Lauren Olamina has, after losing everything, finally found family and community again. She's built a community on the land of her husband's family, a place where her religion of Earthseed can grow. From there perhaps it can spread to the greater world, and then to the stars. First though, she'll have to keep it against the rise of a much more terrifying temporal power seeking to make America great again. Will she multiply her talents, or find them buried in the earth? This is Parable of the Talents.
The story picks up five years after the conclusion of Parable of the Sower in 2032, she and her small group in the community of Acorn have grown and prospered. Lauren hopes to use the community as a base of operations to spread her new religion of Earthseed. However, America is still in decline, coasts are collapsing, violence and banditry is endemic, and the economy is in freefall. However, one man, a Senator and preacher named Andrew Steel Jarret, is promising a vision of Christian America which will "Make America Great Again" and restore the nation to the glory it once had.
Against this backdrop, Lauren must try and spread her religion, raise a family, and keep her people safe.
The story, again deliver in epistle style, is buttressed by another viewpoint this time. Lauren's daughter Larkin (or Asha Vere) writes about her mother and the spread of her religion, how that affected her development, and the way it impacted history. It adds a very critical, and not necessarily sympathetic, lens to the story. I greatly enjoyed how this was seamlessly interwoven into the material and it actually created far more suspense than you might expect. It also adds a great element of tragedy.
Unsurprisingly, the book is one of immense suffering and loss. It follows the country through the years of President Jarret and his "Christian America" which merges the worst parts of theocracy and authoritarianism. Indeed, it actually impacts Larkin's development in a way many who had read of Franco's Spain would find very familiar. This does allow though, for the exploration of many aspects of authoritarianism, ideology, ministry and proselytism.
The Christian America brand is selling a vision of America of old and - stop me if this sounds familiar - a time when things were better, American values were emphasized and America was a Christian nation. They preach from the pulpit and the political campaign, and they deliver charity, homeless shelters and project an image of American strength. That they also deliver witch burnings, vigilante justice, and fanaticism metted out by "Crusaders" is part and parcel.
In contrast, Lauren must try and spread her new religion covertly. To avoid drawing the ire of the more powerful (and quasi state-religion) of Christian America, she has to work with those she trusts. Eventually she has to get on the road and preach, in sequences that will be familiar to missionaries and pollsters from time immemorial. It makes for more harrowing tales, but does give a very good insight into how religions or movements can start. It was something I found fascinating, and these internal problems make up many of the asides in the book.
You'll be gratified (horrified?) to see there's action as well. It's one where we find, and lose, family and even see that family can be broken up pretty spectacularly. Religion can unite, and it can divide. To quote an old professor of mine "Religion is wonderful, until it's not," which you can broadly say is what many of the characters in this book discover! It does though, share how Earthseed develops, and that is well worth exploring for contrast.
I will admit that there were some scary parallels to contemporary politics, but considering this book was written in the 90s, well after the Reagan Administration and the Satanic Panic and Moral Majority era, it's pushing it to call the novel "prescient" in that sense, as the edition I picked up did. It does have a number of worryingly close parallels with the rise of climate change, authoritarian political activism, and others, but it isn't about those issues per-say, but about how Lauren and her family, and religion, live through those times. That may be an important message going forward.
The final act of the book though, for all the implications of Earthseed and its growth, did feel a bit rushed. There could have been a little more with a time skip to help, some more exploration of Lauren's relationship with her daughter, and more about the future, but all in all I did enjoy it. Not perhaps as much as the first installment in the series, but I greatly enjoyed how it did its best to wrap the series up. Well worth exploring. As before though, I leave you with the true Parable of the Talents:
“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Matthew 25:14-30 (ESV)
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