Lilith's Brood

Hoo boy. Humans, eh? Can't live with ‘em, can't get them to reproduce an alien hybrid race with you. We're “intelligent but hierarchical” but also racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, wasteful, violent, frightened, and destructive. After a nuclear war, the Oankali come along and offer us a better life, free from illness and pain and ageing. There's also free shelter and food without waste, a way to live with other creatures in a peaceful, mutually beneficial way. But we just can't get over how ugly the aliens are.

So they want us to give up our ability to breed as humans and make “construct” babies without touching our human mates. Is that so much to ask? Many of the humans in this book seem to think so, preferring sterility and struggle to the parental control of the Oankali.

Interesting as this all is, I found myself losing patience by the middle of the second book. The Oankali are benevolent, well-adjusted, maybe a little condescending. The human characters come off as a bunch of ineffectual children who don't know what's good for ‘em. Even Lilith seems to have simply accepted her fate. There really is no contest between the two groups.

I can appreciate and respect this series but find I'm not that into it. There's a lack of real tension despite the high stakes (the future of the human race!) and I can't work up much interest in the characters.