Lilith Iyapo is in the Andes when the nuclear war begins, destroying the Earth. Centuries later, she awakens aboard a spaceship of the mysterious Oankali. The aliens have taken the surviving humans from the contaminated Earth and put them into cold sleep. Subsequently, the Oankali studied the Earth and its inhabitants and saved the planet. They also mixed human DNA with their own. Now, Lilith and the other survivors are to return to Earth – but they must share their home with eerie, non-human creatures: their own children. This is their story…

With "Xenogenesis," her hopeful thought experiment on gender issues, Octavia E. Butler takes us on a journey into the distant future of humanity.

"Xenogenesis" includes the three novels "Dawn," "Adulthood Rites," and "Imago.".