Octavia Butler · 1993 · survival

Octavia Butler's prophetic 1993 novel, set in a near-future California collapsing under climate change, inequality, and violence. When her walled neighborhood near Los Angeles is destroyed, the teenage Lauren Olamina, who feels others' pain as her own, sets out north on foot through a lawless landscape, gathering a band of refugees and the beginnings of a new faith, Earthseed, as she searches for a place to start again.

1. 1
   Robledo

   Lauren Olamina grows up behind the walls of a fragile neighborhood near Los Angeles, in a California falling apart.

2. 2
   The Highway

   When her community is destroyed, she sets out north on foot up the highway with two survivors.

3. 3
   The Salinas Valley

   North through a lawless land, her band of refugees growing, the seeds of Earthseed taking root.

4. 4
   The North Coast

   To the forested hills of far northern California, to plant the first Earthseed community.