Book: Dawn
Author: Octavia Butler
Year published: 1987
Date finished: December 21, 2017
Genre: Science fiction
Rating: 9/10
Review: The protagonist, Lilith Iyapo, wakes up to find that she is in an alien spaceship, that she has been asleep for 250 years and that nearly everyone on Earth has died in a huge war. That's just the start of this fascinating book. Unlike most post-apocalyptic novels, the main tone here is not one of pessimism or despair, but of hope. And the plot revolves not around rebuilding Earth, but around Lilith learning about the aliens who rescued her and them learning about humans.
Those aliens - the Oankali - are one of the most interesting alien races I've read about in 50 years of reading science fiction. I'm not going to spoil any of the surprises or pleasure for you by describing those difference but, ages ago, the famous SF editor John Campbell told Ted Sturgeon "Write me a story about a creature that thinks as well as a man, but not like a man." Octavia Butler has managed that here.
Dawn is the start of the Xenogenesis trilogy. I am reading the second book now.
Dawn is the start of the Xenogenesis trilogy. I am reading the second book now.
About the Author: Octavia Butler was an American science fiction writer. She won the Hugo and Nebula awards multiple times and won a MacArthur fellowship. She died in 2006.
Sources: Wikipedia, Wikiquote.
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