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. (Dec.)
Read this guest post from Emily Henry to find out why she loves writing about book lovers and to get book recommendations from her characters!
My dad once told me the story of his brother contracting polio in the post–World War II epidemic. My grandma was pregnant, and she was forced to leave her 4-year-old child in the hospital for a month, unable to risk contracting the disease—for both herself and the unborn baby who ended up being my dad. The story of […]
One could argue that the global rise of science fiction across almost every entertainment medium has something to do with the way the world seems to be hurtling toward a science fiction future, from technological breakthroughs, to extended lifespans, to, less cheerily, horrific climate change. Between endless wildfires, deep droughts, and annual superstorms, it’s easy to start looking at apocalyptic as […]
School’s out for the year, the weather has broken into full blown summer, all mosquitoes and sunburn, and I’ve become intensely nostalgic for summer vacation, those long months when I was made out of nothing but time. Man, but did I get some reading done, huddled in front of a fan on those days it […]
Welcome to the Book Nerd’s Guide to Life! Every other week, we convene in this safe place to discuss the unique challenges of life for people whose noses are always wedged in books. For past guides, click here. Friends, we do not live in optimistic times. Turbulence is all around us. The news is […]