Reviews
"Areal gut-wrencher . . . What makes Butler's fiction compelling is that it is ascrisply detailed as journalism. . . Often the smallest details are the mostrevelatory."-- Washington Post, "Butler felt to me like alighthouse blinking from an island of understanding way out at sea. I had noidea how to get there, but I knew she had found something life-saving. She hadfound a form of resistance. Butler and other writers like Ursula LeGuin, Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood...used the tenets of genre to reveal the injustices of the present and imagineour evolution."-- Brit Marling, New York Times, "A gripping tale of survival and a poignant account of growing up sane in a disintegrating world."-- New York Times Book Review, "Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower is a stunner. It's a terrifying vision of a dismal future brought on by the willful ignorance, racism and greed of human beings, and an eerily dangerous parallel to our present path. Ms. Butler gives us a satisfying protagonist in the hypersensitive teenager Lauren, whose courage and wits are an infinite source of inspiration."-- Flea, Wall Street Journal, "Artfullyconceived and elegantly written . . . Butler's success in making Lauren'ssubsequent odyssey feel real is only the most obvious measure of this finenovel's worth."-- Cleveland Plain Dealer, "In the ongoing contest over which dystopian classic is most applicable to our time, Octavia Butler's 'Parable' books may be unmatched."-- New Yorker, "Butler tells her story with unusual warmth,sensitivity, honesty, and grace; though science fiction readers will recognizethis future Earth, Lauren Olamina and her vision make this novel stand out likea tree among saplings."-- Publishers Weekly (starred review), "A brilliant, endlessly rich dystopian novel that pairs well with 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale, and it's also a fascinating exploration of how crises can fuel new religious and ideological movements."-- John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Turtles All the Way Down, "Butler [had a] practically psychic ability to predict the future."-- New York Magazine, "The Best Books for Budding Black Feminists, According to Experts", "Oneof Butler's most visceral, accomplished works . . . this is the stuff of the best dystopian science fiction: areal-life warning made fictional. Even in 1993, Butler understoodclimate change could well be the spark that ignites the dry kindling of race,class, and religious strife into a conflagration that will consume our nation. Ifanything, those issues are even more pressing a quarter-century later . .. Butler's vision of hard-won hope in challenging times is more essential nowthan ever before, and well worth seeking out in this new edition."-- B&NBlog, "One of science fiction's most important figures, an author who wrote cracking, crackling, accessible and fast-moving adventure stories shot through with trenchant and smart allegories about race, gender and power . . . Parable of the Sower has never been more relevant."-- Boing Boing, "There isn't a page in this vivid and frightening story that fails to grip the reader."-- San Jose Mercury News, "A brilliant, endlessly rich dystopian novel that pairs well with 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale, and it's also a fascinating exploration of how crises can fuel new religious and ideological movements."-- John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Turtles All the Way Down, New York Times
