Dawn

Octavia E. Butler · first published 1987 · ISBN 9780446603775

Lilith Iyapo awakens 250 years in the future aboard an alien spacecraft after nuclear war has devastated Earth. The ship's inhabitants, the Oankali, saved humanity but demand a disturbing price: forced genetic hybridization between humans and aliens to create a new species. Lilith must navigate impossible choices about consent, survival, and what it means to be human when biology itself becomes contested territory.