Following up on a podcast I listened to the other week, I am reading this book:
“Parable of the Sower” (Octavia E. Butler)
I’m pretty disappointed in the editing of the book.
The editors let stuff slip like peddling instead of pedalling for the way you propel a bike. They have left out numerous open quotes following attributions, so I’ve had to go back and re-read passages to see if the bit I just read was a descriptive passage or a continuation of the speech. Sloppy stuff, really. Some random words are capitalized, and not in a way that makes sense within the story.
It’s all pretty distracting. The book itself is OK: passes the 50 page test (you give a book 50 pages to hook you before you give up on it). I think I have Kindred on order as well, and those are her best-known books, I think.
I finished the book and it was OK. The voice was good, I thought. I felt she captured the protagonist well. I still don’t see how it’s science fiction š Post-apocalyptic alternate future, anyone? And more sloppy editing/typesetting. Hoards of people? Please.
I don’t know if the storyline is continued: I see it is in The Parable of the Talents. The writeup at Amazon is a bit off-putting. I’ll think about it. Sounds too close to being ripped from today’s headlines . . .