WEEK 12 DAWN by Octavia Butler (5 points)

 Lilith Iyapo wakes up 250 years after a nuclear war. Butler works on humanizing strange concepts. This book contextualizes cross-species relationships, 200 years after the world has changed in a dystopian way she's tasked with birthing the next generation of crossbreed human aliens and figure out how to survive on this new earth, and figuring out how to accept Oankali's ways of life. There's a whole lack of consent within this story as the Oankali are forcing this cross-breed society. She learns to live amongst them but everyone in this story essentially hates the Oankali. 

I think this book plays on the idea of what is being a human? How are they going to survive against this other species? Reproduction is essential to these life forms. They're expected to deal with the new normal of cross-breeding aliens. Humans are being dominated and forced to have gruesome births but they also get offered plenty of advantages in terms of technology and advances. 

I thought it was crazy how the ooloi, the third gender can essentially probe with other people's DNA and crossbreed their own species from whatever they want to sample and manipulate DNA, which made me think of designer people. The idea of a "perfect" society creates some problems because what exactly would that look like? This society brings ideas of assimilation and how dangerous the idea of changing our DNA can be. It makes me think of people trying to cleanse and wipe races out. 


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