from the Earth Journal of Scientific Analyst SLJLK92349UO, Earth Invasion Exploratory Unitone thing became clear to me as I read this trilogy: Octavia Butler is not partial to the human kind. oh, humanity: violent, vengeful, and vicious; petty, pitiful, perpetually proud. avaricious and all too willing to prey on their own. as a fellow visitor to this planet, I can only view Butler's perspective as one that is in line with my own. and so this was quite an invigorating experience given the overab...

This is one of the scariest books I have read in a long time. Good science fiction, good posthuman fiction, challenges the idea of what it means to be human. Octavia E. Butler goes beyond that, way beyond, challenging not just what human means but how open-minded I am to such challenges. This book blew my mind.As a huge fan of science fiction, and as a relatively erudite person, I like to think that I have an open mind. I like to think that I'm receptive to the idea of drastically alternate huma...

Okay, so, how dare I give anything Octavia Butler wrote four stars instead of five? I think that if I read some of her later stuff first, I would have understood this narrative to be part of her growing process as a theorist/novelist. Being that it was my first book of hers to read, after hearing so much about her gay genius and feminist protagonists, I was really disappointed with her tendency to fall back on tired notions of femininity/masculinity, imperative to breed, and the alien third gend...

My personal favorite sci-fi trilogy. I have reviewed the individual volumes separately:- Dawn- Adulthood Rites- ImagoMind blowing, thought provoking, thrilling stuff. (Plenty more hyperbole in the above mentioned reviews!) One thing I particularly want to mention about the author is I love how she embraced the "science fiction author" label. Unlike some "literary" talented authors who prefer to avoid the sci-fi label she took pride in it. Certainly I agree that it is an author's prerogative how

I have come to the conclusion that Octavia Butler did not like humans all that much. In most alien invasion stories, humans are the victims, in danger of assimilation or annihilation, and they must fight and resist and overcome. But in this particular, subversive tale of aliens taking over Earth, I have to say it’s really hard to feel sorry for the humans…As I read an omnibus of the Xenogenesis series, I will try to make this review as spoiler-free as possible, but there might be a few spoiler-i...

this is the first science fiction book i have read since i was a teenager, and it was so good, i fell in love with octavia butler, and my interest in science fiction was rekindled. when i started to develop a critical consciousness in college i found that i couldn't read my formerly favorite science fiction books, i.e. stranger in a strange land by robert heinlein, because while they could imagine amazing technological and magical futures where the human mind could overcome previous boundaries,

I wouldn't normally define myself as a straight-up science fiction fan - in fact, I'm normally put off by techno fairy tales and scary alien stories. But I finally picked up Lilith's Brood after my father (who is something of a purist) bothered me enough. I was instantly intrigued.It isn't just a post-apocalyptic novel... or an exploration of other worlds... or other races of beings, for that matter. No, Butler decided to use the aliens that have taken control of the dying human race in orde...

This is one of my new favorite worlds. I adored the Oankali and learning more about them throughout the trilogy. I love how this book is saturated in ethical ambiguity. You need to decide if you think the Oankali have the concept of consent in their culture. If you think they do, then this is a very disturbing series. If you think they don't, then this encourages you to look at the situation from a fascinating new perspective. This sci-fi family saga constantly questions what it means to be huma...

OK here is my review for Dawn: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show.... Read it or not. I discovered as I jumped strait into Adulthood Rites and finished it a day later that I was unable to write a review. I simply kept reading and into Imago I went. It was seamless. I am not sure why we have 3 different books. For me it read as a grand story. What an amazing beginning.Profound. It sets the whole tone. The middle. I still don't know what to say. I felt myself changing, becoming like the ooloi,

Octavia Butler has a way of holding up a mirror to humanity and showing us everything that is ugly and perhaps shameful. I have read every book Ms. Butler has written and this was not my favorite of her books in my first read, but it is the one that has stuck with me the longest. This is the closest to straight up sci-fi that her books get, but it still remains human. The Xenogenesis series is so fascinating on both a cultural and an anthropological level, in the destruction of one world and the...

I don't like rape or forced behavior in my books and what happened to these people is rape.how is drugging and sexually abusing the humans helping them? it makes no sense, and it made it so that they could not stand the touch of their humans mate. they were not given a choice, it's sick.Lilith forced it on her human mate, of course she was sexually active with three of the alien monsters. I would of cried no tears if she died.I care not what anyone says, what happened to them was rape because th...

I. Can't. Even. Pure brilliance! Check out my fangirly review here.

Octavia E. Butler has been on my radar for quite some time—as the first acclaimed African American and female science fiction writer, how could she not be? The book that's been on my list for ages was actually Kindred, but a friend suggested this series when I asked for dystopian/post-apocalyptic recommendations—although, after reading it, it's not at all what I'd been looking for, and I'd put it very firmly in the camp of post-human science fiction. I was sold immediately based on the title alo...

Lilith's Brood is actually three novels: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago, which have since been published in one volume. The basic story is this: humanity has virtually destroyed itself and the earth in a nuclear conflagration. Just after we've done so, a strange and powerful alien race called the Oankali arrive to save us. Sort of.The Oankali are strange in a number of ways. They have horrifying snake-like sensory tentacles all over their bodies, they have three genders, and one of those ge...

I have so many thoughts, each one of them individual pieces that are trying to absorb all I have read and mix and match it to form a perfect whole; like I am my very own Ooloi creating a construct of all that these book made me feel. Spoiler alert: I am human and I can't. This book made me feel it all: anger, sadness, rage, resignation, numbness, fatigue, pain, despair and finally hope.Set in a post-apocalyptic world where humans as expected have led to the destruction of the world due to our hi...

Dawn Finally finished the first book in this trilogy. This is a very honest tale. She doesn't try to make humans better than they really are. There's no "grateful just to be alive" humans. These humans are angry, they are in denial, they are destructive. We are always told that humanity's greatest feature is its ability to adapt. Well, this situation proves that those that cannot adapt will not produce the next generation.Ms Butler's books are works in the true sense of the word. They are not

As a reader I am continuously wowed by how remarkable this woman was. She took a concept so strange and made it palpable. Human's as pets to an alien race, then as sort of cattle, then as lovers. A study of human communication, and belief. This book changed the way I think about the world, about other people, and about myself. It changed the way I talk to myself. As a writer I am awed by how she took characters that were physically very strong, and very capable of living in any condition then w...

DNF @ 421 pages. I set this aside to read something else and realised I had no real interest or desire to return to it. Life is short, hence the DNF even after so many pages.

What a strange yet fascinating book.This series is so interesting, following a different character each time but keeping up with a consistent arc. And the characters, they're amazing. Lilith is so strong; she's my favorite.I definitely prefer the original title for this trilogy - Xenogenesis. It means "the supposed generation of offspring completely and permanently different from the parent." That definitely gives a much better sense to this series.Weird at times, but I greatly enjoyed this seri...

Octavia Butler uses this book to explore what makes us human by taking humanity completely out of its known context and giving it a whole new one with fundamental restrictions and specifically chosen opportunities. This allows her to put humanity in high-relief, and I have to say a lot of what she says strikes a chord -- her definition of the Human Contradiction, for example, is spot-on. I think she does get a little bit heavy-handed -- I feel there's a little more gray scale to human behavior t...

I read Dawn a few months ago, and while I liked it, I wasn't blown away. After I read Fledgling and was newly impressed with Butler's creativity and way with language, I decided to finish the series. It absorbed me for two days, and I ended up absolutely loving it. This series reminded me of Vonnegut without the humor--where he uses absurdity to make a point, Butler lets that same point seep into you a little at a time. These books are about perception, violence, independence, and most of all, w...

It has all the hallmarks of a Butler classic: a lone, black female outsider as protagonist; the evolution of humanity in the most expansive sense imaginable; vague misanthropy; horrendous dialogue; atypical pacing complete with jarring chronological leaps; compulsive readability leaving you wanting more at the end; thin characters and terrible, terrible dialogue. Did I mention the dialogue is bad?I find myself responding to Butler much like her human characters did to the irresistible alien oolo...

⭐ The Oankali are without a doubt in my top five aliens. They are superfluously Other; I was impressed throughout the trilogy by how sinister and inhuman Butler made them. She does that in many different ways, too - books two and three expand greatly on Oankali abilities, history and motivations and I was just constantly disturbed and delighted by how utterly weird they are.⭐ It's the most subtle and thought-provoking depiction of Colonialism I've yet come across in science fiction, and I think

"You are horror and beauty in rare combination."Claustrophobic and taut, Butler knows how to play out the psychological effects of the mundane as well as the fantastic. And just when you start to think, "gee, these reactions are pretty tame," the real horrors start to be uncovered: genetic tampering, psychological edits/ rewrites, and slavery/ imprisonment, the real underpinning being "Who will win this Space Race?"Look, Butler is not going to let the reader out of this conundrum with easy answe...

Octavia Butler is playing with fire here - these books probe the deepest topics that fiction can explore, and drive straight to the heart of many of the most important issues humans deal with. Fortunately, she's up to the task, and indeed the entire first third of this series is an extravagant setup; while Dawn is somewhat frustrating to read, it is completely necessary. Were Butler to have plunged straight into the kind of things she writes about in Imago, it would have felt cheap and crass, bu...

While I think Dawn, the first book in the series, is extremely powerful, making you question right and wrong, especially concerning the matter of consent, the other two captivated me less.Being introduced to the concepts in Dawn is fascinating and it was so easy to feel for Lilith. I would say it is very concept driven with a strong focus on relationships as well.The other two are more like journeys of self-discovery. You still learn more about the aliens and how the humans cope, but with the fo...

Sterling; Butler died too soon.This is thoughtful, intelligent science fiction, with interstellar travel, but nary a blaster in sight. I think I'd still consider this hard sci-fi. Butler must have done a great deal of research into genetics, biochemistry, and neurochemistry. She clearly knew a lot about human psychology too.Her writing is spare, and tight, with few extraneous words/ descriptions. Nevertheless, the world and the experiences she describes are immediate and highly sensual. On this

This series was fantastic! I can't wait to read some more Octavia Butler.

It's been a few months since I read this, but I realized I'd not reviewed it and wanted to put in a few words.I can't express to you how refreshing it was to read an African American female protagonist who didn't speak with urban slang, who wasn't worried about finding a man and, in general, didn't fit the tired stereotypes that a lot of modern authors (both White and Non-White) tend to force Black characters into. Dawn starts off in an intentionally confusing and intense way. Lilith wakes up in...

Lilith’s Brood is a fitting title for the collection, as Dawn is the story of the relationship between a human woman named Lilith and a race of aliens called the Oankali, who travel the stars in search of other life forms to “trade” genes with, and the following novels tell the stories of Lilith’s children. The way these stories unfold is too good to spoil, so I won’t say anything more about the premise or plot.⁣⁣I read Dawn back in July with a great group of sci-fi fans and I thought it was abs...