Michael's Reviews > Dawn

No Spoilers in This Review

This is a haunting and anxiety-provoking speculative fiction novel that covers a lot of psychological and ethical issues in sometimes unflinching detail. It is one of my favorite types of novels - the "what the hell is going on?" type - but that fact makes it very difficult to review without spoilers. Ultimately, I decided to avoid spoilers for those (very few?) of you left who know nothing about this book, because the discovery is half the experience.

In the first pages, all we know is that the main character, Lilith Iyapo, keeps waking up naked in empty, windowless, doorless rooms, with sparse furnishings, sometimes with bathrooms, sometimes not, helpless, alone, and ignorant of what is happening to her. It is a disturbing and disquieting experience, and although the setting changes during the course of the story, this first impression stayed with me and became one of the main themes of the book.

As Lilith comes to know more about her situation, she accumulates a daunting list of questions, speculations, frustrations, and grievances. She is forced to have faith in the most temporal of things, and to make questionable decisions amidst a dearth of facts. What results is a compelling case study in how people respond to difficult challenges. And because Ms. Butler gives us vivid details on Lilith's thought processes, justifications, and personal biases, she is a very believable and empathetic character, even when she makes decisions that might differ from those of the reader.

I thought one of the biggest strengths of this book was the ethical questions it raised. This is one of those science fiction novels that has many analogies to the society we live in, and the comparisons in Dawn are very rarely dated, and in some ways actually enhanced, by the years since its publication in 1987. The story considers the ethics of power and helplessness, of challenge and compliance. It raises the question of how we construct our ethical framework and mores, and then asks us what we do when that framework fails us. Importantly, it asks us what we do when there appears to be no right choice.

Although I admit the primary feeling I had while reading this book was frustration, I was also consoled and uplifted by Lilith's willingness to confront things head on, to consider things practically while fully acknowledging her emotions, her psychology, and her limitations as a person. It is the best we can hope for when confronted by obstacles, and I truly admired her strength of character.

Octavia E. Butler was one of the very few African American female authors in the science fiction genre, and although this is not relevant to her skill as an author, I feel it is important to note how refreshing it is to have a person of color as the main character in a science fiction novel. In a genre dominated by white males, it was a memorable experience to get halfway through a book and realize not a single white male character had been mentioned. In an egalitarian world this would be a non-issue, but unfortunately that is not the state of things, and I raise this as a challenge to white male (and female) authors out there, that "mixing it up" by writing about white women is not enough!

It is my good fortune that this is the first of Octavia E. Butler's novels that I have read; now I can look forward to reading more by this gifted author. From my experience with this book, and from what I have heard of her praises, the world lost a rare mind when she passed away in 2006.