Tag: Octavia E. Butler

Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

Sequels can sometimes be disappointing. This applies to books as well as movies — more often movies I’m pleased to say, because you can usually tell in the first ten minutes, then leave and do something far more interesting with the rest of your day.

None of this has anything to do with Parable of the Talents, which was every bit as dark, gritty, and heart-breaking as Parable of the Sower.

Parable of the Talents

The story picks up pretty much where Parable of the Sower ended; Olamina and her fellow travellers settle down in the house owned by her husband Bankole. They survive by trading with locals, growing their own food, and by not attracting too much attention. Olamina is very much the leader of their small, but growing community, and she continues working on Earthseed; not so much a religion as a life philosophy.

Unfortunately, while the community is growing, the rest of America is part way through its collapse: the country is losing a war with Canada, and Alaska has seceded and become an independent state. To make matters worse, the new president is a religious zealot, and is taking the country back into a theocracy, supported by the totally-expected army of foaming-at-the-mouth crusaders who descend on Olamina’s community intent on torturing and raping the inhabitants — all in the name of the lord.

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Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

It’s really hard to describe how good this book is — but I’m going to try.

Parable of the Sower is told from the first-person perspective of Lauren, a young woman growing to adulthood in the socially, economically, and morally bankrupt United States of America in the not-too-distant future. (I say “not-too-distant”: the story begins in 2024).

The government has all but collapsed, law and order has failed (the police are charging a “fee” to come out and investigate murders; they take the money — and then fail to show up). The addict’s choice narcotic is Pyro: a drug that gives folk an unquenchable desire to commit arson). Theft, murder, and rape run pretty much unchecked, which is unsurprising because much of the crime is being carried out by rogue police forces across the land.

So back to Lauren.

Lauren lives in a small community headed by her pastor father and step mother. Like most communities, they follow a basic set of rules:

  1. Protect what’s yours.
  2. Post watches to guard your community at night.
  3. Don’t interact with the police if you can possibly help it.
  4. Learn to shoot, and learn to shoot accurately.

The last one is especially problematic for Lauren; as an empath (a condition brought about due to her birth mother’s drug problem), she feels the pain and suffering of others.

Inevitably, Lauren’s less-than-comfortable existence comes to a sudden and violent end when her community is torched, and her family and friends are slaughtered.

And so Lauren and a handful of survivors begin the dangerous trek north, where they hope to find sanctuary in Canada.

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