'The Parable of the Talents' by Octavia Butler
This is the second Octavia Butler novel I've read as part of this challenge. The first one was 'Wild Seed', which I mostly enjoyed. 'The Parable of the Talents' I enjoyed less. I think it's a good book - it's well written, and the story/world is really interesting. However, from what I can tell, Octavia Butler has a fairly bleak view of the world and in 'The Parable of the Talents' it's much more noticeable - it's set in a dystopian future in which the world is falling apart and society is ravaged by violence, and in which one woman tries to found a new religion whilst being attacked by fanatics and fundementalists.
Much as I struggled with the lead characters in 'Wild Seed', I struggled hugely with Olamina in 'Parable' - I had problems sympathizing with her. Whilst she is meant to be painfully empathic, she actually felt quite self absorbed to me. I haven't entirely given up on Octavia Butler yet - I might go back to the Patternist series - but I don't want to read any more of the 'parable' series, and I'm not entirely sure if I'd recommend this book to anyone unless you do like your dystopian futures very dystopian, and are very keen on increasingly bleak moral ambiguities.
Much as I struggled with the lead characters in 'Wild Seed', I struggled hugely with Olamina in 'Parable' - I had problems sympathizing with her. Whilst she is meant to be painfully empathic, she actually felt quite self absorbed to me. I haven't entirely given up on Octavia Butler yet - I might go back to the Patternist series - but I don't want to read any more of the 'parable' series, and I'm not entirely sure if I'd recommend this book to anyone unless you do like your dystopian futures very dystopian, and are very keen on increasingly bleak moral ambiguities.