Status
Available
Series
Publication
Grand Central Publishing (2019), Edition: Reprint, 448 pages
Description
Fantasy. Fiction. HTML: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, 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)
User reviews
LibraryThing member GingerbreadMan
I’m extremely worried about the future of this planet. The next five or so years are absolutely crucial when it comes to halting climate change, and at present very little is indicating we’ll make the two degree goal, which is the best we can hope for. Capitalism doesn’t seem to have the
Well, that’s a perky start of a review, right?
But there’s a point. For Butler’s book is very much the right read at the right time for me, giving me some glimpses of insights that feel very important. “Parable of the Talents” follows the events of Lauren and her little group after they found the enclave Acorn, making it the centre of the new faith, Earthseed. They are successful, even prosperous, until a new president of the wobbly United States is elected, a hateful bigot who wants to rebuild America’s greatness by trampling the different. Earthseed is looked upon as a satanic cult, and cannot avoid the president’s “Crusaders” forever. When the strike comes, it’s crueler than anyone could foresee.
Butler paints a very cruel, bleak world, a recognizable America in free fall, where human lives are cheap and getting by is hard. But Talents is, more than anything, a book about prevailing. About getting by. About trying again. About finding dignity in the most trying of circumstances. And as such, as a book pointing out that human existence can be worthy, meaningful, even beautiful even in the shittiest of worlds, it resonates strongly with me: If we fail, if don’t make it, if we’re heading towards a world five or six degrees warmer, with melted poles and scorched lands, there might be lives worth living there too.
On the other hand, I realize that the ultimate goal the Earthseed faith paints, the dream of a humankind surviving by taking to the stars, leaves me totally cold. The idea of man spreading to other parts of the universe, at the risk of repeating the same mistakes, holds very little comfort for me. I come to understand, however superficially, that my love is for this planet, rather than mankind per se. Not a bad bunch of insights to get from 430 pages of science fiction, eh?
As a book, Talents has all the same qualities that “Parable of the Sower” had: a strong sense of setting and character in a no-nonsense kind of way. It’s brutal in the same way (which may deter some). In the end though, it doesn’t quite take full responsibility for it’s setup. The storyline of Lauren and her lost daughter (who is telling the story) never seems to become all it could be. There’s a tiny sense of anticlimax in the end. But the road there is pretty damn stunning.
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tools to adapt to a limit of resources, several Antarctic glaciers are melting beyond stopping, and in most places making real changes is impossible for reasons of political popularity. Instead everything is pointing towards a pretty hellish scenario already in my children’s lifetime, with billions of climate refugees, shortage of food and water and global economic collapse. Quite frankly, I often feel there’s no hope.Well, that’s a perky start of a review, right?
But there’s a point. For Butler’s book is very much the right read at the right time for me, giving me some glimpses of insights that feel very important. “Parable of the Talents” follows the events of Lauren and her little group after they found the enclave Acorn, making it the centre of the new faith, Earthseed. They are successful, even prosperous, until a new president of the wobbly United States is elected, a hateful bigot who wants to rebuild America’s greatness by trampling the different. Earthseed is looked upon as a satanic cult, and cannot avoid the president’s “Crusaders” forever. When the strike comes, it’s crueler than anyone could foresee.
Butler paints a very cruel, bleak world, a recognizable America in free fall, where human lives are cheap and getting by is hard. But Talents is, more than anything, a book about prevailing. About getting by. About trying again. About finding dignity in the most trying of circumstances. And as such, as a book pointing out that human existence can be worthy, meaningful, even beautiful even in the shittiest of worlds, it resonates strongly with me: If we fail, if don’t make it, if we’re heading towards a world five or six degrees warmer, with melted poles and scorched lands, there might be lives worth living there too.
On the other hand, I realize that the ultimate goal the Earthseed faith paints, the dream of a humankind surviving by taking to the stars, leaves me totally cold. The idea of man spreading to other parts of the universe, at the risk of repeating the same mistakes, holds very little comfort for me. I come to understand, however superficially, that my love is for this planet, rather than mankind per se. Not a bad bunch of insights to get from 430 pages of science fiction, eh?
As a book, Talents has all the same qualities that “Parable of the Sower” had: a strong sense of setting and character in a no-nonsense kind of way. It’s brutal in the same way (which may deter some). In the end though, it doesn’t quite take full responsibility for it’s setup. The storyline of Lauren and her lost daughter (who is telling the story) never seems to become all it could be. There’s a tiny sense of anticlimax in the end. But the road there is pretty damn stunning.
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LibraryThing member TheAmpersand
I gave Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" two stars a while back, and one of my criticisms of her book was that I didn't find her vision of American totalitarianism to be at all credible. For better or worse, I find Octavia Butler's portrait of a post-democratic America, a frightened,
Butler's response to the fictional world that she's created here is also interesting. Earthseed, the commune or philosophical movement founded by Lauren Olamina, the character at the center of the book, proposes that in order to mature, humanity must literally reach for the stars: we must set our collective sights on the colonization of space. Butler's more concerned, I think, than the inner lives of her characters than with the particulars of space travel, but she makes an interesting point about the psychological usefulness of this sort of grand scientific project. Humans, she seems to argue, always need a horizon to sail toward, and science will be the boat on which we'll reach it. Butler's arguments reminded me of some of the arguments that rock writer Simon Reynolds makes in his recent "Retromania," in which he links a innovation in music with a culture-wide fascination with space travel and new technology.
Finally, I want to emphasize that "The Parable of the Talents" isn't just a novel of ideas, or a thought experiment in book form. True, like much speculative fiction, the book is light on what might be called "cultural detail," there are no songs or slang or movies or other cultural products that we, as readers, usually use to identify a book's time frame. There are very few stray bits of twentieth century culture hanging around here: in fact, Olamina herself suggests that society has reverted entirely to the technological level of the nineteenth century, if not earlier. Instead of making the book seem less-than realistic, though, it seems to emphasize its characters' personalities and the immediacy of the problems they face. Butler's narrative voice is clear and strong, an indirect third shaped by Lauren Olamina, a charismatic community leader turned new-age preacher working to revivify a post-Christian American society. She's a genuinely fascinating and often admirable figure, though the author suggests in an interview included with my edition of this novel that she took care not to make her main character too perfect. Still, it sometimes seems that "The Parable of the Talents" is held together by little more than Olamina's enormous will. Butler's a skillfull enough, as a writer, that she almost forces you to care about the members of the embryotic Earthseed community she describes here, and the descriptions of the psychological trauma that almost every character in this book is made to endure are often genuinely heartbreaking. In "The Parable of the Talents," Butler initiates an interesting and even necessary conversation about the ultimate fate of the human race by showing the frighteningly believable costs of refusing to participate in a larger discussion about we, as a species, are headed right now. Recommended. I'll be picking up more of Butler's work in the near future.
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fragmented, environmentally degraded, economically depressed, religiously obsessed place, to be much more believable. It's not that I think that this future is right around the corner, mind you, but Butler's taken certain strands of thought that are already present our political dialogue and fashioned a truly frightening future from them. She even manages to imitate the way in which some on the furthest edge of the right use the language of inclusion to convey a message that implies division. Post-apocalyptic settings are everywhere in fiction, movies and video games these days, but the one is particularly subtle, and that makes it that much more frightening. Butler's response to the fictional world that she's created here is also interesting. Earthseed, the commune or philosophical movement founded by Lauren Olamina, the character at the center of the book, proposes that in order to mature, humanity must literally reach for the stars: we must set our collective sights on the colonization of space. Butler's more concerned, I think, than the inner lives of her characters than with the particulars of space travel, but she makes an interesting point about the psychological usefulness of this sort of grand scientific project. Humans, she seems to argue, always need a horizon to sail toward, and science will be the boat on which we'll reach it. Butler's arguments reminded me of some of the arguments that rock writer Simon Reynolds makes in his recent "Retromania," in which he links a innovation in music with a culture-wide fascination with space travel and new technology.
Finally, I want to emphasize that "The Parable of the Talents" isn't just a novel of ideas, or a thought experiment in book form. True, like much speculative fiction, the book is light on what might be called "cultural detail," there are no songs or slang or movies or other cultural products that we, as readers, usually use to identify a book's time frame. There are very few stray bits of twentieth century culture hanging around here: in fact, Olamina herself suggests that society has reverted entirely to the technological level of the nineteenth century, if not earlier. Instead of making the book seem less-than realistic, though, it seems to emphasize its characters' personalities and the immediacy of the problems they face. Butler's narrative voice is clear and strong, an indirect third shaped by Lauren Olamina, a charismatic community leader turned new-age preacher working to revivify a post-Christian American society. She's a genuinely fascinating and often admirable figure, though the author suggests in an interview included with my edition of this novel that she took care not to make her main character too perfect. Still, it sometimes seems that "The Parable of the Talents" is held together by little more than Olamina's enormous will. Butler's a skillfull enough, as a writer, that she almost forces you to care about the members of the embryotic Earthseed community she describes here, and the descriptions of the psychological trauma that almost every character in this book is made to endure are often genuinely heartbreaking. In "The Parable of the Talents," Butler initiates an interesting and even necessary conversation about the ultimate fate of the human race by showing the frighteningly believable costs of refusing to participate in a larger discussion about we, as a species, are headed right now. Recommended. I'll be picking up more of Butler's work in the near future.
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LibraryThing member labfs39
Parable of the Talents picks up where Parable of the Sowers ends. Lauren Oya Olamina has created her first Earthseed community and is continuing to take in those in need. She is considering next steps in spreading her Earthseed vision when Texas Senator Andrew Steele Jarret is elected president. He
In Parable of the Sowers Olivia Butler created a world that seemed a mere step away from our own: corrupt cops, climate change, walled communities for those who could afford it, homelessness and violence for those who couldn't. In Parable of the Talents, that world felt even closer. Despite having been published in 1998, the election of an ultraconservative president who promised security and stability at the cost of individual rights was scarily prescient. That Jarret uses the slogan ″Make America Great Again″ made it impossible for me to think of the fictitious president without thinking of the all too real one. Certainly readers in 2021 will have a completely different reading experience than those who read it in 1998.
In Talents, one of the themes that is explored in more detail is how a single charismatic leader can ignite a religious movement. Lauren Olamina starts writing down "truths" as a teenager and in Sowers gathers enough followers to start a community. In Talents she has to abandon her plan of creating a network of communities and envision a new way of spreading the Earthseed doctrine. I found the initial descriptions of God is Change to be compelling, but felt by the end of Talents that Butler was struggling to write the religious "excerpts."
A major change between the two books is the shift from a single first person narrative to multiple. Talents is narrated by Lauren's daughter, but the majority of the book is told in Lauren's voice through journal entries, a technique familiar to readers from Sowers. Excerpts from writings by Lauren's daughter's father and uncle are also included when needed to provide additional perspective. It sounds confusing, but it works well and flows smoothly.
Once again, Butler impresses with her crisp writing, well-developed characters, and matter-of-fact tone. Originally intended to be one book, the Parable books are best read back to back. At the time of her death, the author intended to write a third and final installation in the series, but the two books stand on their own. I didn't feel as though the reader was left hanging. I would highly recommend the Parable books for anyone who enjoyed The Handmaid′s Tale. Note that both works, but especially the Parable books should have trigger warnings for rape, child abduction, and violence.
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is the head of the Christian America movement and his ultraconservative platform of ″Make America Great Again″ resonated with the evangelical right. Once in office, his supporters receive tacit support for vigilante violence. Immigrants, non-Christians, the poor, and women are all targeted by Jarret Crusaders wearing uniforms reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan. Labeled a heathen cult, Lauren′s Earthseed community is in the cross-hairs.In Parable of the Sowers Olivia Butler created a world that seemed a mere step away from our own: corrupt cops, climate change, walled communities for those who could afford it, homelessness and violence for those who couldn't. In Parable of the Talents, that world felt even closer. Despite having been published in 1998, the election of an ultraconservative president who promised security and stability at the cost of individual rights was scarily prescient. That Jarret uses the slogan ″Make America Great Again″ made it impossible for me to think of the fictitious president without thinking of the all too real one. Certainly readers in 2021 will have a completely different reading experience than those who read it in 1998.
In Talents, one of the themes that is explored in more detail is how a single charismatic leader can ignite a religious movement. Lauren Olamina starts writing down "truths" as a teenager and in Sowers gathers enough followers to start a community. In Talents she has to abandon her plan of creating a network of communities and envision a new way of spreading the Earthseed doctrine. I found the initial descriptions of God is Change to be compelling, but felt by the end of Talents that Butler was struggling to write the religious "excerpts."
A major change between the two books is the shift from a single first person narrative to multiple. Talents is narrated by Lauren's daughter, but the majority of the book is told in Lauren's voice through journal entries, a technique familiar to readers from Sowers. Excerpts from writings by Lauren's daughter's father and uncle are also included when needed to provide additional perspective. It sounds confusing, but it works well and flows smoothly.
Once again, Butler impresses with her crisp writing, well-developed characters, and matter-of-fact tone. Originally intended to be one book, the Parable books are best read back to back. At the time of her death, the author intended to write a third and final installation in the series, but the two books stand on their own. I didn't feel as though the reader was left hanging. I would highly recommend the Parable books for anyone who enjoyed The Handmaid′s Tale. Note that both works, but especially the Parable books should have trigger warnings for rape, child abduction, and violence.
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LibraryThing member beserene
This sequel to 'Parable of the Sower' reads differently than the first; instead of only seeing the world through Lauren Olamina's journal entries, we have the added voices of Lauren's daughter and even some sections from Bankole, her husband. The shift between these perspectives is sometimes
Once again Butler brazenly approaches ideas of religion and politics, but this time the novel is less hopeful, even less spiritual in tone. The sections from the daughter's perspective are touched with bitter flavor, as the character struggles to come to terms with her mother's persona and the religious relationships that she has no part in. Ultimately, this is a novel about suffering, from multiple viewpoints, and about reality.
That reality angle may seem a hard sell when one considers that this is a science-fiction-post-apocalyptic-near-future novel, but the way Butler has framed both the circumstances in which the characters find themselves and the extreme attitudes of some of the people they face will ring eerily true for 21st century readers, at least those who have been paying attention to the religio-political rhetoric that has been flying around in the US recently. For a novel published in the nineties, it feels impeccably timely.
This is not an easy novel to read. The characters are harder -- life's experiences have made them that way -- and the events are even more horrific to witness, but as with any good future fiction, there are important messages to comprehend here. Perhaps even more importantly, there are vivid people and complex ideas to face -- the sheer magnitude of Butler's skill never fails to impress. There were some frustrating moments in the process, but this is absolutely worth reading. Recommended.
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jarring for the reader, but I do think that the multiplicity and the family dynamic both serve to open up the narrative in a productive way. Once again Butler brazenly approaches ideas of religion and politics, but this time the novel is less hopeful, even less spiritual in tone. The sections from the daughter's perspective are touched with bitter flavor, as the character struggles to come to terms with her mother's persona and the religious relationships that she has no part in. Ultimately, this is a novel about suffering, from multiple viewpoints, and about reality.
That reality angle may seem a hard sell when one considers that this is a science-fiction-post-apocalyptic-near-future novel, but the way Butler has framed both the circumstances in which the characters find themselves and the extreme attitudes of some of the people they face will ring eerily true for 21st century readers, at least those who have been paying attention to the religio-political rhetoric that has been flying around in the US recently. For a novel published in the nineties, it feels impeccably timely.
This is not an easy novel to read. The characters are harder -- life's experiences have made them that way -- and the events are even more horrific to witness, but as with any good future fiction, there are important messages to comprehend here. Perhaps even more importantly, there are vivid people and complex ideas to face -- the sheer magnitude of Butler's skill never fails to impress. There were some frustrating moments in the process, but this is absolutely worth reading. Recommended.
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LibraryThing member AnnieMod
I wanted to love this book - I loved the first part of the duology and I came to this one with high expectations. And I almost did not finish it - not because it was a bad book but because it was so unimpressive at the beginning that I wondered if it may me better off to stay with the first book
The novel structure is similar to the first one - we are reading the journals of Lauren Olamina but we also get some entries from Bankole and a few more people and the entries we are getting are not selected by Lauren but by her daughter, at some point in the future, who also adds her own story and commentary at the start of each chapter. It is a slow start - the daughter story comes in pieces, not to spoil the story coming from the journals. And that's where something with the pacing seems to fall apart - the first quarter of the book sounds like the first book, except slower and more boring, as if Lauren herself selects what to publish/show.
The story picks up in 2032, 5 years after we left Acorn and its inhabitants. They had somehow survived and even if they are not exactly thriving, they had managed to make a life for themselves. After slogging through them surviving, living through an election that should not have finished as it did (reading this in 2021 makes me wonder what kind of crystal ball did Butler have...) and through more of the new religion Earthseed, the story finally picks up when Acorn is destroyed. While I can see why we needed that first part, it could have been a lot shorter and concise - the first book had most of it already and did it better... And then Larkin is born, Acorn falls and Butler finally gets to writing the story of Earthseed and Lauren Olamina.
Suffering, betrayals, people coming back after being considered dead, people dying when you least expect it and a lot of misery and heartbreak. The United States of the 2030s is anything but a happy place. But people survive and fight for their future and families. It is a cruel world, ran by zealots and idiots and it does not seem to be getting any better. But there is always a hope somewhere in there - as long as people can see future for their children, they will keep fighting.
And then there is the cult/religion Earthseed. We know that it did not die - Larkin knows about it and considers it her mother's favorite child. It is unclear early on if it is because it got widespread or because she is writing a paper about something in the past but the hints are all there. And despite it driving the story and is the point of the story, it still did not sit well with me - Lauren was getting almost zealot-ish in places, carrying more about an idea than about a person (despite what she was writing/saying, her actions showed something different). I disliked her in the first novel and I am not sure I liked her here either.
We get most of the story post-2035 only in the last chapter - I kept reading because I wanted that story. It did not disappoint but it kinda highlighted the pacing issue.
I wonder how much of my opinion of the book got colored by my expectations. I usually do not have issues with slow moving books but something here was off from the start. It felt like a book that should move faster but somehow failed to as opposed to being designed to be slow.
Still, it was worth reading. But I still find the first one to be the better book.
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only. Once you go through the first 1/4th of the book, the pace and the story picks up and I am happy that I read it - even I did not like it as much as the first one, it is still a good book. And the two novels combined together are impressive - despite the beginning of this one. The novel structure is similar to the first one - we are reading the journals of Lauren Olamina but we also get some entries from Bankole and a few more people and the entries we are getting are not selected by Lauren but by her daughter, at some point in the future, who also adds her own story and commentary at the start of each chapter. It is a slow start - the daughter story comes in pieces, not to spoil the story coming from the journals. And that's where something with the pacing seems to fall apart - the first quarter of the book sounds like the first book, except slower and more boring, as if Lauren herself selects what to publish/show.
The story picks up in 2032, 5 years after we left Acorn and its inhabitants. They had somehow survived and even if they are not exactly thriving, they had managed to make a life for themselves. After slogging through them surviving, living through an election that should not have finished as it did (reading this in 2021 makes me wonder what kind of crystal ball did Butler have...) and through more of the new religion Earthseed, the story finally picks up when Acorn is destroyed. While I can see why we needed that first part, it could have been a lot shorter and concise - the first book had most of it already and did it better... And then Larkin is born, Acorn falls and Butler finally gets to writing the story of Earthseed and Lauren Olamina.
Suffering, betrayals, people coming back after being considered dead, people dying when you least expect it and a lot of misery and heartbreak. The United States of the 2030s is anything but a happy place. But people survive and fight for their future and families. It is a cruel world, ran by zealots and idiots and it does not seem to be getting any better. But there is always a hope somewhere in there - as long as people can see future for their children, they will keep fighting.
And then there is the cult/religion Earthseed. We know that it did not die - Larkin knows about it and considers it her mother's favorite child. It is unclear early on if it is because it got widespread or because she is writing a paper about something in the past but the hints are all there. And despite it driving the story and is the point of the story, it still did not sit well with me - Lauren was getting almost zealot-ish in places, carrying more about an idea than about a person (despite what she was writing/saying, her actions showed something different). I disliked her in the first novel and I am not sure I liked her here either.
We get most of the story post-2035 only in the last chapter - I kept reading because I wanted that story. It did not disappoint but it kinda highlighted the pacing issue.
I wonder how much of my opinion of the book got colored by my expectations. I usually do not have issues with slow moving books but something here was off from the start. It felt like a book that should move faster but somehow failed to as opposed to being designed to be slow.
Still, it was worth reading. But I still find the first one to be the better book.
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LibraryThing member streamsong
This is the sequel to Parable of the Sower. It’s told by Larkin, the daughter of Lauren Olamina and her husband David. Larkin, now a mature woman, reads and reflects on Olamina’s journals.
Olamina had founded a religion known as Earthseed, with the basic tenet being “God is Change”. She
But the true threat comes when a right wing fascist President is elected. His slogan is ‘Make America Great Again’ (this was written in 1998!) He brings with him a brand of Christian fundamentalism that teaches that only turning to Christian extremism will pacify God and save the world. Those who don’t believe, are targeted by extreme vigilante groups. Naturally Earthseed falls, becomes a concentration camp, and the children are removed to appropriate Christian homes.
Even Lauren’s long lost brother, Marcus, becomes a leader in this brand of far right Christianity.
“God is Change” and the twists and turns as the story unfolds embody this.
I was amazed by the presentience of this novel, as it examines climate change and the resulting political and societal change leading to more death and destruction.
Olamina had founded a religion known as Earthseed, with the basic tenet being “God is Change”. She
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gathered people to her enclave, quietly converting them to her beliefs while providing a safe place in the midst of the climate change dystopian chaos of roving gangs of raiders, human trafficking, starvation and general societal breakdown.But the true threat comes when a right wing fascist President is elected. His slogan is ‘Make America Great Again’ (this was written in 1998!) He brings with him a brand of Christian fundamentalism that teaches that only turning to Christian extremism will pacify God and save the world. Those who don’t believe, are targeted by extreme vigilante groups. Naturally Earthseed falls, becomes a concentration camp, and the children are removed to appropriate Christian homes.
Even Lauren’s long lost brother, Marcus, becomes a leader in this brand of far right Christianity.
“God is Change” and the twists and turns as the story unfolds embody this.
I was amazed by the presentience of this novel, as it examines climate change and the resulting political and societal change leading to more death and destruction.
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LibraryThing member ChrisRiesbeck
A direct sequel to Parable of the Sower, primarily continuing the story of Lauren Oya Olamina and her quest to found Earthseed, a faith but not religion, based on change and destiny. There's an interesting framing device added: most of the novel is from her journals, as with Sower, but now there's
Trigger alert for those of us still recovering from the presidency of 2016-2020: the primary source of darkness is a right wing President who ran on the slogan "make America great again", around whom grew an army of modern-day Christian Crusaders. Butler's 1998 portrayal of the breadth and depths of the roots of the movement is frighteningly spot on.
One other side note: every chapter of both books begin with poems from Olamina's Book of Earthseed. While they did not do much for me, I was intrigued by their similarity to the poetry of St Theresa of Avila.
Highly recommended. We are awash in dystopian fiction, but few have the richness and inner core of Butler duology.
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commentary, often quite negative, by Olamina's daughter. The emotional source of that enmity is left to be revealed at the very end, a bitter arc to counterpoint the journal's path. That path goes very dark for quite a while, but as Sower made clear, Olamina is a survivor. Trigger alert for those of us still recovering from the presidency of 2016-2020: the primary source of darkness is a right wing President who ran on the slogan "make America great again", around whom grew an army of modern-day Christian Crusaders. Butler's 1998 portrayal of the breadth and depths of the roots of the movement is frighteningly spot on.
One other side note: every chapter of both books begin with poems from Olamina's Book of Earthseed. While they did not do much for me, I was intrigued by their similarity to the poetry of St Theresa of Avila.
Highly recommended. We are awash in dystopian fiction, but few have the richness and inner core of Butler duology.
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LibraryThing member SChant
I admired this book rather than liked it. It's a well-written and painstakingly imagined dystopia with generally plausible main characters, but the continual, unrelenting violence is nauseating. It made me feel depressed.
Also, the Earthseed philosophy, which was about embracing change and chaos,
My final nitpick is that within a few pages Earthseed goes from being a few ragged vagabonds wandering the US byways to a multi-million dollar organisation building interstellar craft to take their people to new planets. The jump is too sudden.
Also, the Earthseed philosophy, which was about embracing change and chaos,
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adapting and growing was couched in terms of God, which jarred very much. For what seems like a non-theist philosophy to use a noun used by religions that have inflicted so much abuse on women, gays, anyone outside the heirarchy's definition of "normal" seems somehow specious.My final nitpick is that within a few pages Earthseed goes from being a few ragged vagabonds wandering the US byways to a multi-million dollar organisation building interstellar craft to take their people to new planets. The jump is too sudden.
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LibraryThing member KingRat
In the quality of the writing, Parable of the Talents was a notch below Butler’s Parable of the Sower but just as equally full of good thought provoking ideas. I understand why Butler tore down what Lauren Olamina built in the first book, but I think story-wise it didn’t work as well because
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the building up of the next stage seemed so rushed at the end. But it’s only lesser in comparison to the previous book. Lauren Olamina’s story is very good and gives you a lot to chew on. Show Less
LibraryThing member banjo123
this book did suffer from uneven pacing, and also the story-telling structure is a bit awkward. However, Butler is brilliant, and as I read more, I was drawn into this dystopian SciFi novel.
I really could not get over how prescient the story telling was, considering that it was written in the
And then there is the overarching issue of our hero, Lauren, who is admirable in many ways, but also with the flaws of any leader seeking power, and the difficult mother-daughter dynamic that sets up. Lauren, who founds the Earth Seed Movement ends the book, like Moses, seeing her followers leave for the stars (the promised land), but unable to go with them. She is also a bit of a broken women when she reflects on the costs of her mission.
I really could not get over how prescient the story telling was, considering that it was written in the
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90's. There is a religious zealot right-wing politician whose slogan is "Make America Great Again." (really) Christian Americans separate the children of "heathens" from their parents. Corporate power overtakes individual liberty. Many of the scenes in this book are difficult and violent, and the more difficult because it doesn't seem entirely removed from present reality. And then there is the overarching issue of our hero, Lauren, who is admirable in many ways, but also with the flaws of any leader seeking power, and the difficult mother-daughter dynamic that sets up.
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LibraryThing member the_awesome_opossum
Parable of the Talents is the sequel to Parable of the Sower, and begins with the growth of Acorn, the Earthseed community which Lauren has established. The story is told half by excerpts from Lauren's journal that she kept over the next few years, and expanded upon by her daughter Larkin later.
Parable of the Talents was an interesting read, and Lauren is one of the strongest female characters I've ever encountered, but Octavia Butler writes dystopian literature so well, and so grim, that it kind of weighed me down to read it. Still, a fascinating and unique story
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This book is more political than Parable of the Sower; much of the future is defined by Christian America, the majority political party of the US, who have denounced Earthseed as a dangerous cult. Even so, Lauren gathers new members and spreads the ideology of Earthseed, against all opposition in the brutal society which America has become. Parable of the Talents was an interesting read, and Lauren is one of the strongest female characters I've ever encountered, but Octavia Butler writes dystopian literature so well, and so grim, that it kind of weighed me down to read it. Still, a fascinating and unique story
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LibraryThing member sturlington
A reread of Parable of the Sower reveals a dark vision of the near future that is eerily reminiscent of the pictures we all saw on TV following Hurricane Katrina, a frighteningly realistic portrayal of poverty and anarchy that is all too easy to imagine following on the heels of global warming’s
But Butler’s story is one of hope too: of a prophet leading her people toward a better future, following a spiritual practice that makes more sense to me than most organized religions I know of, and of a goal — to sow the seeds of humanity throughout space — that I have always believed held the key to our survival as a species. God is change, indeed, but instead of fighting it or surrendering to it, just recognize it and use it to make your goals a reality. This message is contained within a work of fiction that paint a frightening picture of the future, but it rings very true to me.
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devastation. The follow-up, Parable of the Talents, is even more grim and harrowing than its predecessor in its depiction of an America plunged into chaos. Butler deftly picks up the threads of the major issues facing us today — climate change, the widening gap between rich and poor, the privatization of education and social services — and follows them to the inevitably disastrous results if these problems aren’t addressed. Most frightening of all is the depiction of an America in the grips of Christian extremists who murder and enslave people and separate children from their parents, just because they do not hold the same beliefs.But Butler’s story is one of hope too: of a prophet leading her people toward a better future, following a spiritual practice that makes more sense to me than most organized religions I know of, and of a goal — to sow the seeds of humanity throughout space — that I have always believed held the key to our survival as a species. God is change, indeed, but instead of fighting it or surrendering to it, just recognize it and use it to make your goals a reality. This message is contained within a work of fiction that paint a frightening picture of the future, but it rings very true to me.
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LibraryThing member laileana
The second novel, Parable of the Talents, is told by Laurens estranged daughter. Lauren founds her first Earthseed community-Acorn-where she marries and has her daughter. Acorn is a self-supporting community that takes in run aways and travelers. Shortly after her daughter is born Acorn is over-run
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by the new US President-Andrew Steele Jarret's "Teachers". They gas the residents, take the children and seperate the men in one house and women in another. They basically become slaves. President Jarrett believes that by getting rid of "heathens" and forcing all Americans to become to Christians-he can make the country strong again. Bands of his followers form "re-education" camps where they rape the women, beat the men, steal the land, take the children and force the inhabitants to become Christians. Many years pass with members of Earthseed in bondage-partners killed, children stolen-it is a bad time. Eventually they are able to make their escape by killing the "teachers" freeing the students and spliting up-God is Change-and Lauren once again begins rebuilding Earthseed. This book is told though the point of view of Laurens daughter through a series of diary entries. What is it like to have a parent who founds a religion? Show Less
LibraryThing member bohemiangirl35
I am a die hard Octavia Butler fan, but I was really disappointed with this sequel to Parable of the Sower. I read the first book almost in one sitting. I was engrossed in the story, cared deeply about the characters and would hold my breath during some scenes because I was anxious about how things
However, Parable of the Talents was very slow. The story was not as tightly woven as the first book. The set up of having Larkin/Asha Vere do a little intro for chapters from Olamina's journal did not work for me. I felt like everything was in the past and I kept waiting for something to happen in the present. And I didn't care that Larkin/Asha didn't like her mother that she never knew or that she was jealous of Earthseed. Also, although Earthseed seemed like a believable belief system in "Sower," in "Talents," the Destiny just seemed silly to me.
The ending was not satisfying. I'm glad Olamina and Larkin/Ahsa were able to find some sort of normalcy and peace instead of suffering the rest of their lives, but I didn't care all that much.
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would turn out.However, Parable of the Talents was very slow. The story was not as tightly woven as the first book. The set up of having Larkin/Asha Vere do a little intro for chapters from Olamina's journal did not work for me. I felt like everything was in the past and I kept waiting for something to happen in the present. And I didn't care that Larkin/Asha didn't like her mother that she never knew or that she was jealous of Earthseed. Also, although Earthseed seemed like a believable belief system in "Sower," in "Talents," the Destiny just seemed silly to me.
The ending was not satisfying. I'm glad Olamina and Larkin/Ahsa were able to find some sort of normalcy and peace instead of suffering the rest of their lives, but I didn't care all that much.
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LibraryThing member PhoebeReading
Before I get into my review of Parable of the Talents, I'd like to make a general complaint about publishers who refuse to make it clear when a book is a sequel, or comes late in a series. I picked up this thick little volume at a book sale--the only Butler novel I could find, and shelved in the
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African-American Literature section, no less, despite being terribly and clearly dystopic science fiction. Because I've been trying to be better about reading books in order over the past several years, I checked both the back cover and inside list of Butler's published works. Not only was there no indication that this was a sequel, but it was also listed before Parable of the Sower on the inside flap, implying that this was the first book of the series.I think it's a dirty trick by publishers who, I suppose, think readers are less likely to pick up the second book, and I think it does a disservice to the readers.That being said, I'm not sure that my reading experience was at all marred by reading Parable of the Talents first, because I didn't even realize that I was reading a sequel until about two hundred pages in. This novel stands on its own incredibly well. Though, I'm sure, I missed out on some information which would have established the characters and the universe more firmly, I was actually only vaguely aware of this, and instead initially took this as one of the novel's strengths--that the universe felt complete and real; that the interactions within the universe by various characters did not need thorough introductions, because that's more true to how real people interact with the world around them.Parable of the Talents is a post-apocalyptic novel set in the near-future United States. The ice caps are melting and religious extremists have taken control of the US government. Amidst this, Lauren Olamina attempts to found both a community, Acorn, and a religion, Earthseed, which places human destiny in the stars. It's told through a series of journals and writings by four different characters; this is effective, but I found the two male perspectives offered largely dispensable. This is really a novel about mothers and daughters, and Butler offers strong, distinctive voices and a unique perspective on this relationship in the writings of Lauren and daughter Larkin.The characters here, both those two and the supporting cast, are very real. Though Lauren's husband Bankole is only with us for about half of the narrative, he's very realistically drawn; his concerns and characterizations felt incredibly true to life, and I found myself mourning the loss of him right along with Lauren.I wasn't quite sure of how I felt about Earthseed, though, and the religious verse that opened each chapter. It's a fairly simple and self-evident philosophy, which suggests, to me, that we were meant to feel utterly sympathetic toward it. This made me a bit uncomfortable--was this Butler's way of proselytizing?--and it also meant that Larkin's later objections to Earthseed felt false, or at the very least, petulant.The universe that Butler creates for us is a huge one, and quite immersive. Ultimately, I felt that the book could have easily supported another hundred pages. Instead, the ending felt rushed. We don't get to hear Lauren's voice after Earthseed becomes a successful movement, and I would have loved to experience it from her perspective.But still, the long-awaited interaction between Lauren and Larkin touched me at the end. It was incredibly sad and very affecting. This was another well-done novel from Butler. I look forward to reading the first in the series, even if I know, ultimately, how it ends. Show Less
LibraryThing member jlparent
Lauren Olamina's vision of Earthseed continues in this sequel to the "Parable of the Sower". It's slightly less powerful than the first book but still, a very worthy read.
Olamina's first Earthseed community, Acorn, is thriving and slowly growing when extremists come in and destroy it. The adults
Each of Olamina's journal entries is prefaced with words from her now-adult, estranged daughter. Each encapsulates how the women survived and kept on in a difficult world and their eventual reunion.
There is hope, bitterness, grief, and joy in this novel. It is not action-packed but still is engaging. In a general way, it reminds me of titles such as The Road, Oryx & Crake, etc. I found Olamina to be the most interesting character in her refusal to give up on life, on change, on hope - no matter what she or others suffered. Some may say she was narrow in her views or obsessive, but she didnt just care about her vision - she cared about others and their condition - to me, that is honorable.
To sum up, read it - after you read the 1st one (Parable of the Sower).
Olamina's first Earthseed community, Acorn, is thriving and slowly growing when extremists come in and destroy it. The adults
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are made slaves and children are taken. Eventually she and others escape and she attempts to find her stolen infant daughter (Larkin). At the same time, she still wholeheartedly believes in Earthseed and continues to teach the beliefs. Each of Olamina's journal entries is prefaced with words from her now-adult, estranged daughter. Each encapsulates how the women survived and kept on in a difficult world and their eventual reunion.
There is hope, bitterness, grief, and joy in this novel. It is not action-packed but still is engaging. In a general way, it reminds me of titles such as The Road, Oryx & Crake, etc. I found Olamina to be the most interesting character in her refusal to give up on life, on change, on hope - no matter what she or others suffered. Some may say she was narrow in her views or obsessive, but she didnt just care about her vision - she cared about others and their condition - to me, that is honorable.
To sum up, read it - after you read the 1st one (Parable of the Sower).
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LibraryThing member delta351
I thought this book was better than Parable of the Sower. As I read it, I had flashbacks to The Handmaid's Tale, in that this society treats women as second class citizens. A theocratic government controlled the country, and I interpreted it as another comparison to the Moral Majority of the 90's
I particularly enlightened by the section addressing the breakdown of the public education system. Acorn community citizens were able to educate each other. I am intrigued by the concept that in a collapsing society, poor children will not get education they deserve. Public education will come to an end, and it will only be available to the wealthy, and through private and religious organizations. I think this is relevent due to deteriorating economic conditions in the US and elsewhere.
There wwere some good survivalist tenets also, like cacheing? supplies and money, salvage, and general self reliance.
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taking over society. This world was much more detailed than Handmaid's Tale, and covered dystopian conditions over a much larger scale. I particularly enlightened by the section addressing the breakdown of the public education system. Acorn community citizens were able to educate each other. I am intrigued by the concept that in a collapsing society, poor children will not get education they deserve. Public education will come to an end, and it will only be available to the wealthy, and through private and religious organizations. I think this is relevent due to deteriorating economic conditions in the US and elsewhere.
There wwere some good survivalist tenets also, like cacheing? supplies and money, salvage, and general self reliance.
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LibraryThing member diovival
I would really give this book 3.5 stars. I was initially disappointed with the slow pacing of the story. I should have known that it would only be a matter of time before I was sucked back into Olamina's story. Octavia Butler did not let me down.
This is a story of the efforts of Lauren Oya Olamina
Join us and thrive, or whatever happens to you as a result of your own sinful stubborness is your problem.
The clash between Earthseed and Christian America is inevitable. The consequences are tragic. I had a hard time putting this book down.
This is a story of the efforts of Lauren Oya Olamina
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to jumpstart her Earthseed belief system during the dystopian chaos of America in 2032. At this time, America is no longer the shining city on a hill. Alaska has seceded from the union, American currency is worthless and slavery, disease, and violence are widespread. Out of desperation, citizens have elected Texas Senator Andrew Steele Jarret as the new President of the United States of America. Jarret also just happens to be the head of the Church of Christian America. Jarret and his supporters are going to fix things.....even if it means burning people at the stake who refuse to fall in line.Join us and thrive, or whatever happens to you as a result of your own sinful stubborness is your problem.
The clash between Earthseed and Christian America is inevitable. The consequences are tragic. I had a hard time putting this book down.
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LibraryThing member satyridae
I find the daughter of Lauren Olamina to be entirely unsympathetic and unlikable, which makes the power of Butler's writing clear to me. Butler's exploration of slavery, religion and love is, as usual for her, very incisive and not particularly easy reading. What's telling, for me, is how much less
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far-fetched this all sounds now than it did when it was new. Well done, albeit with more repellent characters than the first of the books. The narration was excellent. Show Less
LibraryThing member Open.Graph.Test.User
great book. must read if you like scifi & fantasy
LibraryThing member andreablythe
Several years after the events of the first novel, Parable of the Sower, Lauren Olamina and her fellow survivors of the chaos of the Pox have welcomed others and began to build a home for themselves in Northern California. Acorn is a community of over 60 people, most of whom are followers of
The book opens with the voice of Olamina's daughter Asha, and Asha's anger with her mother is clear. Asha has compiled pages from her mother's and father Bankole's journals in an attempt to understand them and to understand herself. It's clear from the start that while she can find sympathy for the father she never met, she has little sympathy for her mother.
As the book unfolds, we still are presented with Olamina's voice the most in the form of her journal entries, and she is fascinating as ever in her persistent pursuit of making the Earthseed religion a reality. She's powerful, brave, driven, and almost blinded by her drive, but she is also loving and caring toward her family and friends.
Through the words of Asha, Olamina, and Bankole, we see how Earthseed grows from a few words written in a notebook into a full community and cult, which is nearly wiped out. The journey is fascinating and it's compelling to see an imagining of how a religion (or cult, depending on your point of view) can be born and grow followers.
Like with Parable of the Sower, a trigger warning should go out to those uncomfortable with violence and rape, both of which appear in abundance within the book. Violence appears many times in this book, but again, there is hope in the way people come together and find ways to preserve their humanity in horrifying situations.
But also, like Sower, Butler writing and storytelling offer a grim, and occasionally bleak, but ultimately hopeful tale that might have failed in less skilled hands. While I didn't love it as much as the first, it is a fantastic book and one I also recommend.
The only pity is that Butler never had a chance to continue with this series, which I have heard would have continued Earthseed's journey by having its followers attain their goal of populating the stars. It would have been fascinating to see how these people carried this religion into new worlds, and how their society changed and grew as generations build communities on new worlds. I suppose, since it was never written, that I will just have to imagine what might have been.
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Olamina's religion, known as Earthseed. While there are still many dangers and poverty is still rife, things in California have quieted some and there is less overt violence on the roads. But a new fear is growing in the form of a fanatical Christian group, controlled by a powerful presidential nominee, that wants to return to an archaic and false ideal of the past, and this group could erase Acorn and Earthseed from the world. The book opens with the voice of Olamina's daughter Asha, and Asha's anger with her mother is clear. Asha has compiled pages from her mother's and father Bankole's journals in an attempt to understand them and to understand herself. It's clear from the start that while she can find sympathy for the father she never met, she has little sympathy for her mother.
As the book unfolds, we still are presented with Olamina's voice the most in the form of her journal entries, and she is fascinating as ever in her persistent pursuit of making the Earthseed religion a reality. She's powerful, brave, driven, and almost blinded by her drive, but she is also loving and caring toward her family and friends.
Through the words of Asha, Olamina, and Bankole, we see how Earthseed grows from a few words written in a notebook into a full community and cult, which is nearly wiped out. The journey is fascinating and it's compelling to see an imagining of how a religion (or cult, depending on your point of view) can be born and grow followers.
Like with Parable of the Sower, a trigger warning should go out to those uncomfortable with violence and rape, both of which appear in abundance within the book. Violence appears many times in this book, but again, there is hope in the way people come together and find ways to preserve their humanity in horrifying situations.
But also, like Sower, Butler writing and storytelling offer a grim, and occasionally bleak, but ultimately hopeful tale that might have failed in less skilled hands. While I didn't love it as much as the first, it is a fantastic book and one I also recommend.
The only pity is that Butler never had a chance to continue with this series, which I have heard would have continued Earthseed's journey by having its followers attain their goal of populating the stars. It would have been fascinating to see how these people carried this religion into new worlds, and how their society changed and grew as generations build communities on new worlds. I suppose, since it was never written, that I will just have to imagine what might have been.
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LibraryThing member faganjc
Innovative: this book tackles spirituality, feminism, race, and class issues and captures the complexity of all four. Superb in execution. Why give it a 2.5? Mostly, it's a personal thing: I just didn't enjoy reading it. Substantive critique: not every evil man is a *rapist*, and the bad guys in
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this book all seemed to be. That got pretty tiresome and 2-dimensional. When the Christian American splinter folks took over Acorn, you knew they were gonna be rapists... of course!! Show Less
LibraryThing member Unreachableshelf
I knew that this and Parable of the Sower were two books in what was supposed to become a trilogy but never did, but I couldn't remember which came first, and the bookstore I was in only had this one on the shelf. Therefore, I went ahead and bought it only to determine later that it was the second.
The post-cataclysmic world in which Olamina is struggling to build a community and find a way to spread her philosophy of Earthseed is one in which the government is in the process of being taken over by a fundamentalist denomination known as Christian America, education has become a luxury or something that must be arranged privately, and the poor routinely find themselves sold into slavery, and all of it is frighteningly believable. I can't comment on how possible it all seemed when it was first published, but thirteen years later it strikes me as one of the most prescient books that I've ever read.
And yet, as dark as the book is, so full of violence and despair, it ends with hope. Olamina begins to find supporters at the end of the book's main timeline; in the farther-future timeline, in which her daughter pieces together bits of her mother's journal along with occasional additions from her father and her uncle in order to tell the story, we are told that Christian America is now just one denomination among many. Although a CA family might believe that a woman who moves out of her parents' house before marrying is more or less a prostitute, there's no law that keeps her from doing so. She's not the property of her father until she becomes the property of her husband, and neither does a male guardian have to manage her finances or own/rent the place where she lives. In short, America did not go the way of The Handmaid's Tale. And if the chaos just sort of passing and normality returning might seem narratively strange, without the drama of massive resistance movements, it also seems quite natural in its way that the country would just reject the CA movement when it became clear they did not have the answers.
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However, it stands so well on its own that I'm a little worried that I'll be disappointed when I go back and read the first book.The post-cataclysmic world in which Olamina is struggling to build a community and find a way to spread her philosophy of Earthseed is one in which the government is in the process of being taken over by a fundamentalist denomination known as Christian America, education has become a luxury or something that must be arranged privately, and the poor routinely find themselves sold into slavery, and all of it is frighteningly believable. I can't comment on how possible it all seemed when it was first published, but thirteen years later it strikes me as one of the most prescient books that I've ever read.
And yet, as dark as the book is, so full of violence and despair, it ends with hope. Olamina begins to find supporters at the end of the book's main timeline; in the farther-future timeline, in which her daughter pieces together bits of her mother's journal along with occasional additions from her father and her uncle in order to tell the story, we are told that Christian America is now just one denomination among many. Although a CA family might believe that a woman who moves out of her parents' house before marrying is more or less a prostitute, there's no law that keeps her from doing so. She's not the property of her father until she becomes the property of her husband, and neither does a male guardian have to manage her finances or own/rent the place where she lives. In short, America did not go the way of The Handmaid's Tale. And if the chaos just sort of passing and normality returning might seem narratively strange, without the drama of massive resistance movements, it also seems quite natural in its way that the country would just reject the CA movement when it became clear they did not have the answers.
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LibraryThing member RobinWebster
Just stop after the first one. This is terribly written and unnecessary. The first book stands alone.
LibraryThing member wildrequiem
Olivia Butler is so brilliant at creating quality post-apocalyptic fiction. Seriously, she's a queen. I preferred this installment because it offered up the perspective of Lauren Olamina's daughter, who is not a fan of Earthseed. Lauren's obsession with her religion kind of annoyed me, so it helped
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with that. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Nebula Award (Nominee — Novel — 1999)
Arthur C. Clarke Award (Shortlist — 2001)
Otherwise Award (Shortlist — 1998)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1998-01-10
Physical description
448 p.; 7.05 inches
ISBN
153873219X / 9781538732199
Local notes
fiction