Dawn | Book Club

We read (reread in most cases) Frankenstein for our Holiday book club choice. I read it in high school and again later in college. I think I was more used to reading " Western canon" at that stage of my life. I'm very glad I had that phase. It does a lot for a person... reading those things... in that period of development... but I am decidedly not in that phase now. And I'm pretty glad for it. So, I'm not sure I enjoyed the book as much this go-round. Guillermo del Toro's new version didn't help matters tbh. 

I digress (before I started). I think the "canon" thinking got me thinking about more contemporary Sci-Fi "canon" and what that looks like or could look like. I read enough and try to pay attention enough (or at least some) about what my blind spots are. Octavia Butler was and has been and is still a blind spot so I suggested  Dawn for book club. I didn't know much about her beyond The Parable of the Sower, which I haven't even read. I just know of it. But one of our book club members had already read it and I already had this sick edition of Dawn in my collection so I pushed for it to be our next read. 

After Frankenstein this was a breeze. I zipped through it faster than I have zipped in a while. It was tough in parts and fun in parts and, at least from our little book club limited view, wholly unique. An incomplete list of what we've recently read for book club:

• Methuselah's Children - Heinlein
• Frankenstein - already mentioned
• Dark Matter - no logical reason to be called this...
• Project Hail Mary - discussed here
• Altered Carbon - discussed here
• Scanners Live in Vain - (a personal favorite)
• The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
• Ringworld - Niven

I'm blanking on the others but there were some other stinkers in there too. Compared to the list above I think only the Cordwainer Smith story compares with actual novel storytelling, though, they are nothing alike in any way. Its tough to escape my lived experience of being a white dude and a lot of the stories above are basically white dude stories. I really loved Dawn for not being that which, of course it wouldn't be, but still I'm glad for it. 

Anyhow, quick synopsis. Earth is destroyed. At least people are destroyed. Few folks have been saved and put to sleep by aliens somewhere out in outer space, but not that far away by todays standards. Lilith, our heroine(?), is awakened by her captors and kept prisoner. This has happened many times before. She manages to endear herself to them so as to become their companion(pet?). She's being groomed to wake up others so they can repopulate earth. Then there's some genetic stuff. Some weird sex (sort of) stuff. Alien to human conflict. Human to human conflict in a fake jungle. It gets weirder from there. 

Recommend!