Bread and circuses. Politicians and big corporations get the bread, and we get the circuses.
Parable of the Sower
by Octavia E. Butler
Genre: Dystopian Sci-Fi
About: Lauren was born in a broken world. A world where clean clothes make you a target, food costs thousands and you can't count yourself safe even behind community walls. The police are corrupt, the homeless are desperate, and as bad as things are, Lauren knows her survival depends on braving it outside.
The Good
This is a depressingly apt read for current times. Octavia E. Butler wrote with unnerving clarity on how dark the world could potentially turn when faced with the problems caused by climate change. It's dystopian and brilliantly so. As dark as the future looks in this novel, there is some comfort in the religion Lauren invents (or as she would put it, discovers). Instead of looking into the abyss as some of us might be doing when we think of what our children or children's children will have to face, the God is Change philosophy is thoughtful and, in its own way, hopeful. It is perhaps a little overemphasised in the story, but I liked the idea of it. The ideas in this novel are very impressive and so relevant to read now more than ever. I also really loved seeing how influential this novel has clearly been on other great books, most noticeably to me was it's similarity to N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth series.
The Bad
Things are bad in this world. Really, really bad. However I did feel as though a lot of the novel puts the stress - or rather the antagonism - on the Pyro drug, which makes its users want to set fire to things and people. When the drug was first introduced it was terrifying to me, but as the novel progressed, I began to see it as the only conflict moving Lauren and the people she meets onwards. If the drug didn't exist, the world would still be shit, but so many of the terrible things which happen, they happen because of this drug. I would have preferred the conflict to have arisen more directly from climate change or from the rotten political system.
And unfortunately I didn't find Lauren a likeable main character. Many of the characters she meets find her likewise annoying and a bit sanctimonious at times. When she points out something she is usually right, but the way she is so certain of herself and her ideas is hard to swallow. Especially knowing she's 17 at the start of the novel and has been protected her whole life on the ideas that she deems to be so wrong-thinking. It might be bad to say, but a bit more uncertainty in her POV and seeing her learn from others would have endeared me more to her.
The Somewhat Iffy
The world-building and characters are all really well developed in this novel, but because we're seeing it all through Lauren's eyes, there are things we don't get to know about which I would have liked to. Mostly I found how the rich live in this world a bit confusing. Finding out that planes and helicopters are still running was a surprise to me when it was casually mentioned towards the end of the novel and the government/police system was clearly not working for people like Lauren, but I wondered how it was working for the wealthy as the world we're shown seems like there are no laws anymore, or none that matter. Adding in a POV of a wealthy teen that turns to Pyro would have been super interesting to me.
Overall
A bit of a disconcerting read, but a good one. A sci-fi novel that has plenty of relevance for us now, told in a beautiful way.
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