ceciltheme's Full Review: Octavia E. Butler - Adulthood Rites: Xenogenesis
If you want to tackle racial diversity, then the lead character Akin in Octavia Butler's "Adulthood Rites" is the poster child for interracial children. He is part African-American, Chinese, and Oankali--a species that survives by mixing their DNA with the genes of other species they consider good for "trading", i.e. reproduction.
This book is the second in the series called "Lillith's Brood", which tells the story of post-nuclear Earth's human race being saved by the Oankali. The only catch is that the aliens want to breed with us in order to save our species, and theirs. It seems that this species must continuously breed and change in order to avoid stagnation and extinction.
The typical Butler style of sparse visual imagery, lively dialogue and thoughtful character development are there. Also, Butler touches upon the issues of racism, racial diversity and the acceptance of multi-racial heritage. The character Akin has to do a lot of soul-searching in order to come to grips with all aspects of his humanity and his alien blood line as he matures into a full adult male.
One issue that is the theme of this entire series is labelled "The Contradiction" by Butler. This problem deals with the battle between Human Intellect and Hierarchial Behavior that exists in human beings. The Contradiction is what the aliens blame for the nuclear war and their fear that if humanity is left completely unaltered it will surely destroy itself again. Although Butler's characters never offer one clear solution to the problem with The Contradiction, she does explore the idea with intellectual zest in each novel of this series. Perhaps the one thing she does give the reader with regard to The Contradiction is the hope that humankind's reason will prevail over our animal nature once we put aside our differences and realize that we are all on this planet together.
The complete series of "Lillith's Brood" is available in some stores. The books that make up the series are "Dawn," "Adulthood Rites", and "Imago". I have a review of "Imago" here at Epinions as well that I titled "Horny Alien".
The textbook, Adulthood Rites, by Octavia E. Butler, available in Paperback. Published by: Hachette Book Group USA. Edition: . ISBN10: 0446603783...More at Textbooks.com
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