The Oankali have made Earth habitable and obtain Lilith's help in awakening and training humans to survive on the changed Earth. Lilith eventually bonds to Nikanj, an Ooloi. Oankali have the ability to perceive genetic biochemistry, but the Ooloi manipulate genetic material to mutate other beings and build offspring from their mates' genetic material. Stranger still, the Oankali have three sexes: male, female, and Ooloi. The Oankali have sensory tentacles all over their bodies, including locations of human sensory organs, with which they perceive the world differently than humans.

Lilith has awakened 250 years after the war on a living Oankali ship.Īt first, she is repulsed by the alienness of her saviors/captors. The few survivors were plucked from the dying Earth by an alien race, the Oankali. She learns that the nuclear war had left the Earth uninhabitable. She is then visited by humanoid beings whose appearance terrifies her, even though they behave well.

She remembers a nuclear war and an earlier traffic accident in which her husband and child had been killed. She has no idea who this is or what they want. She has memories of this happening before, with an enigmatic voice that asks strange questions. The first novel in the trilogy, Dawn, begins with Lilith Iyapo, a black human woman, alone in what seems like a prison cell. The collection was first published under the current title of Lilith's Brood in 2000. The three volumes of this science fiction series ( Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago) were previously collected in the now out-of-print volume Xenogenesis. Lilith's Brood is a collection of three works by Octavia E.

Dawn octavia butler sparknotes