The first science fiction writer to receive a MacArthur “genius grant” Fellowship, Octavia Butler broke a lot of ground. Her 1993 breakout novel Parable of the Sower, set between 2024-2027, predicted the United States we live in today. Butler imagined a world in which climate change has made food and water scarce and expensive. Paying work is rare; company towns, sex work, and modern slavery are on the rise; and the basic institutions of American life have eroded or collapsed. It’s a rare magic trick to publish a novel about a prophet that itself turns out to be prophetic, and it wasn’t until Butler’s predictions started coming true—nearly 30 years after the book’s original publication—that Parable first hit the bestseller lists.