The one good thing about studying English at university, is that you have to read books that you never dreamt of reading, books that you didn’t even know existed. And sure, analysing the heck out of them *sometimes* takes the fun out of reading them for pleasure, but hey, at the end of the day, you’ve read a book that is new to you and that’s good! With Dawn, it was like that. I’d never heard of it (even though I HAD heard of Butler’s Kindred), and I hadn’t exactly had the best encounters with the other science fiction books that I had had to read for my course. But you know what? I actually really enjoyed this one.

Lilith Iyapo has just lost her husband and son when atomic fire consumes Earth—the last stage of the planet’s final war. Hundreds of years later Lilith awakes, deep in the hold of a massive alien spacecraft piloted by the Oankali—who arrived just in time to save humanity from extinction. They have kept Lilith and other survivors asleep for centuries, as they learned whatever they could about Earth. Now it is time for Lilith to lead them back to her home world, but life among the Oankali on the newly resettled planet will be nothing like it was before.

The Oankali survive by genetically merging with primitive civilizations—whether their new hosts like it or not. For the first time since the nuclear holocaust, Earth will be inhabited. Grass will grow, animals will run, and people will learn to survive the planet’s untamed wilderness. But their children will not be human. Not exactly.

This was another book that I had to read for my science fiction class at university. I was a bit apprehensive at first because the other books that I had to read for my course weren’t that interesting. However, Octavia Butler’s take on aliens using the dying-out human race for their own agenda was really interesting. It’s the first book in a trilogy and I’m really interested in reading the other two books in the series.

 

“Your people contain incredible potential, but they die without using much of it.”

― Octavia E. Butler, Dawn

 

The book explores so many different themes like gender, sexuality and human society and I think that Butler does an amazing job at conveying that humans are there own worst enemy. I actually wrote a paper on the novel and I loved exploring and analysing Butler’s way of writing which was very blunt and actually made me a bit uncomfortable in places because of how well she portrayed humanity.

In my paper, I basically wrote about how the novel is a world full of empowering everyone, but also taking a look at how women are seen and used in society. There was the control of Lilith’s fertility, being forced to breed, or even having children stole off you. Even though the Oankali and the Ooloi have been portrayed as not having a gender, you can still read a certain gender onto them from the roles that they take upon themselves within their own society. Obviously, this is me projecting my own experiences of society and what I have experienced different gender roles to do onto the aliens, I know this. But whilst I was reading it, I definitely read the Ooloi as male and the Oankali as female.

 

“You are hierarchical. That’s the older and more entrenched characteristic. We saw it in your closest animal relatives and in your most distant ones. It’s a terrestrial characteristic. When human intelligence served it instead of guiding it, when human intelligence did not even acknowledge it as a problem, but took pride in it or did not notice it at all …” The rattling sounded again. “That was like ignoring cancer. I think your people did not realize what a dangerous thing they were doing.”

― Octavia E. Butler, Dawn

 

But, I am not here to write my paper again. This book was such a different kind of book that I have ever read, and I really do think that it should be on more curriculums in college. Even though the way the different themes are explored is quite disturbing, I felt myself being drawn to the characters. Especially Lilith as she navigates her way through being the appointed leader of the humans and her journey through self-change with the Oankali.

I’ve only recently just found out that this is the first book in a trilogy, so I definitely think that I will be picking up the second and third book so that I can see what decision Lilith makes.

If you’re looking for a very strong SF novel that explores the deeper meaning of humanity, race and gender, then look no further.

 

 

Goodreads | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube| Bloglovin