Lilith’s Brood by Octavia Butler (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago)

I love Octavia Butler's work. But this was not my favorite. In fact, I wouldn't recommend it - it was hard to get through.

I tend to like books where you have to puzzle out the backstory - in my opinion, the series had too much explaination. Much of the first two books could have been flashbacks in the third book, Imago. And it could have been trimmed to give it more suspense.

Additionally, so many scenes with the human survivors are almost devoid of culture. What do they do with their time? It was missing art and music. It lacked some of the softness of soft science fiction. People would have really interesting reactions to the end of the world. This did slip in at the end, but not enough.

I also wasn't a huge fan of the extremely biological view of gender. A lot of the gender roles and assumptions seemed... silly. And yet, they were established as truth in the narrative -the idea that males are violent or sexually promiscuous was very plot-relevant, for example. In addition, this book was specifically about gender and sexuality - but there wasn't a single queer person. The lack was odd in a glaring way.

But I also see why it was groundbreaking. She was talkig about gender and sexuality in a new way — like, including the nonbinary ooloi, for example.

And it was extremely interesting to read from a disability perspective - the whole premise of the aliens, of course, was that they sterilized the human race. They then helped humans (who accepted them) to reproduce and have "perfect" construct children. This is, definitionally, eugenics.

Many disabled humans are healed by the aliens throughout the novels, and many are healed against their will. Removing that choice (and the choice of free reproduction) did not feel justifiable. And yet, as someone with a (mild) chronic illness myself, a miracle cure also felt like a fantasy. When I googled it, I learned that Butler herself was also chronically ill. Knowing that added a sad complexity. Some of her characters say they would rather be dead than live in pain. Many of her characters celebrate the aliens.

The ending of the series was also interesting. It was optimistic - even though the protagonist is forced to bear children she doesn't want. While I like that about Butler's writing (she lets people find agency and happiness where the can) it was difficult to read. I was actually glad Lilith kept a lot of her bitterness.

The book doesn't answer most of the questions it asks. And I think it's a story that deserves to be rewritten - maybe for television. (I don't know if it's true, but I read that Butler spent several years trying to re-write the series and that she was never completely pleased with it. Maybe a team could take a crack at it.) Right now, discussions of gender, marriage, consent, and disability are all at the forefront. And it's a classic. So, I'm glad to have read it - even if I didn't like it.