Wild Seed by Octavia Butler Wild Seed (1980) was written last in Octavia Butler’s 5-book PATTERNIST series, but comes first in chronology. The next books, by internal chronology, are Mind of My Mind (1977), Clay’s Ark (1984), and Patternmaster (1976). Butler was later unsatisfied with Survivor (1978) and elected to not have it reprinted, so […]
Read MoreStuart Starosta and Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5, 5 | Octavia Butler | Audio, Edge | SFF Reviews | | 5 comments |
Mind of My Mind by Octavia Butler Mind of My Mind (1977) was written second in Octavia Butler’s 4-book PATTERNIST series, and comes second in chronology. However, I think it is less-polished than Wild Seed (1980), which comes earlier in chronology but was written later, after she had more fully developed her ideas about psionic […]
Read MoreStuart Starosta´s rating: 3.5 | Octavia Butler | Audio, Edge | SFF Reviews | | 3 comments |
Clay’s Ark by Octavia Butler Clay’s Ark (1984) was written last in Octavia Butler’s 4-book PATTERNIST series, but comes third in chronology. It takes place after Wild Seed (1980) and Mind of My Mind (1977), in the post-apocalyptic California desert. Society has collapsed into armed enclaves, marauding ‘car families’, organ hunters, and isolated towns. It’s […]
Read MoreStuart Starosta´s rating: 4 | Octavia Butler | Audio, Edge | SFF Reviews | | 1 comment |
Patternmaster by Octavia Butler Patternmaster (1976) was written first in Octavia Butler’s PATTERNIST quartet, but comes last in chronology. It takes place several hundred years after Clay’s Ark (1984), back in the Forsythe, CA territory where the Patternists settled down earlier. Society remains scattered and non-industrial, and power is divided between the Patternists, a network […]
Read MoreStuart Starosta and Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Octavia Butler | Audio | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
Kindred by Octavia Butler Kindred (1979) is Octavia Butler’s earliest stand-alone novel, and though it features time travel, it’s not really science fiction or fantasy. It’s an exploration of American slavery and its painful legacy from the eyes of a contemporary (well, circa 1976) young black woman named Dana. So don’t expect to learn why […]
Read MoreStuart Starosta´s rating: 4 | Octavia Butler | Audio, Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | | 6 comments |
Dawn by Octavia Butler Dawn (1987) is the first book in Octavia Butler’s XENOGENESIS trilogy, written after her PATTERNIST series. By this point she had been writing challenging science fiction novels for a decade, and her writing craft and ideas had reached a high level. Dawn is a very impressive book. Imagine that mankind has […]
Read MoreStuart Starosta, Jana Nyman and Kat Hooper | Octavia Butler | Audio | SFF Reviews | | 3 comments |
Adulthood Rites by Octavia Butler Adulthood Rites (1988) is the second book in Octavia Butler’s XENOGENESIS trilogy. It continues the story of Lilith in Dawn (1987), a human woman revived by the alien Oankali centuries after humanity has mostly destroyed itself with nuclear weapons. The Oankali offered humanity a second chance, but at a price […]
Read MoreStuart Starosta and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4, 5 | Octavia Butler | Audio | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
Imago by Octavia Butler Imago (1989) is the third book in Octavia Butler’s XENOGENESIS trilogy. It concludes the story begun with the human woman Lilith in Dawn (1987) and continued with her Oankali-human ‘construct’ son Akin in Adulthood Rites (1988). Imago takes the bold but logical next step by shifting the perspective to Jodahs, an […]
Read MoreStuart Starosta and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Octavia Butler | Audio | SFF Reviews | | 1 comment |
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler Parable of the Sower (1993) is the first book in Octavia Butler’s PARABLE (EARTHSEED) series. It is one of her most well-regarded novels, along with Kindred (1979) and Wild Seed (1980), and depicts a near-future United States that has collapsed due to environmental catastrophe into roving bands of […]
Read MoreStuart Starosta´s rating: 3 | Octavia Butler | Audio | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
Fledgling by Octavia Butler In some ways there are superficial resemblances between Fledgling and the last vampire book I read, Let the Right One In: both books have as their star apparently pre-pubescent vampires who have ‘complicated’ relationships with their human companions. In John Ajvide Lindqvist’s case it was a Renfield-like adult who was enamoured […]
Read MoreTerry Lago (GUEST)´s rating: 3.5 | Octavia Butler | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | | 1 comment |
Unexpected Stories by Octavia Butler The late Octavia Butler wrote brilliant, challenging science fiction along more or less the same lines as Ursula K. Le Guin: the speculations are often anthropological, and she’s fascinated by how people interact. I read one of her XENOGENESIS novels years ago and found it the kind of powerful, disturbing […]
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