Parable of the Sower

Parable of the Sower is set in a Los Angeles suburb in the 2020s, where climate collapse, economic breakdown, and gated-community desperation have hollowed out ordinary life. Lauren Olamina, a minister's daughter, has hyperempathy syndrome — she involuntarily feels the pain (and pleasure) of people around her.

When her walled community is overrun and her family killed, Lauren sets out on foot along the California highways with a small band of fellow refugees, gathering an unlikely community as she goes. Along the way she develops Earthseed, a belief system built on the idea that "God is Change" and that humanity's destiny lies among the stars.

Written as Lauren's journal entries, the novel is both a survival story and the origin account of the religion that gives the series its name.