What a trilogy.

Let's start with Dawn. I loved Dawn. A solid 5 star book that follows Lilith, a black woman in her late 20s who is among the first to meet the aliens that rescued the survivors of a nuclear apocalypse. They want to help human kind - in exchange for our genetic information.

I loved the oankali, the alien species, and really appreciated how developed the lore was. Oankali have three sexes - male, female, and ooloi, the sex that infuses an oankali organelle and manipulates genes upon conception. The sex that can heal dying organs, cure cancer and Huntington's in humans, and give unparalleled pleasure.

Lilith learns all about the Oankali and then is given the task of teaching several dozen humans about them and preparing them to repopulate the earth. The humans however can do so only under Oankali supervision and are sterile when not breeding with the Oankali. The produced hybrids, including Lilith's children, are the main characters of the second and third books. We also get to find out about humans who resist this new existence.

I found the second and third books less compelling but still quite good (this is what lowers my star rating to a 4). But let's talk themes.

Paternalism and consent are massively explored in this trilogy. The Oankali do what they do for humanity's own good, treat humans with love, and know (believe?) this is what is best for the human species. They're like zookeepers rescuing endangered species, breeding and engineering them, and then setting them free so that they escape extinction. But is that ethical to do when the species longs for self determination?

This was my first foray into truly post-human fiction and it's left me with more questions, internal conflict, and sense of unease than answers. And I do love a book that gets me thinking.

Highly recommended if you're curious about reading a book that includes lots of tentacle sex (yes, really) and enjoy musings on what it means to be human.

More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/AiaZh8Bpmyw