Parable of the Sower [Paperback]

Octavia E. Butler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2000

When unattended environmental and economic crises lead to social chaos, not even gated communities are safe. In a night of fire and death Lauren Olamina, a minister's young daughter, loses her family and home and ventures out into the unprotected American landscape. But what begins as a flight for survival soon leads to something much more: a startling vision of human destiny... and the birth of a new faith.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Octavia E. Butler, the grande dame of science fiction, writes extraordinary, inspirational stories of ordinary people. Parable of the Sower is a hopeful tale set in a dystopian future United States of walled cities, disease, fires, and madness. Lauren Olamina is an 18-year-old woman with hyperempathy syndrome--if she sees another in pain, she feels their pain as acutely as if it were real. When her relatively safe neighborhood enclave is inevitably destroyed, along with her family and dreams for the future, Lauren grabs a backpack full of supplies and begins a journey north. Along the way, she recruits fellow refugees to her embryonic faith, Earthseed, the prime tenet of which is that "God is change." This is a great book--simple and elegant, with enough message to make you think, but not so much that you feel preached to. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From 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.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (January 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446675504
• ISBN-13: 978-0446675505
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (131 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,772 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006) was the author of many novels, including Dawn, Wild Seed, and Parable of the Sower. She was the recipient of a MacArthur Award and a Nebula Award, and she twice won the Hugo Award.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marvellously written, June 2, 2000

By 

Kali "bengaligirl" (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Parable of the Sower (Mass Market Paperback)

I started reading Octavia Butler's book when I was at school in Atlanta. A friend lent me a copy of "Wild Seed" and I was riveted from page one and could not put it down. Octavia Butler is one of the best science-fiction writers to come out of the 20th century. Her pages are filled with characters that are believable even though she often puts them in `out-of-this-world situations.' In "Parable of Sower" she introduces the reader to Lauren, a young girl with the unenviable ability to feel the pain of others. A "talent" her father has taught her to hide from others outside her family. The world Lauren is living in is slowly descending into anarchy and Lauren, is living with her family in a small enclave, protected by her Minister father, who thinks one day everything will go back to normal. Lauren however knows that the walls that protect them will not stand forever, and she prepares to leave before it is too late but it is already too late and her family and friends are raped, murdered and mutilated by a vicious gang of drug-addicts. With two fellow survivors Lauren sets off on a quest that will lead them halfway across America, gathering others along the way, such as two young prostitutes on the run from their pimp father, a middle aged Academic, an orphaned child but to name a few. A tentative alliance is forged, one that will enable them all to live through the dreadful times ahead. Lauren carries with her a strange new belief, that of Earthseed, a creed that will one-day lead to the stars and a life beyond a corrupted earth. As she and her slowly growing band of followers' search for sanctuary she preaches Earthseed to them, and soon begins to recruit coverts among her fellow travellers. "Parable of the Sower," is a haunting novel of a world in transition, where only the strong, the cruel and the vicious survive. The weak and the sick are either killed for enslaved. As Lauren and her followers' head for a farm where they hope to find a home, the young girl is witness to history repeating itself. Slavery is making a come back and people like herself who can feel the pain of others are being sought by unscrupulous men and women who have seen the benefit of such having workers that are in tune with the agonies of others. This is a dark novel of how easy it is for humanity to be bought to its knees, but it also a novel about dreams, desire, and the need for a new future. Earthseed might just be the answer to a dying planet's needs and Lauren could be the Prophet who makes it happen. Octavia Butler's writing is atmospheric, exciting, romantic and there is never a dull moment from the time you turn the first page. A marvellous book and I highly recommend it for first time science-fiction readers, as it is easy to get in to and understand.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Frightening future vision, December 31, 2001

By 

Rick Hunter (Malone, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Parable of the Sower (Mass Market Paperback)

I don't often read science fiction, but the recommendation of several readers and its inclusion on our local public radio "Readers and Writers on the Air" series caused me to pick up, with some trepidation, Octavia E. Butler's 1993 sci-fi novel Parable of the Sower. Set just twenty-five years from now, Butler imagines a California beset by severe global warming, with the government virtually collapsed and anarchy run amuck. Written in the first person, Butler's narrator, Lauren, is a young woman who begins the book living in a walled community with her family. Life outside the walls is total chaos, and much effort is spent keeping the "barbarians" - people who have been dispossessed of home or property - on the outside. When her town's security is breached and her entire family murdered, Lauren finds herself on the road, where she eventually gathers a group of people with her, all journeying to the north. Lauren is unique and memorable in a couple of respects: first, a preacher's kid, she sets out to define and found a new religion, which she calls Earthseed, and which takes both the moral precepts of Christianity and the unique creed that "God is change." Second, Lauren has "hyperempathy syndrome", which causes her to feel as her own the pleasure and pain of those around her. Thus, if she sees someone critically injured and in pain, she will herself feel that person's conscious pain. Not a good condition to have when living under circumstances where one must fight to survive, and kill or be killed!

While I found at times the Earthseed material to be a bit "over the top," overall this is a provocative and excellent novel. Butler writes extremely well, and she made the hellish world in which her characters find themselves absolutely believable. Parts of this novel are not for the squeamish. Although very dark in tone, the novel ends on a ray of hope when Lauren's group, after burying the dead from a recent battle, recall Jesus' Parable of the Sower. As the reader may recall, although most of the seed ends up dying, some falls on good ground, "sprang up, and bore fruit an hundredfold." Highly recommended.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars well written, scary and too real a scenario., March 12, 2006

By 

Dee "Dee" (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Parable of the Sower (Mass Market Paperback)

Some writers have a talent for describing current reality in the guise of science fiction. Octavia Butler was one of the best at this. Her dystopia in this and the sequel Parable of the Talents is so close to our own reality that it is quite scary. It is also a quick read. Her work has always been good reading and this is no exception. Want to see the end product of rampant corporatism? Read the book. The way things are going in the US of A, we may well need a leader like the heroine Lauren Olamina Bankole but you can get some of Lauren's wisdom from reading Octavia's Parable books for yourself. You won't regret it. A few of her words below.

"Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists that control the fool
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery."