Clay's Ark

By: Octavia E. Butler

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

A powerful story of survival in unprecedented times, from the award-winning author of Parable of the Sower.

In an alternate America marked by volatile class warfare, Blake Maslin is traveling with his teenage twin daughters when their car is ambushed. Their attackers appear sickly yet possess inhuman strength, and they transport Blake's family to an isolated compound. There, the three captives discover that the compound's residents have a highly contagious alien disease that has mutated their DNA to make them powerful, dangerous, and compelled to infect others. If Blake and his daughters do not escape, they will be infected with a virus that will either kill them outright or transform them into outcasts whose very existence is a threat to the world around them.

In the following hours, Blake and his daughters each must make a vital choice: risk everything to escape and warn the rest of the world, or accept their new reality—as well as the uncertain fate of the human race.

©1984 Octavia E. Butler (P)2023 Grand Central Publishing

She did it again

I listened to this series in chronological order and I am doing this review after having finished the final book. My 1st thought after listening to this one was “huh, that had nothing to do with the other books.” But after finishing the final book it all came together. I’m not mad at the seeming departure because it was the perfect set up for the finale! With all that being said, Wild Seed is still my favorite of the lot!

Totally triggering

If you have a throat thing, there is a rough scene in the last hour of the book. Brilliant book. I am listening to this in November of 2023, and she was not far off in imagining 2021. It’s brilliant and terrifying and disturbing and completely unflinching. This was the hardest one in the series for me personally. And Wild Seed was pretty dark as well. Overall, masterful.

I love the storytelling and story. Octavia's sense of words is pure wonder.

The story, as difficult as it is has so much truth. The future is laid out both as something to ve feared and something that gives hope

It Octavia

It is a story by Octavia E. Butler, I know what else the is to say but enjoy 😔

Captivating!

her books are amazing!! this story is no different. Riveting story lines that keep you on the edge of your seat and have you wondering who are really the good guys! a lot of people feel this book is a departure from the other 2 in the Patternist trilogy, but I think it is a great way to tie in all the books! I feel like this book is also a continuation from Earth Seed which sent humans to the alien planet at the end. I felt like Clay was a descendant from Olamina's Earth Seed tribe even though it wasn't explicitly said because it was the same alien planet mentioned in Earth Seed and the space colony was a culmination of Olamina's dream. I felt like this booked weaved Earthseed's post-apocalyptic California and space travel nicely into the "Patternist" world. I highly recommend listening to the Earthseed series before getting into the Patternist series

A tight little story about the beginning of a potential end to humanity as we know it.

I’m reading this series in chronological order, but starting to think I should have gone in written order. This one is a complete departure from the tale in Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind. It is gripping, interesting, and hints at a much larger story that could be told. The end feels like it comes too soon, but it is the right time for it. I wish the story of what led the world to be in the state it’s in was told here as well. Overall its a great example of Butler’s imagination and story-telling skill.
The narration is done very well. Voices are distinct and tastefully done.

Good story but not related to prior books

I expected the earlier books to weave into this story, but it never came. Maybe I would’ve enjoyed it more if I knew it was a complete departure from the earlier tales.

Riveting and so timely

A science fiction masterpiece that is eerily relevant to the post Covid, pre environmental collapse era. How did Octavia Butler know so much about the future that is our present? Brilliantly read by Robin Miles. Warning: novel contains depictions of sexual violence.