Wednesday, April 9, 2008

May 13: Dawn


We've come full circle! The Genre Book Club has been going for a quarter of a year, and we've cycled back to science fiction. Our next selection is Dawn by Octavia Butler, and is well worth your time. The library system has very few copies, so check it out now, before the mad rush. You think I'm kidding -- even though we haven't had a huge turnout for any of the clubs, the books out on display check out at an alarming rate.

Here is a blurb about Dawn, shamelessly cribbed from http://www.amazon.com/:



  • In a world devastated by nuclear war with humanity on the edge of extinction, aliens finally make contact. They rescue those humans they can, keeping most survivors in suspended animation while the aliens begin the slow process of rehabilitating the planet. 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 aliens, then training them to survive on the wilderness that the planet has become. But the aliens cannot help humanity without altering it forever. 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. A stunning story of invasion and alien contact by one of science fiction's finest writers.

Here is the SFWA webpage for Octavia Butler.
Here's the Seattle Post Intelligencer's obituary article.
Here's a great fan site; audio, video, interviews, more!
And here, at Feminist SFF & Utopia, is more of the same. This link is included for the "literary criticism" section, which cites several articles and books.

Dawn makes for an excellent discussion, so hope to see you there. Even if you can't make it to book club, try this book! Like all great science fiction, it is intelligent and thought-provoking.
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