I don’t know why it’s taken me this long to read one of Octavia E. Butler’s novels, but I’m glad I finally chose this one to start with. The woman was an icon of science-fiction, winning four Nebula Awards, two Hugo awards, and was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame posthumously, so I knew that anything I chose would be good. I just didn’t realize I would like it as much as I did.
Lilith Iyapo only just barely survived the nuclear war. She’s saved by mysterious forces, and after what feels like an eternity of sleeping and waking in solitary confinement she finally meets her rescuers. The Oankali are horrifyingly alien, covered in tentacles and possessing technology Lilith can’t even begin to understand. They’ve kept her in suspended animation for most of the last two centuries, and now they’re planning to return her and the thousands of other human survivors to Earth. The price for this – for saving them, for curing cancer and other diseases, for fixing the planet – is that the humans will crossbreed with the Oankali. And no, they don’t have a choice about it.
In one generation, the human race as we know it will cease to exist.
Like a lot of my favorite sci-fi stories, what I enjoyed most about this book was the sense of discovery, the slow reveal of the alien race. The Oankali travel aboard a living space ship, one that’s so huge it’s hard to tell that you’re even on a space ship. Every part of the Oankali’s technology is alive: their transportation, their suspended animation capsules, the habitats that grow like trees inside the ship. The aliens themselves are nothing like humans; tentacles aside, they have three genders (male, female, and ooloi), and they collect new genetic traits from the races they meet the same way most people would collect photographs. The ooloi gender takes the genes of the males and females and combines them in ways that brings out the best abilities of both. And combining their genetics with the races they encounter on other planets is how the Oankali evolve.
The aliens are massively powerful, both as individuals and as a race, and they’re also kind. That’s important. They rescued humanity because they didn’t want something so unique and fascinating to be destroyed, in spite of the risk (the Oankali have tried to stop mass suicides before, and lost entire ships in the process). They know how horrifying they are to humans, so they very gradually and carefully help Lilith get to the point where she can stand to be around them, where she can be welcomed into their families. They help her form something of a pair-bond with a young ooloi, teach her to speak their language, tweak her genetics to make her stronger and heal faster, help her find a male human so she can one day create children who will have some of the more dangerous genetic problems removed…
…aaand you’ve probably realized the parallels I started drawing in my mind at this point.
Again, the Oankali are extremely kind, and they have good intentions here. The ones in Lilith’s Oankali family care for her very much and want what’s best for her. But Lililth has exactly zero choice about all of this. And she knows it. Even if the human race stands to benefit, it’s very, very hard to be okay with someone saying “This is all for your own good” and “We’re going to save you from yourselves” when they have you entirely within their power. And then to bring sex into it…yeah, uncomfortable. It’s all very beautiful in places, and Lilith does have a lot of affection for her ooloi friend Nikanj (Kaalnikanj oo Jdahyatediinkahguyaht aj Dinso; all of the Oankali names are that much fun), but the author deliberately made the all-powerful aliens fascinating and serene and kindly, so you’d have to think about whether being nice balances out that kind of control over another race.
And as if Lilith wasn’t conflicted enough already, she’s chosen to be an intermediary between the Oankali and the rest of the humans aboard the ship. She’s forced to perform the (in my mind literally impossible) task of convincing a select number of humans who have just woken up from suspended animation that a) it’s two centuries later, b) they’re on an alien ship and c) they really really need to work together and accept what the aliens are offering so they can all be sent back down to Earth where they’ll give birth to humans who aren’t completely human anymore.
The slow discovery of the people in Lilith’s group was almost as fascinating as finding out about the Oankali. Each one is believably interesting in their own way: angry, weak, too smart for their own good, cynical, protective. And everything that Lilith does – showing them how the technology works, explaining about the aliens, having to prove her enhanced strength in an extremely satisfying incident where she stops a couple of thugs from raping another member of the group – just makes them think she’s really on the aliens’ side. Sympathizer. Collaborator. Traitor. Whore. Lilith’s on the receiving end of a ton of crap, even though her main goal is to help the humans get away from the Oankali and their genetic tampering.
“The price,” he said softly, “Is just the same. When they’re finished with us there won’t be any real human beings left. Not here. Not on the ground. What the bombs started, they’ll finish.”
And that’s where I couldn’t sympathize with Lilith, with her revulsion at humans being “changed”. Remember, this story takes place after mankind has managed to destroy the entire planet, and the Oankali are the only reason why the human race isn’t entirely extinct already. I found myself supporting their plan to “improve” humans from the start. Curing all cancer and disease and other disabilities? Great! Combining humans with a race that’s had access to space travel for thousands of years? Works for me! Having children with new genetics, new abilities, and without the caveman-like need to tear into each other until only the one willing to inflict the most pain is left standing? I’m all for it, gimmie gimmie gimmie. I’m afraid it doesn’t say much for me that I’m willing to throw my hands up on the whole business and side with the aliens, while Lilith gets to see the very worst that humans have to offer over and over again, and she still finds something in humanity that she wants to preserve.
There’s not much to like about several of the humans, and you’re never quite sure if you can approve of the Oankali’s motives. The aliens act all-knowing, but they repeatedly underestimate humans’ ability to be violent and cruel. Bad things happen to Lilith, they keep on happening for most of the story, and she never seems to make the right choice about anything. Dawn is frustrating and uncomfortable in places. It’s also a flat out fascinating book, one that I finished at 12:30 in the morning because I kept telling myself I had other things I needed to do, and then saying, “Okay, maybe just one more chapter.” I love books that can do that to me, which means I’ll be reading the next two books in the trilogy, and probably any of Octavia Butler’s other works that I can get my hands on.