Parable of the Sower

Book 1 of the Earthseed duology

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This is a dystopian novel that is absolutely believable and terrifying. If we don’t do something soon and extensive about climate change, we have the life in front of us that is detailed in this book.

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Wages were paid, but in company scrip, not in cash. Rent was charged for the workers’ shacks. Workers had to pay for food, for clothing—new or used—for everything they needed, and, of course they could only spend their company notes at the company store.

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The main character is a young woman who, initially, lives in a walled-in community near Los Angeles in a world where people are killing for a pair of shoes or a bottle of fresh water. It’s 2025 and teenaged children have never seen a car because most people stopped being able to buy gas many years ago. Jobs that pay actual money are extremely difficult to find and even then, the money that is earned doesn’t go nearly as far as it used to.

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God is Change,
and in the end,
God prevails.
But there’s hope in understanding the nature of God—not punishing or jealous, but infinitely malleable.
There’s comfort in realizing that everyone and everything yields to God.

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As a young woman the protagonist begins keeping a journal in which a sort-of religion, called Earthseed, is uncovering itself for her. It’s not that she’s making it up, but rather that she is gathering truths together.

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Because she is not only sensitive she’s also smart, she sees that her relatively safe life can’t possibly last and so begins to prepare herself for what she knows is coming.

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When she is 18 and her walled-in, gated community gets burned down and trashed by drug-fueled scavengers, she grabs her prepared go-bag and takes off on a journey northward toward a better life.

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As she travels, amidst the people killing each other to steal whatever they can, she gathers around her a group of people (mostly women and children) who she speaks to about her idea of God and the Destiny of Earthseed.

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All that you touch,
You Change.
All that you Change,
Changes you.
The only lasting truth Is Change.
God Is Change.

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Because the ideas aren’t mystical or wrapped in any kind of rubbish, people are okay with it. Her verses make sense and are empowering.

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By the end of the journey she has found love and settled with a couple dozen people on 300 acres in Humbolt county. The Earthseed community help each other, raise and educate their children together, and begin building a relatively safe life for themselves amidst the chaos of America at that time.

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This novel is not only eerily prescient, it’s spiritual, emotionally harsh, and beautiful. Ms. Butler was getting on in years when she wrote this and the pieces of scripture she wrote feel like a distillation of her wisdom.

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