Lilith's Brood

by Octavia E. Butler

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: Xenogenesis (1-3)

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Mentions
2,580	59	5,687	(4.23)	123
All of humanity must share the world with uncanny, unimaginable alien creatures after war destroys Earth, in an omnibus edition containing three class science fiction novels--Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago. The acclaimed trilogy that comprises Lilith's Brood is multiple Hugo and Nebula award-winner Octavia E. Butler at her best. Presented for the first time in one volume, with an introduction by Joan Slonczewski, Ph. D., Lilith's Brood is a profoundly evocative, sensual--and disturbing--epic of human transformation. Lilith Lyapo is in the Andes, mourning the death of her family, when war destroys Earth. Centuries later, she is resurrected, by miraculously powerful unearthly beings, the Oankali. Driven by an irresistible need to heal others, the Oankali are rescuing our dying planet by merging genetically with mankind. But Lilith and all humanity must now share the world with uncanny, unimaginably alien creatures: Their own children. This is their story.… (more)

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20
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (jlparent)
jlparent: Although not hard sci-fi like Lilith's Brood - this is Butler's most popular work and is a great read!
10
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (sturlington)
sturlington: The aliens in Binti reminded me quite a bit of the aliens in Lilith's Brood.
00
The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch (KatyBee)
00
Binti: The Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor (vwinsloe)
vwinsloe: Shares many of the same themes
01
Brain Plague by Joan Slonczewski (kaydern)
kaydern: Speculative fiction focusing on the interaction between humans and radically different alien species.
06
The Host by Stephenie Meyer (infiniteletters)

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English (57) Dutch (2) All languages (59)

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Showing 1-5 of 57 (next | show all)

I can't come up with a way to rate this one. All I can seem to say about Dawn is what it wasn't. I could hardly stand to read it towards the end as the consent... stuff... got worse and worse, but it was interesting and I did finish it. It was not incorrect, and not irrelevant, and not ill-conceived. I didn't like it. I don't think it was badly written. I don't not recommend it, but I don't recommend it either.

Ok, actually one thing I can say about it: Really Alien Aliens. Like, totally fucking fantastic aliens and alien culture and alien biology. Very few people are even decent at writing really alien cultures; Octavia Butler blows them all out of the solar system.

Most of what I'm struggling with is whether the ending was effective---which also depends on what was the point Butler was trying to make. (spoiler-cutting vague talk about the direction of the narrative that doesn't reference any specific plot points.) Lilith accepts things because she has no choice, and she tries to find a way to survive within them, and I'm not judging that at all---it's... real, human. But it's hard to reach the end without losing your grip on her struggle to justify things, and when you lose that you lose the ability to identify/empathize with her, and she sort of becomes a "statistic." And if she becomes a statistic, the point of the book goes from "what does it mean to be human" and "how do you survive a situation so completely out of your control" to "look what awful things I can come up with to do to my characters."

caedocyon | Mar 11, 2024 |

A very well written book, and a good story, but I'm only giving it 2 stars because of how deeply uncomfortable it made me. The mating rituals and reproductive strategies of these aliens are basically rape, and the humans don't really have any choice. (

)

ardaiel | Mar 4, 2024 |

Profoundly strange. I read this in college 20 years ago (for pleasure, not assigned), and the ideas have stuck with me since, which I think makes it worth something. I liked a phrase that one of the other reviewers noted, that it's 'non-judgemental'. It gives you a lot of crazy ideas and just - lets you think about them, which I feel is much more powerful than having an agenda. (

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alspachc | Jan 15, 2024 |

Ms. Butler has many unkind things to say about humankind in this series and I don't blame her. They way several people reacted and continued to react throughout I could understand and at the same time be frustrated by their actions. (

)

glowlove | Oct 23, 2023 |

I discovered this trilogy in my mother's bookcase and went into it with no expectations other than that if my mom had bought it, she must have really liked the author's work. This is an incredible work. I don't know what genres to put it in. It's clearly a piece of science fiction, but like all the best science fiction, plumbs the depths of core philosophical questions: what does it mean to be human? Is it important to be a distinct species? what does it mean to love another being? how do we understand the tangle of physical desire and love? what are we willing to give up to be "us" and is it really worth it. I could go on and on. I highly recommend this book for the ideas and for the compelling, powerful writing. I will be reading other works by this authors. (

)

lschiff | Sep 24, 2023 |

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Showing 1-5 of 57 (next | show all)

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Das Verhalten der Menschen untereinander ist trotz der Erfahrung des Atomkrieges nach wie vor von äußerster Aggressivität geprägt. Schuld daran sind die menschlichen Gene, wie die Fremden als perfekte biologische Gentechniker wissen. Die Menschen können einfach gar nicht anders als fremdenfeindlich sein und sich selbst vernichten. Hierin liegt die bedenklich Botschaft des Buches: Wir sind nicht viel mehr als Marionetten unserer Gene, die für unser gesamtes Sozialverhalten verantwortlich sind.

Nach Ende des ersten Bandes tritt Lilith, die bisherige Protagonistin, an den Rand des Geschehens, erlahmt die Handlung und hat sich die Problematik erschöpft. Man kann das Buch also getrost nach 300 Seiten zuklappen, oder, wenn man denn will, besser gleich die Einzelausgabe des ersten Teiles zur Hand nehmen.

added by Indy133 | editliteraturkritik.de, Toni Äutzche (Jul 1, 2000)

▾Other authors

» Add other authors (1 possible)

Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Octavia E. Butler	—	primary author	all editions	calculated
Heidkamp, Barbara	Übersetzer	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

▾Series and work relationships

Belongs to Series

Xenogenesis (1-3)

Belongs to Publisher Series

Heyne Science Fiction & Fantasy (5998)

Contains

Dawn by Octavia E. Butler

Adulthood Rites by Octavia E. Butler

Imago by Octavia E. Butler

Stub for "Imago" in Lilith's Brood by Octavia E. Butler

Stub for Adulthood Rites in Lilith's Brood by Octavia E. Butler

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▾Common Knowledge

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Canonical title

Lilith's Brood

Original title

The Xenogenesis Trilogy

Alternative titles

Information from the German Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.

Xenogenesis

Original publication date

1989 (omnibus)

1987 (Dawn)

1988 (Adulthood Rites)

1989 (Imago)

People/Characters

Important places

Important events

Related movies

Epigraph

Dedication

In memory of Mike Hodel who,
through his READ/SF campaign
for literacy, sought to share
with everyone the pleasure and
usefulness of the written word.

(preceding Dawn)

To Lynn--
write!

(preceding Adulthood Rites)

To Irie Isaacs

(preceding Imago)

First words

Alive! (Dawn)

He remembered much of his stay in the womb. (Adulthood Rites)

I slipped into my metamorphosis so quietly that no one noticed. (Imago)

Quotations

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Original language

Information from the German Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.

Englisch

Canonical DDC/MDS

Canonical LCC

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Wikipedia in English (1)

Lilith's Brood

▾Book descriptions

All of humanity must share the world with uncanny, unimaginable alien creatures after war destroys Earth, in an omnibus edition containing three class science fiction novels--Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago. The acclaimed trilogy that comprises Lilith's Brood is multiple Hugo and Nebula award-winner Octavia E. Butler at her best. Presented for the first time in one volume, with an introduction by Joan Slonczewski, Ph. D., Lilith's Brood is a profoundly evocative, sensual--and disturbing--epic of human transformation. Lilith Lyapo is in the Andes, mourning the death of her family, when war destroys Earth. Centuries later, she is resurrected, by miraculously powerful unearthly beings, the Oankali. Driven by an irresistible need to heal others, the Oankali are rescuing our dying planet by merging genetically with mankind. But Lilith and all humanity must now share the world with uncanny, unimaginably alien creatures: Their own children. This is their story.

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Book description

Lilith's Brood is a collection of three works by Octavia Butler: Dawn, Adulthood Rites and Imago. The three volumes of this science fiction series were previously collected in the now out of print volume, Xenogenesis.

Butler’s acclaimed Xenogenesis trilogy about humanity’s struggle for survival after nuclear apocalypse, and the alien race that could save the world—or destroy it.

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. Butler’s Lilith’s Brood is both a thrilling, provocative meditation on the expansion of the human gene pool and an epic story of how it takes more than DNA to make someone human. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.

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