Parable of the Talents [Anglais] [Relié]

Octavia Butler tackles the creation of a new religion, the making of a god, and the ultimate fate of humanity in her Earthseed series, which began with Parable of the Sower, and now continues with Parable of the Talents. The saga began with the near-future dystopian tale of Sower, in which young Lauren Olamina began to realize her destiny as a leader of people dispossessed and destroyed by the crumbling of society. The basic principles of Lauren's faith, Earthseed, were contained in a collection of deceptively simple proverbs that Lauren used to recruit followers. She teaches that "God is change" and that humanity's ultimate destiny is among the stars.

In Parable of the Talents, the seeds of change that Lauren planted begin to bear fruit, but in unpredictable and brutal ways. Her small community is destroyed, her child is kidnapped, and she is imprisoned by sadistic zealots. She must find a way to escape and begin again, without family or friends. Her single-mindedness in teaching Earthseed may be her only chance to survive, but paradoxically, may cause the ultimate estrangement of her beloved daughter. Parable of the Talents is told from both mother's and daughter's perspectives, but it is the narrative of Lauren's grown daughter, who has seen her mother made into a deity of sorts, that is the most compelling. Butler's writing is simple and elegant, and her storytelling skills are superb, as usual. Fans will be eagerly awaiting the next installment in what promises to be a moving and adventurous saga. --Therese Littleton

Lauren Olamina, a black teenager, grew up in a 21st-century America that was tearing itself apart. Global warming, massive unemployment, gang warfare and corporate greed combined to break down society in general and her impoverished southern California neighborhood in particular. A victim of hyperempathy syndrome, a disorder that compels its victims to believe they feel others' pain, Lauren found herself homeless and alone in a violent world. Escaping from the urban jungle of Los Angeles, Lauren founded Acorn, a hard-working, prosperous rural community based on the teachings of Earthseed, a religion she herself created and centered on the ideas that God is Change and that humanity's destiny is to go to the stars. Butler's extraordinary Parable of the Sower (1996) detailed the aforementioned events. In this equally powerful sequel, Acorn is destroyed by the rising forces of Christian fundamentalism, led by the newly elected U.S. president, the Reverend Andrew Steele Jarret. A handsome man and persuasive orator, seemingly modeled in part on Pat Robertson, Jarret converts millions to his sect, Christian America, while his thugs imprison, rape and murder those they label "heathens," all the while kidnapping their children in order to raise them in Christian households. The narrative is both impassioned and bitter as Butler weaves a tale of a frighteningly believable near-future dystopia. Lauren, at once loving wife and mother, prophet and fanatic, victim and leader, gains stature as one of the most intense and well-developed protagonists in recent SF. Though not for the faint-hearted, this work stands out as a testament to the author's enormous talent, and to the human spirit.. Author tour. (Nov.) FYI: In 1995, Butler received a MacArthur Foundation ("genius") Award.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In this brilliant sequel to Parable of the Sower (LJ 10/15/93), Nebula and Hugo Award winner Butler continues the compelling story of Lauren Olamina, chronicling her struggle for survival in a socially and economically depressed California in the 2030s. Lauren has founded a quiet community called Acorn, where she teaches people about Earthseed, her belief that God is simply another name for Change. Her community of believers is threatened, however, by the election of an ultraconservative president opposed to any religion not his own. Among his followers are fanatical terrorists who will stop at nothing to destroy what Lauren has built, including forcibly separating parents from their children. Butler tells this story through Lauren's journal entries, her poetry, and commentary from her daughter. Powerful, moving, and beautifully written, this book belongs in every library.?Laurel Bliss, New Haven, CT
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Butler concludes the spiritual and physical journey, begun in Parable of the Sower (1993), of Lauren Oya Olamina, an 18-year-old African American who has survived most of her family's demise and a lengthy journey on the dangerous roads of early-twenty-first-century California. She has created her own religion, Earthseed, which empowers people to master change and has as its ultimate goal the colonization of other worlds. Olamina has gathered around her a community of outcasts and wanderers that is beginning to thrive when a fundamentalist Christian wins the presidency. His zealots overrun Olamina's village, enslave the adults with pain-inflicting collars, and adopt the children into Christian American families. Olamina must somehow free herself and her followers and begin another painful journey to find her infant daughter. She is unexpectedly reunited with her brother Marcus, but instead of helping each other, they are on opposite sides of a deep religious chasm. The novel revolves around the question of which is more important to Olamina: her fledgling religion or her own flesh and blood. Roberta Johnson

Octavia E. Butler continues the compelling story of Lauren Olamina and her struggle for survival in a socially and economically depressed California in the 2030s. Convinced that her quiet community, Acorn, should chart humankind's destiny by leaving Earth and peacefully colonizing the stars, Lauren and her faithful followers make preparations. But the sudden collapse of society and the reckless rise of fanatics threaten Acorn's very existence. Now, with her followers brutally enslaved and her own daughter stolen from her, Lauren must fight back to save the new world order...or die trying. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

In this long-awaited novel, Butler revisits familiar themes of a society in 2032 whose very fabric has been torn, and where the basic physical and emotional needs of people seem almost impossible to meet. 30,000 first print.

Winner of the Nebula Award and shortlisted for the Arthur C Clark Award this is the novel that inspired Walter Mosley to write Blue Light. The second book of the Earthseed series (the first being Parable of the Sower).

In 2032, in a devastated United States, Lauren Olamina sets out on the dangerous road to find her daughter Larkin; stolen from her, to be raised by Lauren's enemies. But Lauren is also compelled by her own ambition - to spread the word of her religion 'Earthseed'. A compulsion to power that drives her onwards to become a powerful political figure with the inevitable feet of clay herself.

'Butler's novel is a compassionated riposte to the ugly propaganda of America's survivalists and other right-wing Aryan weirdos. But it is also a reminder that unchecked fundamentalism - of any kind - could easily make the 21st century even more barbarous than the last. And, although the events of the book are often brutal and disturbing, it is a moving statement of faith in the resilience of the human spirit. Tough, thought provoking, intelligent, humane ... Parable of the Talents is the sort of book that threatens to give science fiction a good name.' The Times --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .