the crisis gives the book a boost in individuality, but it's strength is more in the theory than in the writing. If you want to read a scary novel that is pretty good but not so new as to keep you thinking for days, this is a good pick. My lack of sympathy as a reader may have more to do with her hop-scotching points of view than any actual writing flaws, but I felt that the characters overall did not become truly sympathetic until well into the book.
Dawn is the first of a trilogy about the world after nuclear war, when an alien race called Oankali saves the remainder of mankind from a slow, painful death. But this alien race wants mankind to mingle genes with them, to become something other than human. They will not allow humans to have human children because of the aggression that nearly caused the Earth's destruction to begin with. Lilith, a strong, twenty-something woman, is chosen by them to become the first liaison between humans and Oankali; she is given the unenviable task of explaining the situation to the remaining humans. Lilith is the ultimate outcast- detested by her own race, misunderstood by her chosen one, and alone, unique, the mother of a new race on Earth. Well-conceived and not as violent in its imagery as most other Butler novels. A pretty good book.
The next book, Adulthood Rites, is about the kidnapping of Lilith's human-looking son. Some humans have decided to abandon the aliens and live on their own in the wilderness, though they are sterilized and cannot have children. In desperation, some of them kidnap human-looking children from the Oankali-Human colonies, and try to raise them as humans. Lilith's son Akin was taken when he was 2 years old. The experience of violent, illogical humans changes him forever in ways the Oankali could not imagine; it is because of his greater experience that he imagines a future neither race could have anticipated- imagines it to the brink of reality.
Finally, Imago ends the saga with another of Lilith's children, one of her youngest. Jodahs is something the Oankali themselves have feared: an Oankali-Human hybrid with the powers of an ooloi, the special gender of Oankali that can shape and change all life. He could destroy earth; he could destroy himself. And yet his ooloi parent, the unflappable Nikanj, desperately wants him to live. So he and his family begin the difficult trip to isolation, to find out if everything the Oankali have worked for will come apart, or if it will be greater than even they could have imagined. This is the best book in the series (or at least the most comfortable), in my opinion, and it is very emotionally involving. Definitely recommended for people who enjoy warping their minds.
The best Butler novel I have read is Parable of the Sower, a psychological and semi-religious exploration of humanity and human relationships in a world gone crazy. The "Sower" is a young woman named Lauren, daughter of a preacher in a walled neighborhood. Outside the walls, things are getting worse and worse, as America breaks down into anarchy. Lauren is an empath due to drugs her mother took- just by watching she can feel the pain of any living human. Yet she is made emotionally stronger by this, and when chaos finally comes for her, she takes what she can and starts a journey toward a new life, finding converts to Earthseed, her religion of adaptation and community. Though emotionally traumatic in places, on the whole this book is redemptive. At one point, Lauren says "The world is full of painful stories. Sometimes it seems as though there aren't any other kind, and yet I found myself thinking how beautiful that glint of water was through the trees." I think that sums up the story- the world can be hard and heartless, but it can also be beautiful.
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Last Updated: June 29, 1999
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