Dawn

What Hacker News says

1. davedxDec 2025
   I stumbled upon some great reddit posts this year with reading suggestions, and compiled my own "humanity is fucked" themed reading list, which included:

   * Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey

   * The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton

   * Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

   * Dawn by Octavia Butler

   I then diverged from this list (I have more) to re-read (though it's not such a great divergence):

   * If This Is a Man / The Truce by Primo Levi

   Other books I enjoyed reading this year in no particular order:

   * Tau Zero by Poul Anderson

   * Machine Vendetta by Alastair Reynolds

   * Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds

   * Aurora Rising by Alastair Reynolds

   * Shadow of the Silk Road by Colin Thubron (loved this)

   * The Lord of the Rings (the god knows how many times re-read)

   * The Centauri Device by M. John Harrison

   * Future's Edge by Gareth Powell

   * Blueshift by Joshua Dalzelle

   * The Heart of a Continent by Francis Younghusband (I didn't quite manage to finish it, but it was a fascinating read nonetheless)

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2. NelsonMinarNov 2022
   For anyone new to Octavia Butler, she has a short list of novels and basically all are good. The list sorted by popularity is a good start: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/29535.Octavia_E_Butler

   Kindred is excellent and the most popular for good reason. But it as much American history as it is sci-fi. Dawn is my favorite of hers and very sci-fi. Parable of the Sower is also an excellent place to start, more of a post-apocalyptic story.

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3. hancheAug 2019
   I was going to recommend Octavia E. Butler, but I see she is already on the list. The whole Xenogenesis trilogy is good, not just Dawn (first in the series). Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents likewise.

   And Connie Willis' To say nothing of the dog is hilarious! It will brighten anyone's day.

   I'll just have to starting working through that list, now.

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4. macawfishMar 2017
   The Poisoning of Eros by Raymond Lawrence Jr.

   The Phenomenon of Science: A Cybernetic Approach to Human Evolution by Valentin Turchin

   Paul's 1st letter to the Corinthians

   History, Guilt & Habit by Owen Barfield

   The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

   Dawn by Octavia Butler

   Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

   You Are Here by Thich Nhat Hanh

   The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm

   Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg

   The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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5. chiphJul 2016
   Octavia E. Butler was an amazing author, and it never failed for her books to be way-out-there. Sometimes creepily so:

   https://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Xenogenesis-Trilogy-Book-1-ebook...

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6. joe_the_userJun 2022
   In Dawn, part of the Xenogenesis trilogy, Octavia Butler describes an earth woman taken to an alien "spacecraft" orbiting earth. All of the devices on the craft activated by chemicals the aliens can choose to naturally secrete so none of the technology is remotely usable by humans in raw form.

   The aliens then genetically alter the woman to allow her to use the devices. Moreover, the aliens are circling earth with the aim of trading whatever useful genetic material humans have in exchange for the improvements the aliens offer to humans.

   So in this conception, the technologically constructed and the evolutionarily created quality merge into a single category.

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