Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)

About

This highly acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel of hope and terror from award-winning author Octavia E. Butler “pairs well with 1984 or The Handmaid’s Tale” (John Green, New York Times)—now with a new foreword by N. K. Jemisin.

When global climate change and economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s, California becomes full of dangers, from pervasive water shortage to masses of vagabonds who will do anything to live to see another day. Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others’ emotions.

Precocious and clear-eyed, Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith … and a startling vision of human destiny.

Unchaptered

p. 1

Prodigy is, at its essence, adaptability and persistent, positive obsession. Without persistence, what remains is an enthusiasm of the moment. Without adaptability, what remains may be channeled into destructive fanaticism. Without positive obsession, there is nothing at all.

p. 7

(Foreword) Star Trek was an affirmation of the value of our existence. In an America that seemed mostly unwelcoming to our presence while seemingly insistent on assassinating its most charismatic leaders, once a week we escaped into a future that was considerably more appealing than segregation, the struggle for civil rights, and an unwinnable war in Vietnam.

p. 11

(Foreword) I am in love with the idea of God as Change. Change is indeed the most constant force in our universe; nothing in this realm is immune to its impact or influence.

p. 26

We give lip service to acceptance, as though acceptance were enough. Then we go on to create super-people—super-parents, super-kings and queens, super-cops—to be our gods and to look after us—to stand between us and God. Yet God has been here all along, shaping us and being shaped by us in no particular way or in too many ways at once like an amoeba—or like a cancer. Chaos.

p. 55

“We can get ready. That’s what we’ve got to do now. Get ready for what’s going to happen, get ready to survive it, get ready to make a life afterward. Get focused on arranging to survive so that we can do more than just get batted around by crazy people, desperate people, thugs, and leaders who don’t know what they’re doing!”

A lot of people seem to believe in a big-daddy-God or a big-cop-God or a big-king-God. They believe in a kind of super-person. A few believe God is just another word for nature. And nature turns out to mean just about anything they happen not to understand or feel in control of.

We do not worship God.

(Foreword) Whenever I speak to young people, I encourage them, “When stuck, take the step that is in front of you.” …

All that you touch

Highlights

All that you touch You Change.

All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change,

God Is Change.

We do not worship God. We perceive and attend God. We learn from God. With forethought and work, We shape God. In the end, we yield to God. We adapt and endure, For we are earthseed And God is Change.