Dawn: Book one of the XenoGenesis series is a short read with a unique premise. Earth has been destroyed by nuclear war and the survivors have been picked up by a space-faring race interested in genetic trading. Though the novel Dawn is one of Octavia Butler’s less talked about works, after Parable of the Sower and Kindred it is the first in a trilogy of books published between 1987-1989. Whether readers find it better than the more popular parable series will vary depending on the type of book you like.
At just over 250 pages the book can be finished in a day and is light on action goodness it makes up for in general weirdness and interesting psychological, sexual , and social speculation. The crux of the book concerns Lilith Iyapo our Protagonist who awakens to find herself onboard an alien spaceship as one of the last human survivors of a nuclear war. Lilith a young black woman of middling years is faced with the task of both escaping her captors, and resettling humanity back on the depopulated earth after 250 years have passed.
First time readers will find some deep emotional scenes here and some interesting psychological first contact stuff. The alien podlike and tentacled Oankali are a deeply biological race of race traders ” read genetic breeders” who do not use machines and instead rely on organic and biological tools. One of the most important themes of the first part of the novel is how the symbiotic and technologically superior relationship with which the variously sexed Oankali have related to the species they came across in the past will extend to the captured humans who must learn to navigate close relationships both with their captors and their fellow humans. In the hands of Butler we experience firsthand the loneliness and resentment felt by the humans left alone to rebuild there world at the requests of alien captors. All in all the book is interesting without being too deep and unsettling. I am looking forward to seeing how our group of re-colonizers do in Adulthood Rites the second book of the trilogy.