The catch is that the aliens only deal in what they call a trade: they will repopulate the Earth, but only doing so via a merging of their tentacle-creature DNA with humans. Earth is effectively incapable of sustaining life, but the Oankali have decided to save the remaining human population. Without spoiling the plot for those who haven’t read the books, Lilith, the protagonist, is among the few remaining humans who have been captured (they would say rescued) by the alien Oankali following a devastating nuclear war. In this case, however, I suspect that maybe I was supposed to hate them all. That by itself would normally send me permanently out of the book, were I not trying to learn something specific from the author. Most who have read it would place it among the classics of sci-fi, and I wouldn’t argue with them based on how it was plotted and crafted. Have no doubt, Octavia Butler’s Dawn, the first volume of the re-titled Lilith’s Brood trilogy is a well-written piece of science fiction. It’s difficult to decide on a numerical rating for a book when you aren’t certain what you were supposed to feel about it.
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