Not really a criticism of Butler's work, but an observation I've been mulling over for a while...

At this point I've finished Dawn and am working through Adulthood Rites. Like most of you, I'm doing so through the format of the Lilith's Brood omnibus edition that collects all three novels. But reading this all consecutively offers a different experience than what one would get by reading the novels individually; for instance, reading Dawn on its own and getting to Adulthood Rites later. And I'm very curious what impression one would get from reading the three novels as individual entities.

An audience raised on pop culture and genre fiction generally expects narrative cohesion; that everything get resolved, or at least have a clean break from one unit in the series to the next. Though the universe's story is not completely settled, the individual plot threads of the novel are usually tied up to the point where the conclusion at least feels satisfying. Consider recent examples like the TV show House ( though House is still messed up, the medical mystery of the episode is solved, and the patient in question goes off into the sunset ), the Harry Potter novels ( each book chronicles one school year, a clear start and end to that book's adventure ), and distinct story arcs in comic books that are later collected in complete trade paperbacks ( though the overarching story of a series like Preacher or Y the Last Man continues, each collection offers a complete narrative ).

Dawn, however, followed an opposite trend. The ending of Dawn does offer a significant change-- Nikanji impregnating Lilith with the dead Joseph's DNA-- but it's really just a continuation of the larger problem that Lilith faces. Since her awakening, the Oankali have been meddling in her affairs to a ridiculous extent, using their seeming omniscence to determine what's best for her, only answering her questions when they want to, and altogether robbing her of the ability to choose her own fate. Lilith is obviously ambivalent to this, as any sane person would be, but the aliens don't relent-- they modify her gene structure, they determine what time and place she'll be, they throw upon her the responsibility of being the leader to the Awakened humans, etc. And the final scene doesn't resolve anything, it just confirms the fact that Lilith is the prisoner of these benevolently tyrannical aliens. Just because they sensed that she was alone and wanted a child doesn't give them the right to put one inside her without asking.

This isn't a problem when the work is read in one seamless volume, but if I were to read Dawn independently, I'd probably be frustrated; not so much by the cliffhanger ending, but the fact that Lilith has made no progress whatsoever, and is still the Oankali's puppet. Given what they've done to her, almost any good will she may have towards the aliens strikes me as the onset of Stockholm's Syndrome...