Aliens save the human race from themselves.Octavia Butler’s 1987 novel Dawn begins her Xenogenesis trilogy (the series was titled Lilith's Brood in the Omnibus that was published in 2000). She would continue the story with Adulthood Rites in 1988 and complete the set with Imago in 1989.Essentially, the world has been devastated by a nuclear war and all that remains of humanity are a few straggler survivors who are picked up by an alien race who has been observing us. Butler spends little time he...

Okay. So how do I describe this really weird sci-fi book that masquerades as horror. Not hunt you down alone on a ship Alien horror, more like subtly psychologically really disturbing (to me anyway) sci-fi.The basic situation is a girl, Lilith, (for mythology fans, please note the symbolism) is the lone survivor of a nuclear holocaust and is left with the responsibilities of awakening the other humans from a deep sleep, telling them they are on an alien ship, leading them to earth, and, of cours...

This was amazing… and kind of horrifying

I have such conflicted feelings about this book. I found it both brilliant and disturbing in equal measure. The beginning introduces the reader to a strange and terrifying situation that sucks you in right away. The horror at some revelations is delivered so realistically that I found myself clenching my teeth and trying to hide in the pillows I was reading on. I was very impressed. The more I read on though, the more unsettling things became. Near the last quarter of the book Octavia crossed a

I have been squirreling away Octavia Butler books. I consider myself an avid fan of her works yet I have only read two of her novels so far (Wild Seed and Kindred), and the last one was sometime last year. My rationale is that there are only a finite number of Butler books available to read as the lady is no longer with us. If I binge on them now there will not be any more new Butler books to read and I will only have rereads to look forward to. As I love both Wild Seed and Kindred very much her...

I've never really read anything like this before. It had some of the most alien aliens I've ever come across, and it spends a lot of time exporing their physiology, gender, sexuality, and society, all parts that I really enjoyed.The whole thing is very unnerving, blunt, and extremely uncomfortable in places. This novel very much felt like the first third of a larger story, so I'll definitely be finishing this series.

Rating: 5* of five2020 UPDATEIt's script-to-series at Amazon! Since it's Ava duVernay, I'm bettin' the script will pass muster. She made sense out of A Wrinkle in Time, after all.I'm wore out, wrung out, and tuckered out. I'll get a review up before long.Meantime, look at the notes I've left.And leave us not to forget that, in this troubled passage in US and world history, the present Golden Age of Sci Fi on Screen will gift us with the first-ever adaptation of a Butler novel, this one, by no le...

This started out awesome! Lilith wakes up from a long sleep in some kind of prison, and must cooperate with her grotesque alien captors, the Oankali, and figure out what they want from her. Turns out they want to repopulate the newly-rebuilt Earth with human alien hybrids! It had the stuff I personally love: gripping conversation between fascinating characters who are learning about each other. Despite their being no real action in the first half of Dawn, it was carried quite nicely by these con...

I'm half-tempted to hold off on a review until I read the full trilogy. I've come to understand that the full story isn't explored until we've read the whole thing... BUT since this was published as the first book, here I go, anyway. :)This is quite a bit different from Kindred, focusing instead on the social, emotional, and physical changes associated with being awoken in captivity among some very strange and awesome alien-aliens. This isn't Star Trek. It's more of a Cthuhlu encounter without t...

One of the first novels dealing with the idea of how gender, love and procreation may evolve under the influence of interspecies, in this case, alien relationships.Octavia E Butler is a unique writer, because she was both one of the first female black Sci-Fi writers and also dealt with the, at this time and strangely even today, controversial ideas of what might happen if aliens want to have some sexy time with humans.We have already a bunch of varieties with the human genders and gender identit...

“Yes,” he said, “intelligence does enable you to deny facts you dislike. But your denial doesn’t matter.” Lilith wakes up on an Oankali spaceship hundreds of years after an atomic war devastates Earth. These alien Oankali, Lilith learns, feel it is their mission to save what remains of humanity. How they plan to do it is what makes Dawn such an interesting read. I just finished Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy in which we find out the future of humanity isn't really humanity. There are big di...

A large octupus-alien has a pretty realistic threesome with two-dimensional humanoids. Dreams are made of this--well, but not my dreams. Nor nightmares. "Dawn" remains prime example of the reasoning behind my headstrong, unwavering apathy for most sci-fi novels.

I loved the almost elegant and unrelenting unfolding of a most unusual alien apocalypse. The Oankali are the saviors of humankind after a nuclear war, preserving a population of survivors in a form of suspension while working to facilitate recovery of planetary ecology. But at what a cost. Their agenda is to merge genetically with humans to make a new species. That plot overview is certainly a spoiler, but that is what is rendered for a draw on the book’s cover. It’s really okay because we are w...

Dawn: Aliens grant humans a second chance — at a priceOriginally posted at Fantasy LiteratureDawn (1987) is the first book in Octavia Butler’s XENOGENESIS trilogy, written after her PATTERNIST series. By this point she had been writing challenging science fiction novels for a decade, and her writing craft and ideas had reached a high level. Dawn is a very impressive book. Imagine that mankind has largely destroyed itself and the planet — it’s a fairly common doomsday scenario. But instead of the...

As one of the earliest African-American female science fiction writers, Octavia Butler is a must for anyone who reads sci-fi. Fourteen of her works were nominated for the Locus Award during her career, including each book in the Xenogenesis series, but she only had one win, the novelette “Bloodchild.” Dawn is the first book in the Xenogenesis series, published in 1987, and is a science fiction classic. It achieves what the best in science fiction has to offer: by looking at humanity’s interactio...

I was utterly compelled. When I got to the end, I was so hungry for the next book I was actually frustrated not to have it to hand. The last book I enjoyed nearly this much was The Lathe of Heaven so I guess I need to give in and accept that speculative fiction with feminist consciouness is my true love.I love that Lilith is angry with her captors, that she doesn't lose her drive to be free, ever. In many ways I felt the book was about consent - what does consent really mean when your options ar...

My god, what did I just read...I don’t think I was ever so aware of my body and my safety and my breathing space as I am now. One’s body is perceived as a temple; defile it and you’ll break that person for life. This book is not about humanity being self-obliterated, or close encounter of 5th kind or more. It doesn’t even have action. So, if you expect battles and how we prevail in the face of bad aliens, don’t.It's all about the interaction between the two species, or better said, races. It dea...

This is the second book I've read by Octavia Butler and I'm completely impressed by the complexity and intrigue of this story. I was afraid that being sci-fi I would find it difficult to get into the story and that there would be so much to digest that I would miss something. However that is not the case. The story is told with extremely adept writing and Butler definitely took into consideration that she was trying to entertain while saying something. So what is she saying? Tons of stuff! She m...

What does it say about me that I wasn't disturbed by this book???I began reading with trepidation. A looming fear that I might encounter something so unsettling it would leave me unnerved for days. I'm a little disappointed that didn't happen. I'm still enamoured with this story though, even if my brain cells are so screwed up that I rarely squirmed or blinked an eye over what I read.In the beginning, I understood Lilith's fear and loathing. I tried to put myself in her place and feel those thin...

2021 Reread:I hate the audiobook narrator. Her voice is grating and annoying.Can Robin Miles redo these audiobooks as well????Somehow my reread created a 2nd entry for this book. I erased it. 2/16/20This is the first novel I ever read by Octavia Butler. I'm now a grandmother but when I read this my daughter was 6 months old. I still have the paperback with the white woman on the cover. LOL! Imagine my surprise when the main character was a statuesque black woman, extremely capable, practical and...