words of wisdom...

[SummerSnow]

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[murielm99]

1. Have you read this book?

Read The Parable of the Sower, and its sequel, the Parable of the Talents.

They are brilliant and chilling. Also, Butler is the only black female science fiction writer I know of.

The books describe a dystopia that is very possible.

Butler writes about a despot who becomes president of this country in the course of the second book. His campaign slogan was, "Make America Great Again." She wrote the book in 1998, and died before 45 became a political possibility. Uncanny.

I have friends and former colleagues at a library in a nearby town. I go there for library activities and books rather than to the smaller library in my home town. Their adult science fiction book club undertook The Parable of the Sower. Only a couple of them finished it. It hit too close to home, too close to what is happening now.

Butler was a brilliant writer. We should take heed. And I wish she had lived longer.

[SummerSnow]

2. No, I have not read this book. Thanks for the info. I will be looking into it :)

[ProudLib72]

3. The only book I've read by Butler is Dawn

The copy I read was full of editing errors, and that turned me off to the point that I wasn't interested in reading more of her work. I'm embarrassed by this admission now. I think I've missed out on a lot of good sci-fi being prejudiced by poor editing.

[murielm99]

4. The only one I read previously was Kindred.

I was not impressed. If my former colleague had not spoken so highly of the Sower and Talents books, I might have ignored them. That is not because they are science fiction, but because I did not care for Kindred.

Don't miss these books.

Sometimes I think it is wrong to classify Butler as science fiction. I don't want to come up with a genre name for what she wrote. But these two books are worth the read.

Another one that may be wrongly categorized as science fiction is Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It is a stunningly dystopian novel, but I worry that putting it in the science fiction category will cause a lot of people to overlook it. It was highly praised and shortlisted for some prestigious awards, but many people turn up their noses at what they think is science fiction.