Octavia Butler just had an incredible mind, huh? The concept here is a woman finds herself on an alien spaceship 250 years after nuclear war decimates humanity on earth. But it's a first contact/alien encounter unlike any I've seen on screen or read. The "exchange" these aliens want is so viscerally disturbing that you really feel Lilith's horror and her ongoing mixed feelings about her choices. She's going to help repopulate the earth, and is training other humans to go back, but what that will mean and what they'll go through as they realize where they are is so well fleshed out here and just gripping. I've already bought the rest of the series and I'm excited to continue (also they were rereleased with these STUNNING covers)