It's mostly Hoopla's fault but this was so hard to read! The Hoopla ebook is super low-quality images, combine with the font and it was a big old headache

I loved the original Parable, so when I learned of a graphic novel edition AND it fit the Read Harder category "a book from the Ignyte awards shortlist/longlist/winner list," I pounced. Interestingly, despite having been quite impressed by the original, I clearly forgot many of the details, so this version served as a bit of a refresher in graphic color, no-punches-pulled. It remains a stunningly prescient and devastatingly, violently bleak peek into a future not at all difficult to imagine. I wouldn't recommend this as merely a standalone, but rather as an enhancement to Butler's original work. ( )

Thank you to Octavia E. Butler (author), Damian Duffy (illustrator), ABRAMS, AbramsComicsArt, and NetGalley for allowing me the extreme pleasure of access to an advanced reader copy of “Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation: A Graphic Novel Adaptation” for an honest review.

This graphic novel adaptation of Parable of the Sower was quite a surprise when I opened it. I've never recieved an ARC that was in such a rough draft format as this one arrived, so I'm going to do my best to cover this as openly and honestly as I can (while adding some notes of supposition given that there are five months to publication and it will be shored up by then, likely).

I deeply love that Lauren's narrative of this story remains her journal entries and that the journal entries are on every page, and every piece of narration is backgrounded my the image of it being written on lined paper (though I'm deeply questioning the few sheets that were three-hole punched?), as it kept you in the frame of mine it was written down and being told in that writing no matter what you saw in the comic boxes and dialogue bubbles format.

The art on the front cover, which stormed into my heart and demanded I request this adaption, is the only piece of art in the whole graphic novel that is complete. Everything between that gorgeous front cover and the end is serious of very rough sketches, all of which are in black and white. Several faces all still bear the lines of their symmetry, and most things don't have much background. This made it very hard to distinguish characters from each other and if I hadn't read Parable of the Sower in print two weeks earlier, I don't think I would have been able to even guess who they were.

I was very moved by getting to see the big groups together. It's easy to blend the idea of that many into a lump in your head, but seeing just how many people the group collected, and how many were settling at the end brought that even more home to me than reading the novel did.

Star rating for current art, but very likely to become a 4/5 once completed. No complaints aside from not knowing how to judge the art scale yet. ( )

Parable of the Sower: Graphic Novel
by Octavia E. Butler,
adaptation by Damian Duffy and John Jennings

This is a tricky one to review. On the one hand, there is the stellar story behind this adaption. Butler was a master of the field, weaving powerful prose with profound ideas to create something transcendent, at times.
The Parable of the Sower novel is deep, and compelling, and important.

It is a story of humanity in danger, of faith and creed and hope. It is about race and love and humanity. It is a story worth reading, for anyone.

The idea of a graphic novel adaptation is a good one. I like graphic novels. It can be tricky, though, to adapt books to visual form (just like to movies) because you can't do everything. You have to balance the words and the pictures, so some words get left out. Obviously, it can work, as the comics creators behind this one created a wonderful award-winning adaptation of Kindred.

But judging that success is wholly dependent upon the art, and the art in this eARC is not finished. I assume so, anyway, because these are sketches, The faces aren't drawn at all in some panels, with the guidelines there to show where eyes, mouth etc. go. Some characters are fully drawn in, but many are barely ghosts. There is no coloring at all.

So I can't judge the art. I'm sure it will be fine when it's done, but it's not done, so I can only judge the verbal adaptation: the cuts and changes made to fit a novel to a graphic format.

And that is all pretty smooth. It works to focus on the dialog, mostly. It can be hard in some scenes, without the accompanying art, to know who is talking to whom. The action can be hard to follow as well.

But the characters come through. The narrative beats hit, and the story works, which is to be expected, since this is Octavia Butler's story.

I just wish I could see how it works as a graphic novel. ( )

There is always a risk with adaptations that they won't do the original justice. This mesmerising graphic adaptation did not disappoint, taking an already powerful story, and adding to it. This is a story of an apocalypse - a very human one - and the images very strongly evoke the drought, fire, and other disasters at a very personal level. ( )

I read the book years ago and loved it, which helped me enjoy the graphic novel as I’m not used to reading this format. ( )

This is a comics adaptation of Parable of the Sower, the first of Octavia Butler's two "Earthseed" novels; I own the novel but have not yet got around to reading it. Coming to the adaptation without having actually read the book, I found it somewhat stilted. There is a lot of narration (pulled, I assume, from the novel's prose), and I didn't feel the art carried the story as much as it might have. The art looks good, and is tonally appropriate, but there are a lot of characters that I couldn't always keep straight. It seemed interesting, but never really grabbed me.

Amazing illustrations that really bring the story to life. I cannot speak to how accurate of an adaptation this is as I have not read the novel. Personally I was not a fan of the pacing of the story. ( )

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3719366.html

a grim tale of a young woman's experience of the catastrophic breakdown of society in near-future California (much nearer now than it was when the book first came out) and her building for a better world. I think Duffy and Jennings have done a tremendous job of bringing Butler's prose respectfully to graphic life, not going overboard on the horror but not underselling it either, and making each character distinct on the page. ( )

Maybe my reread of Sower was too recent--this did not win me over. The deviations from the original plot were relatively slight, but they irked me, and I struggled with the images on the page vs. the images in my head. I recall liking the Kindred adaptation better. ( )

I loved this ( )

Incredibly depressing and chaotic with a crisp narrative voice. Laura embodies the struggle of being a teenager with ideas and concerns but struggling to be heard by adults and others around her. She is at an age where she’s questioning everything like her belief in God and her survival. I generally hate dystopian settings, but this one was so immersive and realistic that I couldn’t put it down. Personally, I didn’t care for the art style.
SN: About Bankole... um sir, why did you wait until after you had sex with Lauren to ask about her age? It never occurred to him to ask BEFORE? I guess dick too hard to think or whatever >.>

This is story is very bleak and brutal, so I would only recommend this for mature teens.
( )

Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.

So the thing is this is my least favorite of Butler's works. The story had a lot of plot holes that the graphic novel of course cannot and does not fix.

Taking place in 2025, we follow the character of Lauren Olamina and her family that are living in what remains of areas around Los Angeles. Told in the first person, we get Lauren's "insights" into her family, friends, community, and what the world is turning into. The whole Earthseed concept never really works though at least in graphic novel format it's okay to have stilted sentences like "God is Change."

I think graphic novels in the right hands can really rock. I love re-reading The Gunslinger series via graphic novel format and the novel "Speak" recently as heart-wrenching to read via that format. Duffy though doesn't really grab me with his art. Everything is shadowy and dark. A few times I wondered if the ARC I got had finished art or what.

Here is a link to my review of the novel where I still had some of the same issues while reading this graphic novel: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1590307786?book_show_action=false&from... ( )

I read the original novel 26 years ago, and mostly I just remember the impression that it was confusing and dull perhaps because of the writing style. In reviewing the sample of the first chapters available on Amazon, I see it starts with a dream sequence and a lot of talk of religion, things that would definitely put me off even as I dutifully read each word.

This graphic adaptation cuts out the dream sequence but still left me feeling confused for the first few dozen pages, though I was able to get into the story as the book progressed. In a world slowly tumbling through dystopia into survivalist free for all, a teenage girl named Lauren begins developing her insight into the inevitability of change into a new religion based on humanity migrating to the stars. And for some reason, she's an empath, though frankly I don't understand or even care why this aspect is even included in the story as it doesn't seem to amount to much. With chaos closing in on her walled community outside Los Angeles, she begins a road trip north along California's coast surviving, preaching, and gathering apostles.

So it's a sort of entertaining survival story with lots of pseudo-religious writing sprinkled throughout. I always have doubts about religious zealots though and how often they fall into the trap of letting the ends justifying the means. Lauren does little here to allay my fears, so in the end I'm not entirely sure if I'm supposed to be rooting for or against her. It also doesn't help when at 18 she gets romantically involved with a man in his fifties. I feel like I want to like this book, but so much in it keeps pushing me away.

John Jennings' scratchy, blocky, busy art bugged me in his adaptation of Butler's Kindred, but the messiness of it worked pretty well for this hellish world. So there's that anyway. ( )

A spectacular reincarnation of Octavia E. Butler's masterpiece.

(Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for review from the publisher, ABRAMS Books. Trigger warning for violence, including rape. Click on the images to embiggen.)

I've been staring at a blank screen for upwards of fifteen minutes, trying to figure out how best to summarize the first half of (what I consider to be) Octavia E. Butler's magnum opus, the Parables duology. In the interest of expediency, I'll just lift the synopsis from my review of the original:

###

Lauren Olamina isn’t like the other kids in her neighborhood, a walled-off city block in Robledo, just twenty miles outside of Los Angeles. Born to a drug-addicted mother, Lauren is afflicted with hyperempathy – the ability to share in the pain and pleasure of others, whether she wants to or not. This makes her an especially easy target for bullies – brother Keith used to make her bleed for fun when they were younger – so Lauren’s weakness is a carefully guarded secret, one shared only with her family. In this crumbling world, a near-future dystopia that’s all to easy to imagine, humans already devour their own: literally as well as figuratively. Lauren won’t make herself an easy meal.

As if her hyperempathy isn’t alienating enough, Lauren has another secret, one that she only shares with her diary. The daughter of a Baptist preacher, Lauren no longer believes in her father’s god. Instead, she’s cultivating her own system of belief – Earthseed:

All that you touch
You Change.

All that you Change
Changes you.

The only lasting truth
Is Change.

God
Is Change.

Lauren gathers these verses into a book that she comes to think of as “The Books of the Living.” Her new religion? Earthseed. Its destination? The stars.

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Parable of the Sower is Lauren’s journal (of a sort). Begun on the eve of her 15th birthday and concluding more than three years later, through her diary we witness the collapse of Lauren’s fragile world. In a country wracked by poverty, climate change, mass unemployment, homelessness, drug abuse, class warfare, and unspeakable violence, Lauren’s small community is a fortress of sorts. Though they’re far from well-off, the diverse neighborhood manages to produce enough food and goods (and occasionally for-pay labor) to sustain itself. The residents put personal animosity aside to protect and care for one another: rotating night watches keep would-be thieves at bay; when one resident’s garage catches fire, everyone becomes a firefighter; and Lauren’s step-mom Cory schools the neighborhood kids in her own home, since it’s too dangerous to venture outside the walls.

It’s not much, but it’s home. But even at the tender age of 15, Lauren can see it unraveling: “We’ll be moved, all right. It’s just a matter of when, by whom, and in how many pieces.”

After a series of blows – the disappearance of Lauren’s father; several successful infiltrations by thieves; a fire that claims all but one member of its household – Lauren’s community finally falls. Drugged out on “pyro,” a group of painted arsonists torch the neighborhood, killing and raping its residents. Lauren is just one of three to escape. Along with Zahra – the youngest of Richard Moss’s wives – and fellow teenager Harry, they hit the road in search of water and work. A safe place to pitch their (proverbial) tent. And, for Lauren, a safe haven in which to establish the very first Earthseed community.

###

Butler is one of my all-time favorite authors, second only to Margaret Atwood (who, admittedly, often suffers from some pretty glaring blind spots when it comes to race; see, e.g., The Handmaid's Tale); and her Parables duology occupies a special, even vital, place in my heart.

So when I heard that Damian Duffy and John Jennings were working on a graphic novel adaptation, I did an ecstatic happy dance in my seat, and wondered at its progress at least once a week for the next nine months or so. If it was just half as good as their treatment of Kindred, I reasoned, I could die a happy fangirl.

As it turns out? Parable of the Sower is every bit as good as Kindred. Which is to say, not quite as good as the source material, but pretty damn close.

The artwork is gorgeous, and quite similar in style to that found in Kindred. The dull browns and beiges evoke the dreary hopelessness of Lauren's world, and are juxtaposed with pages of vibrant (yet often threatening) reds and oranges, and moody, atmospheric blues.

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The narrative text appears on ruled paper, expertly calling up images of Lauren's journal, the birth place of Earthseed.

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I love how Lauren's style evolves with time as she adapts her appearance to the world around her: when she and her friends hit the road, Lauren chops all her hair off so that she can pass as a man.

As for the plot, Duffy manages to distill Butler's wisdom from a 350-odd page book to a much shorter graphic novel with ease. It's been a few years since I've read Parables, but I didn't spot any significant changes to the plot or message. (Though some of the verses of Earthseed might have migrated from Talents to Sower. To wit: "In order to rise from its own ashes, a phoenix first must burn," the latter portion of which will grace an upcoming science fiction anthology edited by Patrice Caldwell and featuring "16 stories of Black Girl Magic, resistance, and hope." I CANNOT WAIT.)

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While I am indeed a sucker for feminist dystopian fiction, it's Lauren's science-based religion that really resonates with me. I feel like we're kindred spirits in this way. I'm an atheist who understands that, sometimes, being an atheist sucks. It can be harsh and hurtful and bleak. Religion offers comfort in the face of adversity and loss. Saying goodbye to someone you love is painful; saying goodbye for forever is downright crushing. Sometimes I wish I believed in the afterlife, in a Good Place and a Bad Place, or in karma and reincarnation. I wish I had hope that I'd see my lost loved ones again.

But I can't make myself believe in something I don't, and so I stitch together my own little safety blanket of quasi-religious truths. Lauren's Books of the Living plays a pretty hefty role, as does Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials (especially the scenes where Lyra and Will lead the despairing spirits from the World of the Dead so that they can reunite with their daemons in the natural world).

There's Carl Sagan's starstuff and Aaron Freeman's “You want a physicist to speak at your funeral.”

The collective consciousness known simply as the Library in Isaac Marion's Warm Bodies trilogy, and Griffin’s ideas about alternate universes in Adam Silvera's History Is All You Left Me.

Theo Pappas’s ideas about thoughts, memories, and electrical impulses; heat and light; gas and carbon and star parts, given life and form and structure by Erika Swyler in Light from Other Stars.

The wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff in Kate Mascarenhas's The Psychology of Time Travel, and the implications this mutability of death holds for the grieving.

And then there are maxims like these.

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While Parable of the Sower is a grim story, all the more so for its prescience, it is not one without hope: like a phoenix from the ashes, Lauren rises from the rubble that was her home and introduces her fellow survivors and refugees to a new way of thinking, believing, and being. A spirituality that celebrates harmony with the natural world, rather than a system of dominance and destruction. A journey rooted in truth, yet propelled upward by visions of something better. Earthseed is lovely and brimming with promise, and I hope it takes root (though not among the stars - not until humanity can be entrusted with its own home planet, anyway).

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http://www.easyvegan.info/2020/02/13/parable-of-the-sower-by-damian-duffy-and-jo... ( )