Butler, Octavia E. - Clay's Ark

Wow, that was depressing. I mean, I do not read Butler books for the fun and frothy, but still.

It's the near-distant future, and society has deteriorated so that there are walled cities and gangs running amuck outside. Blake and his two daughters, Rane and Keira, end up being kidnapped, but not by the normal suspects. Instead, they've been kidnapped by a group of people infected with a strange organism from outer space.

It's particularly terrifying reading about the leader of the group, Eli's, flashbacks, from the unbearable compulsion to spread the organism, stay alive, and procreate. Of the Butler books I read, I think this one has the thinnest line between human and Other, and it's harrowing reading about the infected people's attempts to stay human, even as their humanity constantly erodes.

As usual, I like Butler's multiracial world, and it'd be interesting to do a closer examination of pregnancy and procreation in her books, since they're so often focused on extending the human race, or extending it as a hybrid of human-alien.

( And then, the depressing (spoilers) )