The main character, an African-American woman named Lauren Oya Olamina, introduced first in the Parable of the Sower, is the founder, leader, and creator of this safe haven that found it could not shy away from the chaos of the outside world. Beginning in the not so distant future year of 2032, Olamina and her followers found them in the progressing, successful, profiting shelter of Acorn surrounded by people they

The Parable of the Talents, by Octavia E. Butler was entertaining reading. Choosing to write in the personal points of view taken by Olamina and her daughter Larkin, Butler created an easy connection to what they were feeling. I found myself wanting to read it, wanting to stay up and finish the next chapter, wanting to see what Butler had in store next for her characters. It allowed me to discover the softer side of this genre, without the aliens and spaceships, but still containing futuristic qualities. However, aside from all the good aspects of the book, I found it difficult to read about the Earthseed religion and Butler's view of Christianity.

Butler not only gave us great character analysis, but a book filled with passages to ponder and consider. One of the most prominent passages incorporated throughout the book's theme was the first verse of Earthseed: Books of the Living, "All that you touch, you Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change"(3). This was the foundational truth for Olamina's religion, Earthseed. She believed her days and nights were surrounded within Change. The events in her life such as the destruction of Acorn, losing and finding her brother and daughter, and being freed from the slavery of the Crusaders were because of Change brought on by natural happenings. Olamina took truths such as these and gave them to certain, trusting individuals along her path to plant new seeds for the future of her religious quests. Another important passage integrated throughout the book was, "We give our dead to the orchards and the groves. We give our dead to life"(58). The Earthseed verse was used a number of times, from the first chapter to the last, due to the great amount of losses Olamina survived among family and friends of Acorn. Many died on the Acorn land, burned or buried by the Crusaders, literally giving their ashes to the orchards and the groves. In addition, others, like Olamina, gave her death to the life of Earthseed and to its new home among the solar system when she said at the first shuttle’s departure, «This is my life flying away on these ugly big trucks This is my immortality. I have the right to see it, hear the thunder of it, and smell it. I will go with the first ship to leave after my death… Let them someday use my ashes to fertilize their crops. Let them do that. It is arranged. I'll go, and they'll give me to their orchards and their groves"(406).

Social science is as appropriate a discipline as any for the extrapolation of science fiction, and Butler intensifies the social realities of contemporary America. She creates a nightmare crucible of extreme economic downturn that fuels societal disintegration on a massive scale and leaves millions of people vulnerable to human predators. The novel comments on the disinvolvement of those who try to barr

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