Bookish Thoughts

What happens when an unstoppable force meets with an immovable object? Eventually, the force wins. It goes around the object, wears it down until there's nothing left. And so it went with the Oankali and Lilith. For all her pride and stubborness, her campaigning on behalf of the remaining humans and her willingness to sacrifice her own freedom that they might live on, the Oankali have won And the proof is in her children. The last book follows the latest of Lilith's children, who happens to be the first human-born ooloi. He is more alien than ought to be possible for a child with mostly human DNA. But it just drives home how quickly and inexorably the Oankali ultimately work, wiping out the human race in a single generation. It also goes to show that culture plays a much larger part in our development than the Oankali are willing to admit. Raised by Oankali, and an ooloi in particular, Jodahs has far more in common with them than with his human parents. This is the book whe...

Adulthood Rites  shifts the focus from fully human Lilith to her son, Akin. Akin is mostly human, though he has a bit of Oankali mixed in - the first generation in the slow process of the Oankali ultimately subsuming humanity. He's raised in Oankali tradition, which makes him almost more Oankali than human, a distinction that the Oankali don't really understand. And he's the first male child of this new generation, because the Oankali find human men more unpredictable and unstable than the women. This book got me thinking about the nature vs nurture debate. I believe pretty strongly that nurture has a greater effect on us that nature, and everything I read pushes me further in that direction. Sure, it's our DNA that makes us human rather than chimpanzee. And the two are probably more intricately entwined than we currently understand or that I'm crediting here. Still. Nurture plays a bigger role in our personalities and lives than I think most people credit, becaus...

When I'm reading a series, I try to review each book before I read the next one. It helps me keep them straight. But that didn't happen this time. As I'm writing this, I've already finished the entire trilogy. It's given me a lot to think about. This trilogy deals deeply with consent and oppression and appropriation, with reproductive freedom and the nature/nurture debate. Plus there are aliens. I'm going to do my best to just talk about the first book, but the fact is that I've been thinking about this for weeks now and I keep thinking about new things. Dawn  focuses on Lilith Iyapo, a human woman who survived an apocalyptic nuclear war - because aliens happened to be passing by and they abducted and healed her and are now holding her captive. The book starts slow, with Lilith waking in a cell and only gradually coming to understand what has happened and where she is. She is eventually released to live with an alien family, where she is coerced into helpi...