We Reap What We Sow
Review: Parable of rhe Sower by Octavia E. Butler
This is where I confess that I haven’t read as much Butler as I should have. Parable of the Sower is a less violent Mad Max, a vision of a California ravaged by climate change and societal collapse. Slavery has returned. There’s a new drug which makes watching things burn “as good as sex.”
It’s 2025.
Yeah. Well, this was written in 1993, so it’s reasonable. It does remind me why I like to avoid putting dates on near future stuff, though.
It’s well written, but it’s also about faith. Religion. Beliefs. Lauren Olamina is founding a new religion even as she collects a ragtag band heading towards a safe haven that…well, spoilers.
(CW: Massive age gap in a romance. Nobody’s under age, but it’s a big age gap and I know that bothers some people. Also CW: The dog dies. The dogs die. Quite a few dogs die. Quite a bit of talk about dead kids, too).
This is a dark, grim book that nonetheless has within it some of the seeds of hopepunk. It’s not a stretch to point to this dystopian work as a forerunner of that genre.
Because it’s also about people coming together to protect themselves and about the hope of moving on from violence.
One day.
And also the hope of going to the stars.