She gains a significant following among the affluent in Portland, Oregon, and one of her more ardent supporters helps her publish Earthseed: The First Book of the Living online, which contains the verses she wrote defining the religion.

Meanwhile, Larkin is adopted by an African American Christian America family and renamed "Asha Vere Alexander" after a popular Dreamask hero.

As an adult, Asha reunites with her uncle Marcos "Marc" Duran, who was believed to have perished in the events of the previous novel and has since become a Christian America minister.

Though Asha is unable to forgive her mother for choosing to dedicate her life to Earthseed instead of continuing to look for her, Lauren tells her daughter that her door is always open.

Lauren dies at the age of 81 after watching the first shuttles leaving Earth for the starship Christopher Columbus, which carries settlers in suspended animation to the first human colony on another world.

[2] The academic Jana Diemer Llewellyn regards it as a harsh indictment of religious fundamentalism and compares the novel to Joanna Russ' The Female Man and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

[3] The Los Angeles Times op-ed editor Abby Aguirre has likened the religious fundamentalism and authoritarianism of President Jarret to the "Make America Great Again" rhetoric of the Trump Administration.

She began this novel after finishing Parable of the Talents and mentioned her work on it in several interviews, but at some point encountered writer's block that led to numerous false starts.