مثل‌زدن استعدادها (زمین‌کاشت)

{ Feb 2021 - Verified ebook for complete book description, cover, table of contents, content separation, and epub format error checking. } Paperback, 424 pages Published 1998 Nebula Award for Best Novel (2000) A powerfully wrought novel describing an America permeated with violence, religious persecution, and the will to overcome such adversity, Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Talents explores the large and small social ramifications of a group of survivors banding together in faith to prevail against anarchy. Butler gives us a well-proportioned fusion of near-future struggle and subtle science fiction, all layered upon an engaging groundwork of human courage, spiritual doctrine, enslavement, and savagery in an anarchistic America. In 2032, five years after losing her family and setting out on a quest to find peace in a chaotic land, Lauren Oya Olamina has gathered more than 60 people in the self-sufficient community called Acorn. Olamina, an African-American hyper-empath (a person who can feel others' pain so intensely it is often incapacitating), is the creator and prophet for the new religion called Earthseed. "God is Change" is Earthseed's basic belief; the religion teaches personal harmony and the hope of one day reaching the stars. To that end, the verses in Olamina's "Books of the Living" give understanding to a perpetually shifting world of mistrust, slavery, disorder, and government sanctioned witch-hunts. After years of separation, Olamina discovers that her teenage brother, Marcus, has also survived; she immediately welcomes him to Acorn. As an unseasoned Christian preacher, Marcus is suspicious of the cultlike aspects of Earthseed and grows more and more distant from its ideals. Now that Olamina is newly pregnant, Bankole, Olamina's much older physician husband, wishes to find a more established township in which to practice medicine and protect his family. However, soon a fundamentalist Christian named Jarret is elected president of the United States, and his insistence on burning non-Christian churches and murdering those of other faiths becomes very popular. Acorn is attacked, the women raped, the men killed, and all survivors are enslaved. But Olamina eventually escapes and sets out to recover her friends and family and rebuild Earthseed. Parable of the Talents is written in a composite of narratives from Olamina's journals, Bankole's memoirs, and Marcus's own accounts. Just as importantly, there are sections from Olamina's unborn daughter who writes commentary at a much later date; this allows for a more complete vision of Earthseed as religious, political, and humanistic methodology. Olamina is willing to put the destiny of Earthseed above her own life and the lives of her family, which at times makes her nearly the single-minded zealot that Jarret is. Rather than presenting Olamina as a perfect spiritual leader, Butler allows us multiple outside points of view -- as well as Olamina's own self-doubts and insecurities -- to present a much fuller and well-rounded character and story. Here, once again, is Octavia E. Butler's enticing stew of varied human needs, capacities, weaknesses, and enigmatic doctrines born from a constantly changing world. The author knows how to compound elements into an intricate mixture of personal and civil uncertainties, as well as ethical and emotional dilemmas. Sociological situations underpinning science fiction have always been Butler's forte, and this novel admirably continues that tradition. The author is wonderfully skilled at capturing several underlying, intertwined subtexts at once: We are witness to a culture that is well acquainted with high-technology but has great difficulty in replacing or producing anything new. We visit a land that is familiar yet alien, and in continuous flux. There is real unease for the reader while waiting for the inevitable assault upon a new faith as the ugly, bigoted era becomes even more intolerant. In Parable of the Talents, the reader will discover an America that relies heavily on a past it can barely recall, and behold the arrival of a horrifying but intriguing new dawn. Octavia E. Butler evokes a frightening future that eventually sprouts the compassion, mercy, and beauty of Earthseed. --Tom Piccirilli The powerful and compelling sequel to the dystopian classic Parable of the SowerLauren Olamina was only eighteen when her family was killed, and anarchy encroached on her Southern California home. She fled the war zone for the hope of quiet and safety in the north. There she founded Acorn, a peaceful community based on a religion of her creation, called Earthseed, whose central tenet is that God is change. Five years later, Lauren has married a doctor and given birth to a daughter. Acorn is beginning to thrive. But outside the tranquil group’s walls, America is changing for the worse. Presidential candidate Andrew Steele Jarret wins national fame by preaching a return to the values of the American golden age. To his marauding followers, who are identified by their crosses and black robes, this is a call to arms to end religious tolerance and racial equality—a brutal doctrine they enforce by machine gun. And as this band of violent extremists sets its deadly sights on Earthseed, Acorn is plunged into a harrowing fight for its very survival. Taking its place alongside Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Butler’s eerily prophetic novel offers a terrifying vision of our potential future, but also one of hope. Originally published in 1998, this shockingly prescient novel's timely message of hope and resistance in the face of fanaticism is more relevant than ever.In 2032, Lauren Olamina has survived the destruction of her home and family, and realized her vision of a peaceful community in northern California based on her newly founded faith, Earthseed. The fledgling community provides refuge for outcasts facing persecution after the election of an ultra-conservative president who vows to'make America great again.'In an increasingly divided and dangerous nation, Lauren's subversive colony--a minority religious faction led by a young black woman--becomes a target for President Jarret's reign of terror and oppression.Years later, Asha Vere reads the journals of a mother she never knew, Lauren Olamina. As she searches for answers about her own past, she also struggles to reconcile with the legacy of a mother caught between her duty to her chosen family and her calling to lead humankind into a better future.

Octavia E. Butler returns to a dystopic near future in the long-awaited sequel her acclaimed genre-straddling novel Parable of the Sower. Set in 2032, Parable of the Talents finds African-American hyper-empath Lauren Oya Olamina at the head of the self-sufficient community of Acorn. The creator and prophet of the new religious doctrine known as Earthseed, whose basic belief is "God Is Change," Lauren strives to provide understanding to her determined band of survivors in a perpetually shifting world of mistrust, slavery, anarchy, and government-sanctioned witch-hunts. But when a new government, calling itself Christian America, comes to power, with the fanatical Reverend Andrew Steele Jarrett as its president, Acorn is destroyed by religious terrorists, and its children are sent to be raised in fundamentalist Christian homes.

Washington Post Book World

Octavia E. Butler is one of the finest voices in fiction....period.

"Parable of the Talents celebrates the classic Butlerian themes of alienation and transcendence, violence and spirituality, slavery and freedom, separation and community, to astonishing effect, in the shockingly familiar, broken world of 2032. Long awaited, Parable of the Talents is the continuation of the travails of Lauren Olamina, the heroine of 1994's Nebula-Prize finalist, bestselling Parable of the Sower. Parable of the Talents is told in the voice of Lauren Olamina's daughter--from whom she has been separated for most of the girl's life--with sections in the form of Lauren's journal. Against a background of a war-torn continent, and with a far-right religious crusader in the office of the U.S. presidency, this is a book about a society whose very fabric has been torn asunder, and where the basic physical and emotional needs of people seem almost impossible to meet."--Amazon Environmental devastation and economic chaos have turned America into a land of depravity. Taking advantage of the situation, a zealous bigot wins his way into the White House. Lauren Olamina leads a new faith group directly opposed to the new government. This is the story of the group's struggle to preserve its vision. As the government turns a blind eye to the violent bigots who consider a black female leader a threat, Lauren Olamina must either sacrifice her child and her followers or forsake her religion. The plot contains profanity, sexual situations and violence, A Christian fundamentalist group kidnaps children to raise them in Christian homes in this tale of religious intolerance in a future America. The story is told by a woman at the receiving end of their zeal, the founder of a religion which they consider heathen. By the author of Parable of the Sower Laura Olamina's daughter, Larkin, describes the broken and alienated world of 2032, as war racks the North American continent and an ultra-conservative religious crusader becomes president