Initially confused and angry as well as grieving the earlier loss of her family. And yet this book is about finding a common ground, and this is where Lilith becomes central. Starkly and coldly Butler describes some as It rather than the more usual They and I wonder if that again was a deliberate choice to make us see these aliens as people in spite of everything thrown at us. Here we have to explore a culture that doesn’t align immediately with certainly US/UK conventions. The concept of an alien can sometimes be as the old joke about star trek just being humans with bumps on their faces. Their concept of sexuality is more fluid and complicated than humans. They don’t look that humanoid they don’t share our family structures and as we discover have a morality that seems sometimes cold – leaving the remaining humans selected to fend from themselves rather than give them brand new technology. The Oankali is described in such a way to really push our boundaries of what an acceptable alien is. One of the most interesting areas for me is exploring our fear of the other. I will start with just saying I found this relatively short novel of less than 250 pages rather brilliant and Butler pours so many interesting ideas and scenarios that you could spend pages exploring this and how it echoes themes we’ve already talked about. Lilith finds herself between the two groups who she is both suspicious of and this sets in motion a struggle for power and tragedy that reminds us humans still have a long way to go. They deem Lilith as the one to pull that group together, but they warn her humans sill have both heir amazing intelligence but also a troubling desire for hierarchy that makes them destroy each other. They are fascinated by humanity and have found as many survivors as they could and have been slowly working out both how to use human’s interesting genetic traits for themselves but also create a new group of humans to settle and rebuild the earth. Humanoid but covered in sensory tentacles that bring to mind Medusa they weave through space ‘trading’ genetics to evolve further. Lilith was found by the advanced travelling aliens known as the Oankali. She has seen no one else in all this time eventually it transpires that she is one of the few survivors of a huge nuclear war that has wiped out most of the population destroyed most of the wildlife and most importantly a long time has passed. This has continued for some unknown period. Lilith wakes up in room and yet again has a strange, disembodied voice asking her questions. I often think while what causes the event is fascinating what we are really doing is stripping everything back from humanity and asking the question – who are we really and are we worth surviving? Octavia E Butler was already playing with this theme in the Patternist series, but I think it is refined and sharpened in the excellent Dawn where humanity has to confront its fears of everything to survive. How in a few moments everything would be gone and very little remain? Science Fiction often looks at the end of the world from plague, pollution, radiation, and monsters. Growing up in the 80’s was weird for many things, but I remember once being incredibly freaked out as a young child by a Tomorrow’s World episode that talked about nuclear war. Bonded to the aliens in ways no human has ever known, Lilith tries to fight them even as her own species comes to fear and loathe her. When Lilith Iyapo is 'awakened', she finds that she has been chosen to revive her fellow humans in small groups by first preparing them to meet the utterly terrifying Oankali, then training them to survive on the wilderness that the planet has become.īut the Oankali cannot help humanity without altering it forever. They rescue those humans they can, keeping most survivors in suspended animation and begin the slow process of rehabilitating the planet. In a world devastated by nuclear war with humanity on the edge of extinction, aliens finally make contact. After publication in 1987 the following year this won the Locus award for Best SF novel so let’s see what it is like now! Here I am going cold into the Lilith’s Brood other wise known as Xenogenesis trilogy (suspect some US versus UK debates here). As we have seen in the Discworld readalong themes are often constant with authors but how they are then approached and explored in a sequence of novels is the real delight. As well as a voyage of discovery for me one thing I am interested in this project is exploring how authors change over time. And we are back to the Readlongs after a short absence (I was so close to getting this in last month!) so we have competed the Patternist series and Kindred.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |