Parable of the Sower

Short review: Butler is such a distinctive voice. It is too bad that she passed away so young and that this series was not rounded out. There was a planned third book, but it never made it past the notes stage.

I have read a lot of modern dystopian novels that tend toward YA. It is interesting to go back and read older dystopian novels. This does not have the humor of Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins. But it does have the social commentary, albeit more directly about race, gender and power structures. It is not quite as violent and gruesome as Cormac McCarthy's The Road (published a decade after Sower). But it is stark and plenty gruesome on its own.

The Parable of the Sower is still dystopian, but it trying to show how humanity rises up out of dystopian setting, not how the innate sinfulness of humanity descends into dystopia without the structure of society.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/parable-sower-octavia-butler/