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Lilith's Brood: The Complete Xenogenesis Trilogy
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Lilith's Brood: The Complete Xenogenesis Trilogy
Unavailable
Lilith's Brood: The Complete Xenogenesis Trilogy
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Lilith's Brood: The Complete Xenogenesis Trilogy

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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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.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 24, 2012
ISBN9781453271728
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Lilith's Brood: The Complete Xenogenesis Trilogy
Author

Octavia E. Butler

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) was a renowned African American author of several award-winning novels, including Parable of the Sower, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 1993, and Parable of the Talents, winner of the Nebula Award for the best science fiction novel in 1995. She received a MacArthur Genius Grant and PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award for her body of work and was acclaimed for her lean prose, strong protagonists, and social observations in stories that range from the distant past to the far future.

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Reviews for Lilith's Brood

Rating: 4.065363305027933 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Enjoyable with a diverse - yet spare - cast of characters orbiting the main character. The sex and sex-talk teeters annoyingly close to the limits of enjoy-ability for me (especially since it delivers no guilty titillation).
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Damn, this was good, and unlike anything I've ever read. Dealt with almost every social issue possible, and also with the questions of what it means to be human as well as questions of free will. Also just a really well written SFI-fi story. Have read "Kindred" and can't wait to read more.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very different kind of SciFi read- not the kind I typically like.That said, I mostly liked the book. Basically, story takes place when earth has destroyed itself thru war and a group of aliens save many of the survivors, put them in a suspended statis with the intension of eventually reviving them to interbred with them.It was very well written but I think, for me, too much time was spent on the interbreeding part.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I've come to "science fiction"/ speculative fiction late in life, and so am still catching up on the "classics" such as the Lilith's Brood trilogy. I had previously read Butler's "Kindred," which is still my favorite, but the Lilith's Brood books are complex and written with her trademark visual richness, easily transporting you to these future worlds while retaining a grounding in the world (with its issues of race, gender, class, environmental degradation, militarism, violence) from which she speculates. I finished this book with a sense of hope (that we can overcome the tendency to hierarchical organization of our lives that is the central flaw the non-human Oankali are trying to help the surviving humans get past: "...the conflict in their genes--the new intelligence put at the service of ancient hierarchical tendencies."). It is the same sense of hope you get from reading Octavia Butler's "children"--the present day authors of Octavia's Brood. (Brian)
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Good story and lots of meaty material for thought. Themes of freedom (and lack of) run throughout, colonialism and personal responsibility. Really good, highly recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Solid examination in three novels of an alien takeover of humanity's future. It could be read simultaneously as a tale of horror and transcendence. 'Dawn' begins with the classic SF trope of awakening naked and alone in a strange environment, soon revealed to be an alien spaceship. Alien abduction, yes, but also alien rescue, from a vaguely described Doomsday catastrophe that humans had unleashed on themselves. Dawn is primarily about Lilith coming to terms with the Oankali, her alien captors, their goals for her in creating a future genetic blending of humans and aliens, and her relationships with other humans. As with Survivor, a book Butler disowned but which I quite liked, sex is elemental bonding force, but Lilith is doomed to be largely an outsider. 'Adulthood Rites' and 'Imago' continue the outsider themes with two of her offspring of this new Oankali-human blend. Both books are fine but suffer a bit from the similarity of main character. Each is a prototype of the next step in Oankali-human evolution, each is thereby isolated from both sides, each tres to preserve some element of original humankind, but each also subjugates humans to their will as need be. If you wanted to read these as biographies of monsters, you could. The power of Butler's writing is that she allows no simple interpretations of who is right or wrong here. Recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This trilogy, (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago - collectively known as Lilith's Brood), is a remarkable piece of work. Labeled as science fiction, it really transcends the genre.

    Set against a future tapestry where humanity has all but destroyed the Earth and itself, these stories are, at their core, an exploration of the human condition. Subtly shifting from a human perspective in the first book to an alien perspective in the third book, we find an examination of the unwilling integration of one species with another. An assimilation of those without power or choice by those who hold an overwhelming technological and physical advantage.Unlike most stories about alien invasion, this is not a hostile takeover tale. The fact that the assimilation is performed in the spirit of 'trade', and with empathy and love, makes it ultimately that much more horrifying.

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    An amazing read. I don't know how I've lived this long without reading Octavia Butler
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Dawn is the first in Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy, in which humans destroy the Earth through nuclear war and are then descended upon by aliens (the Oankali) who "rescue" them by attempting to merge their two species, hoping to create offspring with the best traits of both humans and Oankali. The story is told from the point of view of Lilith, one of the first humans to be Awakened from the suspended animation the Oankali used to heal the remaining humans after the war and to keep them young while Earth, too, had a chance to heal. The Oankali plan to use Lilith as a kind of mother-figure and teacher for a group of humans she will Awaken (at Oankali direction) and who will then be sent back to Earth along with members of the Oankali to repopulate the planet with the resulting hybrid species.Dawn follows Lilith as she learns about the Oankali and their plans and tries to find and understand a new life under these strange circumstances. Butler's prose is somehow both spare and rich, and her ability to draw an alien species which is truly alien is remarkable. Her insight into how humans of varying temperaments might react open being awoken and told they've been rescued by aliens who now want to mate with them creates a believable, moving story. I'm looking forward to reading the second book in the trilogy soon. 21 Jan 2014
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    In a post-holocaust earth humans are dependent on the alien Oankali and their equally alien human-Oankali offspring. These novels tell the story of Lilith Iyapo and her descendants in a changed and changing world. The Oankali are arrogant, and so, to a degree, are the post-humans (construct humans) who blend human and Oankali genes. This is a tale of exploration, discovery, and, in the end, humanity.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I really wanted to like this. I'm a huge feminist and I've heard Butler writes some of the best feminist science fiction. I also liked the biological aspects of their technology, from the purely sci-fi angle. Except then there was tentacle mind rape, and I had to hide the book far, far away where I would never have to see it and have those terrible images seared into my brain all over again.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I don't think I can really summarise the plot of this very well, but... it's a book about aliens and humans. The aliens save the humans who survived after most of them died in a huge world war involving giant bombs, but the price of saving them is ... horrible. "The Oankali are biological traders, driven to share genes with other intelligent species, changing both parties." (wikipedia) Well, the survivors end up with the choice: join with the aliens and have tentacular babies, or be sterilised and live on Earth until you die. The aliens creepily love humans because cancer teaches them to be able to regrow limbs. This is great scifi, with the details all thought out, and emotionally manipulative in the best way. The book is mainly about the humans who do choose to stay with the Oankali, and as you read you start to think that things are actually pretty good for them, but every time I started to accept the aliens as non-creepy it would reveal some horrible coercive element of the relationships between an alien and its human mates and I'd be horrified all over again.That is really incoherent. Basically: awesome, creepy scifi, which I enjoyed even more because of its disturbing parts.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Excellent science fiction, this isa compilation of three books about an alien society with truly alien physiology and customs. Octavia Butler outdid herself - this is one of my favorite works.Her writing is excellent and her imagination will amaze you.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Lilith's Brood, actually an omnibus of three novels (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago) by Octavia Butler, is amazing. These three works are easily the best science fiction novels I've read in the past several years, and the first two are certain contenders for the best novels I've read in years, period.They tell the story of a woman named Lilith, who is resurrected on an alien ship nearly three hundred years after a nuclear apocalypse, as well as the stories of her half-human, half-alien children. Lilith herself is a strong, determined hero--she often makes choices that not only seem unsavory to the people that surround her but are sometimes savory to the reader as well. However, her motivations (self-preservation above all else) always remain clear.But the real centerpiece here are Butler's aliens, the Oankali, a three-gendered, space faring race engaged in an intergalactic gene trade. What they do with the aliens they encounter, including humans, constitutes nothing more than an alien invasion, but because they integrate the species they annihilate into their society--and their sexual practices--they become both terrifying and sympathetic.There's no easy way to say this: the Oankali drug and rape humans to intermingle their genetic material. After this contact is established, normal sexual activity becomes repellent. The sex here, though there's never any physical contact, is really terrifying. The Oankali ooloi, the third-gendered aliens who facilitate these liaisons, are the definition of smooth operators. Because the gene trade is so ingrained in their culture, they are unable to see the ethical problems with their actions. To them, they have saved humanity from annihilation--that pure homo sapiens will die out, and that the Earth will be left a wasteland when the children of man go off to continue the gene trade elsewhere, is largely irrelevant.Wonderfully, the reader's perception of this exchange changes over the course of the three novels. In the first novel, told largely from Lilith's perspective, the Oankali seem to be little more than diabolical, yet disturbingly seductive, creatures. The reader deeply sympathizes with Lilith and the other humans who must make sense of a new life from the vantage of a cloistered space ship, with no possible escape in sight. The second novel, Adulthood Rites, tells the story of Lilith's first Oankali son, who struggles to reconcile both the Oankali and human sides of himself. Despite his place in the alien society, his characterization and motivations seem more firmly human, even as he undergoes a metamorphosis to become a strange, tentacled creature.The third novel, Imago represents the largest perspective shift. Unlike the other novels, it's told in the first person and weaves the story of Jodahs, Lilith's first ooloi child. Jodahs is almost completely alien to us in motivation--although he's different from the ooloi who came before, his primary interests lie in seducing humans. The strength of Butler's character building here is most strongly evident: Jodahs still manages to be sympathetic, somehow.Unfortunately, the pacing of the third book is not quite up to snuff when compared to the first two. In the first novel, particularly, Butler seemed unafraid to let wide gaps of time pass undescribed to the reader. This created great tension and contributed to the horrific, nightmarish feeling of the story. The second novel, similarly, included large chronological gaps as well as drastic setting shifts that contributed well to the half-human, half-alien nature of its protagonist. But the third novel was a bit more pedestrian in its construction, and (particularly as I wasn't able to put Lilith's Brood down for about 10 days until I had finished all 800-some odd pages of it), felt a little rehashed by the conclusion. But despite this, it was still a cut above most sci-fi novels in terms of prose, characterization, and species building.And it's for the species-building that I most admired this series. Butler amazingly creates a believable alien race that is, nevertheless, completely alien to us in society and motivations. The concepts introduced here are challenging, but no less wonderful for the moral quandaries they present. Highly, highly recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    3 novels in one- this is excellent science fiction and I highly recommend it. Humans have driven themselves to extinction and aliens rescue a few. These aliens survive by genetic 'trading' and start manipulating the cellular builds of the humans they have saved, merging the two. Within that broad story, there is so much to take in and get lost in, I don't know how to separate it out without giving away the best parts of the story. I'll just say: read it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The earth was destroyed long ago (by humans). Aliens rescued a few and now, generations later, wake them from cryo and plan to help them repopulate the earth. There are a few little catches, like the aliens always planned to cross-breed with the humans to repopulate.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I think if I could just bring one book on a desert isle, I would consider the Octavia Butler omnibus, Xenogenesis. It's also been released under different names such as Lilith's Brood as well as the three individual books - Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago. It's a large set (nearly 900 pages in the edition I have) which tells the story of a woman (Lilith) who was saved by aliens (Oankali) after a nuclear war. The Oankali are a three sexed species which require new influx of genes to survive and evolve and they get this by interbreeding with whatever new species they happen to come across. The Oankali want to colonize the Earth with human-Oankali hybrids. Needless to say some humans are not thrilled by this idea and this conflict set the stage for the story and for the return to post-nuclear Earth. Xenogenesis takes you through the struggle for identity, race, religion, and what makes us human. It also may challenge your views on gender, sex, orientation, and what makes a family.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Butler does a fascinating job of exploring what it is to be human and the value of what humanity is, with all its brilliance and flaws, by proposing a scenario in which humanity is doomed to extinction unless it merges with another species. By accepting, are they becoming less, or becoming more? Butler does a masterful job of presenting all sides of the issue. The story and characterizations are rich and rewarding. Extremely thought provoking.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book passes a disturbing judgement on humanity and reminds us what it truly means (and what it might take) to evolve. Throughout this novel, we are forced to examine what parts of ourselves are inextricably human and whether or not our humanity is worth sacrificing for the betterment of all. Butler asks us to wonder whether human nature itself is evil, and if so, are we willing to give up our humanity to transcend those parts of ourselves that are intrinsically corrupt.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Overall, I think it's a wonderful series of books. Certainly, some of it seems terribly bizarre, and the third book made me uncomfortable, with aliens deliberately changing the most personal characteristics of humans to benefit themselves. But overall, the books are highly imaginative, as the desire of humans to retain their sense of themselves, no matter what cost to their health, and their inevitable tumble into a cycle of fear of anything different and maximum violence to protect themselves.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of the most underrated sci-fi epics of all time. It has been unmarred by attempts to translate it into film, which almost ads to the allure, it would make for a difficult screenplay. Octavia E. Butler's Lillith's Brood is a staple for any science fiction fan's library. Why haven't you read it yet?!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I liked the final part of the book. It made up for the sometimes slow pace.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Post-apocalyptic First contact story, where personal relationships are quite important. Very well written as usual by Butler.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Not a big fan of the unimaginable, outside the realm of what I know to be real. Read it for book group. A war ravages the Earth and people are taken away to another dimension or realm, with beings different, and a world different. They are to be trained to go back to earth. Lilith, the protagonist, is to be their trainer. It was painful for me to read something that was outside my frame of reference.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It's been a long time since I've read a science fiction book that's as straightforward as this one. One of my favorite subgenres is first contact stories and this one was very good. Enjoyed it very much. Supposedly this series is about to become a TV show or movie (according to ArsTechnica). It'll be interesting to see how that works out!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I came across this book when it was featured in a podcast about the treatment of aliens in scifi. The book is well written - tight prose and brisk action, but it is also compulsively thought provoking, the best form of scifi.I have previously read Kindred by the same author when I was binge-reading time travel books several years ago. Kindred was good; Dawn is better. It is pure sci-fi - with aliens and spaceships and a devastated earth. But the scifi aspects are there as background - there's no attempt to explain the science, it just supports the narrative. And the story is engaging - the reader is drawn into the story and I, for one, felt compelled to put myself in the role of the characters - how would I have reacted? Would I have done things the same or differently?? To me this reaction epitomizes good scifi. And of course,this cerebral aspect is why the book was featured in the podcast.Great book and I'm looking forward to the next two volumes of the trilogy.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    "Kindred" was a masterpiece. So I gave Lilith's Brood a try. Having just completed reading the three books, courtesy of Scribd, I give it credit for sweeping me away in a compelling hideaway of escapism in tough times. Converging with my adoration of octopuses, this broad tale gives creatures with tentacles a noble and even sexy role, not to mention wonderful superpowers. And we can all be glad to note, as does one of the human characters, how fortunate that the Oankali are vegan!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Rating: Interesting, well writtenI'd have liked this take on alien abduction far better if the ending had actually been an ending, instead it seemed abrupt and unsatisfying, rather just a chapter ending to the next book.The aliens were sufficiently different and hard to understand so there was definitely that strength. The protagonist was torn between willingness to cooperate and wish to be free of the manipulation. And what was truth and what was not was a decided addition to the whole plot line.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Humanity has all but managed to wipe itself out and do almost irreparable damage to Earth in the process. Lilith is one of only a few people that have managed to survive. She is revived to find herself in a featureless cell where a disembodied voice asks her questions and is less than forthcoming with answers to any asked by Lilith. It is only when her saviours/captors seem to become satisfied with her response that Lilith finds out what her current situation entails. She has been chosen by a race of aliens (the Oankali) to help return mankind to a revived Earth but there will be a price to pay by way of a trade. Will the cost be too high to save what is left of humanity and is it even worth saving?This is the first in the Xenogenesis trilogy and also the first of the author's work that I've read. I think I've been missing out. While this is in essence a first contact novel it explores much of the nature of humanity and often delves into its darker aspects. While this is not a difficult book to read it does touch upon some disturbing concerns and offers much to ponder so in this respect is extremely well written. The world-building and charecterisation of the main characters are also very well handled but their isn't too much depth to secondary characters but that doesn't detract much from the overall effect of the book. The series is off to a very good beginning and although I'm not jumping straight into the second book it won't be too long before I do.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really enjoyed this book. It is a real page-turner. I found the situation to be surprising and unpredictable. The author is incredibly inventive. The book reminds me of classic sci-fi, fantastical and groundbreaking, and yet it also explores interesting issues regarding difference and sexuality. The writing itself is not particularly rich stylistically, but it serves its purpose. I am really looking forward to the next book in the series.