Parable of the Sower
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4.3, 119 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The Nebula Award–winning author of Kindred presents a “gripping” dystopian novel about a woman fleeing Los Angeles as America spirals into chaos (The New York Times Book Review).
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 preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, war, and chronic shortages of water, gasoline, and more. 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 facing apocalypse. 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.
From a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship who has won multiple Nebula and Hugo Awards, this iconic novel is “a gripping tale of survival and a poignant account of growing up sane in a disintegrating world” (The New York Times Book Review).
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hugo and Nebula Award-winner Butler's first novel since 1989's Imago offers an uncommonly sensitive rendering of a very common SF scenario: by 2025, global warming, pollution, racial and ethnic tensions and other ills have precipitated a worldwide decline. In the Los Angeles area, small beleaguered communities of the still-employed hide behind makeshift walls from hordes of desperate homeless scavengers and violent pyromaniac addicts known as ``paints'' who, with water and work growing scarcer, have become increasingly aggressive. Lauren Olamina, a young black woman, flees when the paints overrun her community, heading north with thousands of other refugees seeking a better life. Lauren suffers from `hyperempathy,'' a genetic condition that causes her to experience the pain of others as viscerally as her own--a heavy liability in this future world of cruelty and hunger. But she dreams of a better world, and with her philosophy/religion, Earthseed, she hopes to found an enclave which will weather the tough times and which may one day help carry humans to the stars. Butler tells her story with unusual warmth, sensitivity, honesty and grace; though science fiction readers will recognize this future Earth, Lauren Olamina and her vision make this novel stand out like a tree amid saplings.
Customer Reviews
A must read for intellectuals and anyone who wants to understand humanity
I'm really at a lost for words, this book the writing, the character development and story felt so real. I was afraid to read at times because the world she write about is shaping into what I see today. Always changing...
Boring
Boring book with no climax. I was reading without paying attention to a lot of it but still didn't miss anything. Gives you something to think about as far as the ideas about God and the future though
