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Parable of the Sower
by Octavia Butler
Published in 1993, Octavia Butler’s novel is set
in the 2020s – and it feels frighteningly close to
today not just in time, but in setting. Civilisation
has more or less collapsed, thanks to a combination
of climate change, corporate rapaciousness and
inequality. Lauren lives with her family in a gated
community near Los Angeles. The world outside is
beset with looters, drought and hunger, but Lauren
has to face a more intimate threat besides. Because
of her mother’s addiction to a certain medicine,
Lauren is a “sharer”: she can feel – or more often,
suffer – what she sees happen to those around her.
There is also another way in which Lauren is
exceptional. She has developed a new theology
called Earthseed, drawing on her father’s Baptist
faith but remade for the exhausted and overheated
world she finds herself in. When the community is
destroyed, she must make a dangerous pilgrimage,
finding that Earthseed has an importance she never
expected. Butler is one of the greats of science
fiction storytelling, and the Earthseed books are
rich with drama as they recount Lauren’s quest to
build something new in the ashes. (Headline, £9.99)5
On Golden Hill
by Francis Spufford
America is built on the idea of the self-made
man. And Mr. Smith, hero of Francis Spufford’s
epically entertaining novel, is a perfect example
of the type. As he arrives in the swampy, scrappy
settlement of New York in 1746, anything is possible:
“there is a prospect of mercy, as much as doom, in
the thought that Fortuna is fickle. The goddess’s
renown is in her changeableness, and strangers
are her acknowledged messengers. They bear
with them the glimmering of new chances.”
Like that quote, the entire novel is written in
note-perfect ersatz eighteenth-century style; and
like any good eighteenth-century novel, this is a
story packed with incident and wit, with surprises
on every page. The mystery of Mr. Smith hangs
tantalisingly over the whole adventure – everyone
who comes into contact with him, including the
reader, compulsively wonders what his deal is –
but the pleasures of the novel run deeper than plot.
The description of New York when it was truly
new is immaculately realised and totally absorbing.
A deeply enjoyable novel about the self-creation of
not just a man, but a nation. (Faber & Faber, £8.99)creativity
66 CalmMoment.com