Harare Review of Books

304 pp. Published April 22, 2025 by Abrams ComicArts. Graphic Novel.

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Graphic novel adaptations are great for helping readers access different facets of a well-known story to novels, in engaging alternative parts of the brain. They’re also a great way to retell a story to emphasise particular plotlines. Additionally, because they’re so accessible, they’re a very cool way to get younger people reading. This adaptation of the great Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Talents will do all three. It’s useful to have read the previous graphic adaptation of Parable of the Sower (2020), also by Duffy and John Jennings (the illustrator), but this is not essential.

Talents tells the story of Olamina from her daughter, Larkin’s perspective as she goes through her mother’s old diary. It covers the period after Olamina has gotten married to Bankole, mainly their time at their Earthseed “commune” at Acorn, the trials they face there from raids and more, and the birth of Olamina’s child. We learn about where and how Larkin grew up. Talents ends with the leaving for space of Olamina’s followers. It feels just as timely as Sower—a central theme here is American Christian nationalists in power—but is marginally less bleak (noting that there are still very difficult themes, like rape and enslavement).

I’m not a fan of Earthseed personally, and am never sure if Butler intended for the religion to be taken seriously (as some people do), or just to offer it as an alternative, and a possible critique of religions in general. It always strikes me that Olamina comes across as something of a fundamentalist. It’s intriguing that Talents is from the POV of Olamina’s daughter, who is essentially a stranger to her and not at all a fan of Olamina and her followers or teachings. Interestingly, most of Larkin’s issues are with Olamina herself, rather than Earthseed.

John Jennings’s artwork n this graphic adaptation is fantastic, and vividly brings the story to life. It’s, in fact, what makes this version of Parable of the Talents worth reading.

Thanks to Abrams ComicArts for early DRC access.

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