Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Parable of the Sower | 1993 | Octavia E. Butler | Buy |
| 2 | Earthseed | 1999 | Octavia E. Butler | N/A |
| 3 | Parable of the Talents | 1998 | Octavia E. Butler | Buy |
| 4 | مثل الوزنات | 1998 | Octavia E. Butler | N/A |
The Earthseed series — also known as the Parable series — consists of two novels set in a near-future United States where climate change, economic collapse, and the breakdown of law and order have left much of the country ungovernable. The series begins in the 2020s in a walled neighborhood in Southern California, where a teenager named Lauren Olamina has developed a condition called hyperempathy, which causes her to feel the pain and pleasure of the people around her. Lauren also has a private philosophy she calls Earthseed, built around the idea that God is Change — that change is the one force shaping all reality, and that human beings must learn to shape it in return.
Parable of the Sower (1993) follows Lauren as her neighborhood is destroyed and she walks north with a group of survivors, building community along the way. Parable of the Talents (1998) picks up years later as the Earthseed community faces an authoritarian religious movement that has taken hold of American politics. The second novel won the Nebula Award for Best Novel.
Butler researched these books by reading economic and political analyses of social collapse alongside historical accounts of slavery and displacement. The near-future she imagined has drawn renewed attention from readers, given how closely some of her projections have matched later American political and environmental developments. Both novels are taught widely in high school and university courses on speculative fiction, American literature, and climate studies.