Lilith's Brood: The Complete Xenogenesis Trilogy

Octavia E. Butler

Jul 2012 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

The complete series about an alien species that could save humanity after nuclear apocalypse—or destroy it—from “one of science fiction’s finest writers” (The New York Times).

The newest stage in human evolution begins in outer space. Survivors of a cataclysmic nuclear war awake to find themselves being studied by the Oankali, tentacle-covered galactic travelers whose benevolent appearance hides their surprising plan for the future of mankind. The Oankali arrive not just to save humanity, but to bond with it—crossbreeding to form a hybrid species that can survive in the place of its human forebears, who were so intent on self-destruction. Some people resist, forming pocket communities of purebred rebellion, but many realize they have no choice. The human species inevitably expands into something stranger, stronger, and undeniably alien. From Hugo and Nebula award–winning author Octavia Butler, Lilith’s Brood is both a thrilling, epic adventure of man’s struggle to survive after Earth’s destruction, and a provocative meditation on what it means to be human.
 This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.

Ratings and reviews

Love this writer who writes great literature. A genius, like my other favourite writer Ursula le Guin. Great insight into humanity After the second read a year or so later: I realise I recognize the authors I love not only through the enjoyment, fascination and surprise I feel about the themes the explore but also by what I don't feel. With Octavia Butlers book I never have to put up with leaps in character development that are unbelievable and wrong to me. I never have to crinch when I as a reader am being treated as a toddler and am being fed way too much explanation and detail instead of being trusted with the powers of omision and implications. With Octavia's book I never have to deal with reading various types of stereotyping and other forms of keeping inequality alive. She is truly one of the best writes I know.

These books surprised me, mostly because the writing is so damned good. But also the three different protagonists, which I thought would annoy me in that I would rather one throughout, all kept me fascinated. Very cool in that the world is not tech heavy, in fact there is almost none except some biology and chemistry, yet very Scifi nonetheless.

I resisted the urge to recline with it until my hunger for it became too great, then I knew Butler had me though I had wandered.

About the author

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) was a bestselling and award-winning author, considered one of the best science fiction writers of her generation. She received both the Hugo and Nebula awards, and in 1995 became the first author of science fiction to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. She was also awarded the prestigious PEN Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. Her first novel, Patternmaster (1976), was praised both for its imaginative vision and for Butler’s powerful prose, and spawned four prequels, beginning with Mind of My Mind (1977) and finishing with Clay’s Ark (1984). Although the Patternist series established Butler among the science fiction elite, it was Kindred (1979), a story of a black woman who travels back in time to the antebellum South, that brought her mainstream success. In 1985, Butler won Nebula and Hugo awards for the novella “Bloodchild,” and in 1987 she published Dawn, the first novel of the Xenogenesis trilogy, about a race of aliens who visit earth to save humanity from itself. Fledgling (2005) was Butler’s final novel. She died at her home in 2006.