In Adulthood Rites, Butler picks what where she left off. It is about 30 years after Dawn and Lilith has bore and contains to have alien hybrid (constructs) children. Adulthood Rites is the story of one of those children. Told in a limited third person narrative, Adulthood Rites is the look into the struggles that the Akin (Lilith's only human born constructs male child) and the humans resisters that now inhibit the earth. As in the first book (Dawn), Butler contains to explore the theme of what it means to be human and the contradictions that are inherent in humanity. Even though the story is in third person, the reader only gets to see the world through Akin's senses. This position allows readers not only to connect with the human resisters but also evaluate aspects of humanity that lead the Oankali make humans resist sterile. Through Akin, readers get to see how humans make choices that lead to violence, rage, despair, and sorrow. But they also get to see that for most people the idea of the future and progress, mainly through children, is what makes up want to achieve greater heights. Butler is able to do all this expertly in a simple narrative that is less than three hundred pages.

Pros: Writing, Characters, Plot
Cons: N/A

Overall Recommendation:

This book in my opinion is better than Dawn. It could just be because I like the outcome more in this book than the other. But I would recommend this book to anyone that has read the first. But it is important that the books are read in order, so of the important themes and events are needed to make the story make flow accurately. ( )

Even before I finished reading Dawn, I knew that I would be pursuing the rest of the Xeogenesis trilogy (also known as Lilith's Brood) and just about anything else that Octavia E. Butler had written. Adulthood Rites follow Dawn and is the second Xenogenesis book. Dawn is easily one of the best pieces of science fiction that I've read recently; it completely blew me away. So, I had high expectations for Adulthood Rites. I wasn't too disappointed, either.

Shortly after humanity destroyed itself in war, the Oankali arrived and rescued the few remaining fragments doomed for extinction. However, their actions weren't entirely altruistic--they plan on genetically merging with the surviving Humans in order to continue their own race. Akin is the first Human-born male construct to exist. Genetically engineered, he is both Human and Oankali, an important link in the creation of the next generation. Kidnapped as a young child by Human resisters, he is forced early on to confront and understand what makes the Humans so dangerous and yet so appealing to the Oankali. Ultimately, he may be the only hope for the Human race's survival.

Even when the narrative perspective changes to another character, the book is still very intimately about Akin. His importance to the Humans (both resisters and partners) and the Oankali is paramount to the novel. As a Human-Oankali construct, Akin must earn acceptance from others, but even more so he must learn to accept both sides of his heritage. One of the things that I liked so much about Dawn is that the characters weren't static and changed as the novel progressed--particularly Lilith (Akin's mother). Unfortunately, Akin seemed to stay very much the same person throughout Adulthood Rites despite his traumatic experiences and his eventual dramatic physical transformation. The Oankali are very strange, and Butler captures this superbly. I'm not sure if it's because I took so long between threading the first and second books, but some details did seem inconsistent--but I could just be misremembering. Sometimes it seemed like Butler was just making things up as she went along, especially in regards to Oankali culture. Then again they are supposed to be truly bizarre from the perspective of a Human.

While the book didn't capture me quite as much as Dawn, Adulthood Rites still explores a plethora of engaging ideas. Much of the novelty of Oankali gender relationships has worn off, but their relationships with Humans continue to be tense, uncomfortable, and a little creepy. Butler's style in Xenogenesis is very direct with very little superfluous description. I really wish that I hadn't waited so long between books because of this; many important elements and details were lost or forgotten. I definitely will be picking up the last book in the trilogy, Imago, sooner rather than later.

Experiments in Reading ( )

Butler continues to plumb her intriguing world of alien and human relations in intricate genetic what-ifs, passionate joy and pain, cruelty and sacrifice, love and hatred.

Lilith's construct son turns out to be just as fascinating as she was.

This is now two parts of a trilogy that I'd rate as one of the top 20 science fiction series of all time. ( )

Second in Butler's Xenogenesis series. The first generation of blended human/Oankali must survive the xenophobia of humans on Earth. ( )

(Amy) So, this was a weird book. I'm still not sure if I liked it. (It doesn't help that it's the middle of a trilogy of which I have not read the first book, of course.)

In essence, this story picks up some span of time after the Earth has been rendered uninhabitable by . . . a war? I think? Anyway, we broke the planet (messagefic sign!) and some exceptionally bizarre aliens picked up a few thousand humans, froze 'em, and rehabilitated the planet.

All very well, yes? Well, not quite. Turns out the way these aliens work is to wander about the galaxy, finding new species to, well, mix with. And now there are human/alien babies being born, and the humans can't breed naturally anymore.

So, yeah. Odd. Interesting, but odd. I do plan to read the others, but I do so without having come to a clear opinion of this book.
( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/ze... ) ( )