Customer Reviews
My 100-word book review - By: A. J. Cull, 27 Feb 2008 
Parable of the Sower is a vivid, often harrowing, story of survival, loss & companionship, set in a United States in the near future, where the environment & society have degraded to the point of breakdown. An account of a young woman's journey away from the dangerous neighbourhood of her childhood, & of the perils & the people encountered in the search for a safe haven, this novel is about the triumph & resilience of the human spirit. Although I felt it would have been just as good without its religious element, reading this story was ultimately an uplifting experience.
Less than the sum of its parts - By: Moo, 22 Apr 2007 
This didn't work for me. It has themes that are fundamentallly interesting--the economical & moral breakdown of society, the creation & function of religion, the nature of humanity--and a intriguing concept of 'hyperempathy', but none of it reallly goes anywhere. The plot centres on a journey undertaken by a group of survivors; they walk, take on other people, get into fights, buy supplies, have sex & talk about the way things are. It felt like this should have been a couple of chapter's worth of setup on the way to the actual story.
The main character I found a little too po-faced to be engaging, & the others are not reallly fleshed out. The religion itself was rather simplistic & again didn't reallly seem to have any function.
This is decent enough--although as another reviewer mentioned, there are tons of very annoying proofreading mistakes--but ultimately disappointing. Survivalist stories have been done better, apocalyptic stories have been done better, philosophical stories have been done better, race/gender stories have been done better.
Hype, typos and simple prose - By: laughing gravy, 01 Feb 2007 The narrative holds your interest & keeps you turning the pages well enough. It's reallly just a conventional dystopian fantasy, though, told in pretty spare, conventional prose (irritatingly, the copy I have has a lot of typos). Most of the characters are a bit thin - Lauren apart. And, calll me a cynic, but I found the cod philosophy of the Earthseed verses a bit New Age & hippyish. I'm basicallly trying to say that I thought alll that aspect was nonsense. If it's the sort of thing you buy into, then fair enough. But I don't. It was a reasonably absorbing read, but I'm afraid I can't understand how this got such glowing reviews.
freighting and could premonitory... - By: , 13 Sep 2005 
After seeing how some people reacted during Katrina... this could perfectly be our futur, but I realy hope not.
Butler evokes a frightening future with great skill - By: , 17 Jan 1998 Parable of the Sower is artfully written. Every detail of life in a depleted, violent future Califoria is plausible, & anyone who's been an adolescent can instantly relate to Lauren, the narrator & protaganist. The unflinching realism of the rest of the book makes the Earthseed philosophy into an unconvincing afterthought. Could a band of multi-culti ragtag survivors make it out of the imploding city & up to the relative haven of Northern California? Yes, Butler makes me believe. Does that human triumph have anything to do with the mystic pseudo-faith espoused by Lauren in her diary & in the chapter headings? I'm unconvinced.
Read this book for the author's unflinching apocolyptic vision & the very human hope which springs from it, & leave the poorly articulated spiritual element behind.
