From Parable to The Broligarchy: A New Lens on Our Future
If Parable of the Sower warned us about the dangers of inaction, The Broligarchy shows us the terrifying future we’re headed toward.
Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower introduced us to a brutal, collapsing world shaped by climate change, corporate greed, and social decay. In The Broligarchy, those issues have evolved into a darkly satirical future where power is no longer in the hands of governments, but of the Titans™—elite corporations controlling everything, and where survival isn’t about food or shelter, but about mastering the Influence Score™.
Enter Samantha Gulliver, a savvy investigative reporter stranded in Gigaland, a technofascist society built on manipulation, surveillance, and digital control. Her mission: infiltrate this system, expose its secrets, and escape with the ultimate story. To survive, Samantha uses her sharp wit and social maneuvering, but as she rises through the ranks of the Titans™ and uncovers horrifying truths, she must decide how far she’ll go to disrupt the system—and change everything.
A New Chapter in Dystopian Fiction
If Parable of the Sower showed us the collapse, The Broligarchy explores what happens when that collapse creates a new, grotesque system of control. In The Broligarchy, survival means playing a game—one that’s rigged from the start. Where Lauren Olamina fought to rebuild a shattered world, Samantha Gulliver is fighting to break the system that has taken its place.
See my review of Parable of the Sower on Goodreads.
In Parable of the Sower, we witness a broken America stripped bare—its streets ruled by hunger, fire, poverty, and desperation. Butler shows us only the bottom of society: the poor, the starving, the scavengers and gangs, the addicts driven mad by a world that has already ended. Survival is raw, physical, and immediate—every day is a battle to find food, safety, and a moment of peace in a world that has forgotten how to care. Or chosen not to.
In Gulliver’s Travels: The Broligarchy, the dystopia has evolved into something more elaborate, stratified, and insidious. We see every layer of Gigaland’s decaying technofascist society. At the top gleams Maralardo, a dazzling palace of influence where the Titans™ live in obscene luxury, manipulating the nation like a board game. Below them sprawls the Beta Zone, an endless beige, algorithm-approved suburbia—perfectly safe, perfectly dull, perfectly controlled, where individuality has been sanded down into monotony. And at the bottom lies the Null Zone, a suffocating maze of ad-saturated slums stacked like server racks, lit by glitching neon, pulsing with auto-play promotions that can’t be silenced. Here, buildings whisper suggestions. Sidewalks push targeted ads. Even dreams come pre-branded.
Where Parable shows people clawing their way toward hope in the ruins, The Broligarchy shows a world where hope is algorithmically managed, wealth and status are hereditary, and upward mobility is a myth. In a faltering America, Lauren Olamina, Butler’s central character and the narrator of the story, leads a band of strangers to a new beginning by forming a bond and a family of sorts. But in Gulliver’s Travels: The Broligarchy’s Gigaland, people aren’t just trying to survive—they’re trapped in a system that sorts, ranks, and controls their every breath, always one downgrade away from losing everything.
In Parable, we see Lauren flee from the destruction of their homestead and into the wild beyond the walls, where safety and food security are ever in question. In Gulliver’s Travels, Sam causes ripples in the algorithm and is betrayed and sent down to a lower tier life experience — the Beta Zone and the Nulls.
For Fans of Strong, Complex Female Protagonists
If Lauren Olamina embodies hope in a world reduced to ash, Samantha Gulliver embodies resistance in a world rebuilt into a glittering cage.
Lauren is a visionary—steadfast, empathetic, and fiercely determined to build something better from the ruins around her. Her strength is rooted in community, belief, and the conviction that humanity can evolve. Fans love her because she confronts brutality with purpose, shaping a future by refusing to surrender to fear.
Samantha Gulliver, on the other hand, weaponizes wit, charm, and intelligence to infiltrate a system designed to erase her. She’s not trying to build a new world—she’s trying to expose the one that’s already replaced ours. Stranded, identity-less, and outnumbered, she navigates Gigaland’s upper echelon of Titans™, its sterile Beta Zone, and its ad-soaked Null slums with the instincts of a survivor and the mind of a journalist. Samantha’s power isn’t physical strength—it’s adaptability, subversion, and razor-sharp strategy. Every smile is a calculation. Every submission is a mask. Every move is survival.
Both women refuse to be defined by the horrors of their time. Lauren pushes humanity forward, despite her crushing disability. Samantha burrows into the machine to reveal its rot. If you loved Lauren’s resilience, you’ll be hooked by Samantha’s cunning—and her mission to unravel a technofascist empire from the inside out, one manipulated Titan™ at a time.
Don’t just read about dystopia—become part of it.
Gulliver’s Travels: The Broligarchy is the dark, satirical follow-up to Butler’s warning: a world where corporations control power, and the fight for survival is all about influence. It’s the next chapter in dystopian fiction—and it’s more absurd, terrifying, and relevant than ever.
Get ready to disrupt the system. Get ready for Samantha Gulliver. New episodes coming out every week on Substack | Reading.Writing.Revolution.
