Week Twelve: Diverse Position Science Fiction

For this week we were asked to read in the genre of diverse position science fiction. The reading selection was an Octavia Butler’s novel entitled Dawn. Which is one of three works in a collection called Lilith's Brood.

            This weeks reading I enjoyed the authors depiction of the alien race, that the main character Lilith gets taken by. The oankali is the name the alien race that the author depicts in the story. They don’t have eyes, or ears, or noses, but sensory tentacles over their entire bodies with which they can perceive the world much better than a human can, as they say.  The concept for how the alien race looks was great because it is definitely not an every day looking person or creature and does not really have human components to it. I feel with the use of not using a human component makes the alien race more creepy and unsettling as you read the story.

Also I thought it was interesting that the author has three different sexes for the oankali: male, female, and ooloi.  All oankali have the ability to perceive biochemistry down to a genetic level, but the ooloi have the ability to directly manipulate genetic material. Ooloi can mutate and “evolve” any living thing they touch and build offspring gene by gene using the genetic material from their male and female mates. I thought the concept of the ooloi was interesting because they are able to evolve any species that comes in contact with them even though from what I read in the story, they are strangely alluring, sexually arousing even while being a visually repulsive creature.

I recommend this reading selection if you like aliens and them interacting with human beings.