Rating: 4 Stars
Octavia Butler is one of the masters of Science Fiction and this book is a great representation of her work. It is a dystopian story, set in the near future, about a girl that is just nineteen when her world is turned on end by the destruction of her home and family.
Lauren has grown up in a world in which climate change, poverty, drugs, and racial divides are magnified and the result is a society that is crumbling. Crime is rampant and a new drug called Pyro is the drug of choice. The drug is called pyro because addicts set fires just to watch them burn and the high they get from the drug is reported to be better than sex.
Despite Lauren’s community being walled and patrolled, it is broken into by these addicts and they set fire to the entire neighborhood. Lauren is forced to flee and becomes separated from her family. She manages to meet up with two neighbors who inform her that her family was killed in the attack. The three of them strike off to the north to what they hope will be a better life.
Really great story! The world building and characters are well done. The plot is very well thought out and moves along nicely. This is Science Fiction as its best.
The only negative thing I have to say is that the character was a little too prophetic for her years. I think Butler was trying to show that in this type of society children grow up fast. That might be true to some degree but it just didn’t work that great for me.