There's something so distinctly uncomfortable about this story. And I don't just mean the rescue and reproductive enslavement by aliens after nuclear war. It's in the way that the humans react to those aliens. Yes, there's rebellion and that's perfectly normal under the circumstances, I would imagine - the loss of control is profound. It's the revulsion that so undercuts my experience of science fiction. Lilith, like the other humans, is instinctively, enormously repulsed by the appearance of the aliens, tentacled and sort-of-sea-creature-like as they are. It's instant phobia, and being raised on science fiction that prioritises a sense of wonder when dealing with the alien, and positive wonder at that... well. The Ooloi may have developed themselves a sort of Vulcan IDIC philosophy, but Butler's depiction of humans as so absolutely insular in their reactions is really discomforting. No surprise that, in this world, they manage to almost kill off the entire planet, but I'm left to wonder... is this how we'd react to intelligent extra-terrestrial species? If the aliens of Dawn had come in more peaceful times, would they have been received differently? But then, if humans were capable of more peaceful times, of acceptance of the other, they wouldn't need to be rescued by said aliens in the first place.

Discomfort, too, lies in the fact that although these aliens are doing hideous things, it becomes a whole lot easier to identify with them than it does to identify with Lilith's human companions, who come to typify every worst elements of our species. There's a sort of muted horror all around here, rooted very carefully in the biology of difference and symbiosis, and how Butler keeps this story so very rooted in margins and ambiguity is just so very clever. A really challenging read, and well worth it.