Infinite Zombies

A few weeks ago, I asked about spinning up another group read, and based on the comments and my own interests, I’ve decided to host a group read of some Octavia Butler books, Kindred, Parable of the Sower, and Parable of the Talents. I read the second of these a few years ago and felt pretty meh about it, enough so that I didn’t read the follow-up. I’ve not read Kindred. My hope is that by reading these along with you smart folks, I’ll learn what I missed in Parable of the Sower and make sure I give the other two a fair shake.

Pictured above are the editions I’ll be using, but each is broken up conveniently into sections and subsections, so it shouldn’t matter too much which edition you get. Any who have written here before are most welcome to do so again. If you’ve not written here before but think you could add a neat perspective, please reach out to me in the comments or at infinitezombies at gmail. I would love particularly to include the perspective of a person or people of color (generally, not just for these books!).

If there’s interest at some point in a discussion via Zoom, perhaps we could do that (I’m sure we all need more Zoom in our lives), but I’ll play that by ear. I might also set up a Discord server if a few people express interest in such a thing.

Here’s a proposed reading schedule:

Date	Book	Section
March 1, 2021	Kindred	Read through “The Fall”
March 8, 2021	Kindred	Read “The Fight”
March 15, 2021	Kindred	Finish the book
March 22, 2021	Parable of the Sower	Read 2024 and 2025
March 29, 2021	Parable of the Sower	Read 2026 – 2027 (through ch. 18)
April 5, 2021	Parable of the Sower	Finish (2027 ch. 19 – end)
April 12, 2021	Parable of the Talents	Read 2032
April 19, 2021	Parable of the Talents	Read 2033
April 26, 2021	Parable of the Talents	Read 2035 through ch. 18 (2034 is skipped, apparently)
May 3, 2021	Parable of the Talents	Read 2035 ch. 19 – end

If anybody more familiar with the books than I am suggests that that schedule is too ambitious or moves along too slowly, I may adjust it. Dates are the dates by which I’ll figure it’s safe to write spoilers about the given sections.

Hope to see y’all as we dive in come March. If you’ll be reading along and have the means and a local or independent book shop you can patronize, please do. Bezos is doing just fine without us.