Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood

Background of this book is set in a typical post-apocalyptic time. It is hundreds of years after an annihilating nuclear war, which ruin most traces that human beings used to exist on Earth. The whole world is ruined. The lead character is Lilith, one of the humans who is saved by Oankali. Fortunately, Oankali is an alien race who is impressed by the diversity and versatility of human cultures, and they want to help human beings to reconstruct their destroyed homeland. Therefore, it is easy to consider that Lilith’s goal is to rebuild earth with other survivors.

I am deeply attracted by such a profound background. It is not only about the reconstruction of Earth, but also communication and interaction between two completely different races in the universe. They live on different planets, speak different languages, and have different cultures. It makes me meditate profoundly of the definition of human beings, the costs of survival, and the true meaning of outsider. There are a lot of misunderstandings between human beings and Oankali, which pushes the story forward. These conflicts shows the difficulty for two races to really understand each other. Throughout the book, the Oankali people remain a sophisticated and elusive. They are like a mystery for me.