January 2021: Octavia Butler

We'll kick off a new year with works by Octavia Butler. What does everyone plan to read?

I'm actually listening to the audiobook version of The Parable of the Sower right now. So far so good!

I read Kindred back in 2012.
Here is PART of my review:

This was an inventive and interesting plot, and I was caught up in the story of this antebellum Maryland plantation and those living and working on it. But I was somewhat disappointed in the execution. I did not think that Butler sufficiently developed her characters. Rufus and his father were one-sided, Margaret miraculously morphed from a mean-spirited tyrant to a gentle old woman. Kevin’s story is never fully explored or explained. Dana acts neither like a modern-day black woman, nor like a submissive, scared slave. While I understand the situation would lead to confusion, Butler could have done a better job of giving her some internal dialogue to explore her feelings and emotions. The dialogue was repetitive; I really got tired of the constant reminders to “watch what you say.”

I’m glad I’ve finally read this work, however. Butler shines a light on a very dark period in America’s history. The picture isn’t pretty. There is a lot of violence, hatred, ignorance and cruelty depicted, and some of it is just gut-wrenchingly difficult to read. I do like the metaphor of the scars carried from the past to the future. I can definitely see why this is frequently chosen by book clubs.

>3 BookConcierge: Hmm interesting. The book I'm reading by her now is sci-fi so clearly she crossed a lot of genres. Good to know.

Happy New Year! Let's start discussing Octavia Butler in earnest :)

I haven't read this in its entirety yet because I don't want to stumble on any spoilers until I finish The Parable of the Sower (almost there!), but this article draws parallels between the story and today: https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/octavia-butlers-prescient-vision-of-...

Makes sense, because the book -- written in the 1990s -- is set into the 2020s. I believe it opens on 2024 and progresses from there.

Finished Parable of the Sower and moved on to its sequel Parable of the Talents. Will have more to say when I'm done with that one also.

edited to fix touchstones

4.5 years ago, I read her collection Bloodchild and Other Stories (the original shorter version - the 5 stories + 2 essays one), loved it and even posted a review. (the LT records of the two collections are somewhat mixed up and so are the descriptions from the looks of it)...

She is a bit unusual for her generation of speculative fiction writers - she had published a total of 9 stories - the 5 in that collection; 2 were added later in the expanded edition and 2 were discovered much later and published separately.

And I never got around to read one of her novels so off I am to the library to see what they may have... :)

Although for now I will drop the one quote that really stood with me from Parable of the Sower: "It seems almost criminal that you should be so young in these terrible times. I wish you could have known this country when it was still salvageable."

edited to fix touchstones

>8 AnnieMod: Neat, let us know what you find!

I did notice that there are some graphic novel adaptations of her works available.

>7 sweetiegherkin: I just finished Parable of the Sower yesterday. I have the second one, but it might be a bit before I get to it - I not only overextended myself this month reading-wise but I also talked up the first book so much that now hubby wants to read it (it's a combo e-book).

I have never read anything by Butler so I wasn't sure what to expect, and to be honest, if I knew this was a dystopian book before digging in, I probably would have picked something else. I love dystopian books but with the state of the world these days, it might not have been the right time to read this. Nonetheless, she is a pretty good writer and I really enjoyed this one.

7. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Type: Novel
Length: 330 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1993
Genre: Science fiction, dystopia
Part of Series: Earthseed (1)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Seven Stories Press, 2017
Reading dates: 8 January 2021 - 12 January 2021

Set in 2024 and moving forward in time until 2027 (the novel was written in 1993), "Parable of the Sower" is a picture of a collapsed world. We never get the fall spelled out - all the stories are rumored and hinted at but it appears that the collapse had come because of climate change and corporate greed. By the time the novel opens, most of humanity is struggling for their lives, living in enclaves (which get raided and destroyed often enough) or on the streets. Water is more valuable than anything, South California (where the novel opens) had not seen any rain in years and people had turned into their worst selves.

The protagonist of the novel, Lauren Olamina, is 15 and as most teenagers wants to be older. She has an unusual gift - because of some drugs her mother had been taking while pregnant, her brain had been rewired and she is a sharer - she can feel what other people can feel. Awesome during sex, not so much when someone suffers. And in her world, suffering is a lot more likely to be encountered than joy.

At the start of the novel, Lauren and her family live a pretty safe live - yes, it is hard and a lot of work but they appear to be safe. But then the world superimposes itself and things start going wrong - a brother decides that he is better off on his own (and for awhile he is... until he is not), a parent disappears. And then comes the raid and the security of the small enclave is gone forever - and the survivors band together and start going north.

This is the time where the novel really starts - the initial part is more of a setting and a calm moment in the middle of a storm. And this walk shows just how much the world had disintegrated - it is still here (even air travel turns out to still be around... but not for a girl from South California). But under that patchwork world old things had rared their heads - from slavery to company towns, from cannibalism to greed and lack of care for anyone but oneself. Although the rays of hope are still there - babies are still born and sometimes people help each other.

Lauren and her companions meet more people on the road and even find a common purpose - find a place and build a community. The place turns out to not be a problem, the community part takes a lot longer to even get around it.

And on top of that story, there is a second one - the birth of a new religion which Lauren believes to be just "known". In some parts I wished Butler had left that part alone - it has its part in the novel and possibly for a lot of people it is the important part of the novel but... for me it was a distraction in some cases and made Lauren look almost unapproachable and annoying. Which is probably the point.

The novel closes with a glimmer of hope - not a ray of it, nowhere near but despite the long chances, maybe things can work out for our ragged group of survivors.

The novel works on its own but there is a continuation out there and I plan to read it soon(ish). Butler's world is scary and it is surprising how complete it feels even without the complete backstory. And that lack of the "how it happened exactly" is probably what makes it even scarier - you never know when things reached the point of no return in this world and how close we are to it. Because nothing in what she writes about contradicts anything in the world we are in - and this may as well be our future.

===
I will probably be back with more reading by her although it may not be in January. Still :)

How is everyone else doing?

Hi, I’m Diane. I’m brand new to Library Thing and to this group. I had just started The Parable of the Sower when I discovered “Monthly Author Reads”yesterday. I really enjoy Butler’s writing, and I like the other authors coming up. Looking forward to reading along with you.

>12 Yells: That's all fair. It is eerily similar to today in some parts, and other parts feel like just a hop skip and a jump away (e.g., devastating climate change). I just finished the second book, The Parable of the Talents, yesterday and while I enjoyed it and she is a very good writer, it is in many ways even bleaker than the first book. I am going to include some quotes below.

>13 AnnieMod: Great review of The Parable of the Sower! The parts about Earthseed, the religion that Lauren founds/"knows", become more relevant in the second book.

>14 dianelouise100: Hi Diane! Welcome to LT and this group in particular :)

Feel free to chime in any time. Hope you are enjoying The Parable of the Sower ... interesting that so many of us chose that particular title; it isn't always the case that the majority of us read the same book by that month's author.

Some quotes from Parable of the Talents:

"It's hard to believe that kind of thing happened here, in the United States in the twenty-first century, but it did. It shouldn't have happened, in spite of all the chaos that had gone before. Things were healing. People like my mother were starting small businesses, living simply, becoming more prosperous. Crime was down in spite of the sad things that happened to the Noyer family and to Uncle Marc. Even my mother said that things were improving. Yet Andrew Steel Jarret was able to scare, divide, and bully people, first into electing him President, then into letting him fix the country for them. He didn't get to do everything he wanted to do. He was capable of much greater fascism. So were his most avid followers. For people like my mother, Jarret's fanatical followers were the greater danger. During Jarret's first year in office, the worst of his followers ran amok. Filled with righteous superiority and popular among the many frightened, ordinary citizens who only wanted order and stability, the fanatics set up the camps."

"There are times when I wish I believed in hell--other than the hells we make for one another, I mean."

"He won't want to see me. He needs to be part of Christian America even though he knows that Christian America's hands are far from clean. If he doesn't want me around reminding him what kind of people he's mixed up with, let him help me. Once I've got my child back, he'll never have to see me again--unless he wants to."

"You're right. People do blame you for the things they do to you. ... These days, projecting blame is almost an art form."

>16 sweetiegherkin: Yeah - i figured as much for the religion :) It still can read as a bit of a distraction in the first one - I know it is an integral part of the story but metaphysical and similar stuff had never been my thing. It was not annoying enough for me to stop reading the poems through the book so it worked better than I expected so there is that.

>19 AnnieMod: That's fair, I didn't necessarily love it in the first book either, especially because it didn't really seem like the story needed it at that point. But it did become essential in the second book and it would have seemed weird if Butler just threw it into the sequel with no preamble.

I did read that Butler was initially intending to have more books in the Earthseed saga but decided against it.

I read both a couple years ago. Something in >20 sweetiegherkin: I want to echo is that the books fit very closely together so some of the things I was uncertain about in the first became very clear in the second.

>20 sweetiegherkin: I had not realized she envisioned more and decided not to. I wonder why.

>21 sparemethecensor: Writer's bloc is the official reason for never finishing the third one... The start of it is in her papers though - so maybe one day we will at least see where it was going...

>22 AnnieMod: Well, that's certainly relatable!

Just finished Parable of Talents. That’s a series that will stay with me for a while, especially in light of what is going on in the world today. I did wonder if there should have been a third book.

I’ve finished Parable of the Sower, which I reallly enjoyed, and like others in the group want to read Parable of the Talents when I can. I’m a fan of good sci/fi-speculative stories and can’t believe that I didnt discover Butler until last year, when I read Kindred and Wild Seed, the first book in the Patternmaster series.
My favorite of these 3 is Wild Seed. Set in our world, it follows the path of two immortal characters from 1690 to 1840. Doro, the male character, is thousands of years old. He survives by killing and taking over the bodies of his victims, the only way he can continue to have a material presence. The female character, Anyanwu, is much younger than Doro, hundreds, not thousands of years old. She survives by healing, both her own body of any illness or injury she encounters and the bodies of others. The novel tells the story of the struggle between these two immortals over the 150 years it covers, from the slave trading villages of Africa to colonial New England to the slaveholding plantations of the American South. This was an absorbing book for me and I remember finishing it very quickly.
I like the fact that Butler sets her novels, at least these particular novels, in a world that is recognizable—sadly in the case of Sower, too recognizable! I plan to read the other 3 Patternmaster stories as well as Parable of the Talents in the next few months.

>21 sparemethecensor:, >22 AnnieMod:, >24 Yells: In The New Yorker article I linked to above, it ended with this paragraph:

In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to be awarded a MacArthur fellowship. The grant, she hoped, would enable her to finish four more books she had planned for the Parable series. But the story, she found, was “too depressing.” She changed course and wrote a vampire novel, her last book, “Fledgling,” which came out in 2005. The following year, Butler died unexpectedly, at the age of fifty-eight, when she fell and hit her head outside her home, north of Seattle. In her lifetime, Butler insisted that the Parable series was not intended as an augur. “This was not a book about prophecy,” she said, of “Talents,” in remarks she delivered at M.I.T. “This was a cautionary tale, although people have told me it was prophecy. All I have to say to that is: I certainly hope not.”

>25 dianelouise100: Hmm, I recently saw someone else recommend Wild Seed, maybe I will try that one at some point also.

A few days late but I did read Parable of the Sower. I've always heard a lot about this book but I never had an interest in reading it until someone mentioned that it has to do with climate change. Previously, I had always heard Parable of the Sower described as sci-fi. While I do like sci-fi whenever I read it, it is still not a genre I pick up often so just billing it as sci-fi wasn't enough to spark my interest. I do think the book is short on the sci-fi aspects; it's more like a literary dystopia which was fine with me because I really enjoyed the book. Perhaps if the climate change aspect was mentioned more often in connection with this book then more people might be inclined to pick up this book which I can only think of as a good thing.

This read like a page-turning Walking Dead but with religion and no zombies. As someone who doesn't get on with traditional, organized religion at all but can get philosophical and mystical, I liked the parts about Earthseed. I'm assuming that the sequel will focus more on Lauren's efforts to start and grow the first Earthseed community as >16 sweetiegherkin: hints at. I do want to read the sequel, Parable of the Talents, but I'm going to wait and read some other library books I already have checked out first.

I do think Octavia Butler was ahead of her time in the gender politics bits that she sprinkles in Parable of the Sower. But I don't know a whole lot about that so someone can correct me if I am wrong. It did seem like she didn't incorporate it that much though because eventually Lauren posing as a man is just no longer mentioned anymore and there's no more mentions of whether or not she tried to keep her hair short, etc. It seems to be assumed that everyone in the group knows her true gender because Lauren is always mentioning herself as a part of the couples that sneak off. I don't mind that the gender stuff was a small aspect to the book though because I can always read more of the Y: The Last Man series when I want to read a dystopia with gender politics.

There was one aspect of this book I did not much care for and that is when Lauren starts a relationship with Bankole after she first described him when she met him as being similar to her father and being almost her father's age. She is aware of Bankole being old enough to be her father and she is still attracted to him! There was just an ick factor there for me. But I can see how Butler did that to remind readers that Lauren is still 17 and 18 years old when she's starting up this relationship with Bankole because she is otherwise very clear-eyed, realistic, and a leader of the group that is always making adult decisions. So this relationship shows that Lauren is still young and still seeks, still needs parental love and attention. And it makes sense she would seek it from a man like her father since that was the most parental care she had ever known. It always bothers me when authors seem to put unnecessary icky relationships in books. But in this case I can see a potential reason for it. Any other theories?

I'm really glad I finally read this and gave Octavia Butler a try!

>28 Tara1Reads: A great review. Butler does manage to touch on a lot in Parable of the Sower -- gender and race politics, climate change, corporatization of America, religion, etc.

I agree with your theories regarding the spoiler.

>28 Tara1Reads: and I agree, I'm glad that this group gave me a reason/push to read Octavia Butler after hearing good things about her works. Definitely well worth it!

>29 sweetiegherkin: Thank you!

Better late than never:


105. Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

Type: Novel
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1998
Series: Earthseed (2)
Genre: science fiction, dystopia
Format: ebook
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Reading dates: 23 July 2021 - 25 July 2021

I wanted to love this book - I loved the first part of the duology and I came to this one with high expectations. And I almost did not finish it - not because it was a bad book but because it was so unimpressive at the beginning that I wondered if it may me better off to stay with the first book only. Once you go through the first 1/4th of the book, the pace and the story picks up and I am happy that I read it - even I did not like it as much as the first one, it is still a good book. And the two novels combined together are impressive - despite the beginning of this one.

The novel structure is similar to the first one - we are reading the journals of Lauren Olamina but we also get some entries from Bankole and a few more people and the entries we are getting are not selected by Lauren but by her daughter, at some point in the future, who also adds her own story and commentary at the start of each chapter. It is a slow start - the daughter story comes in pieces, not to spoil the story coming from the journals. And that's where something with the pacing seems to fall apart - the first quarter of the book sounds like the first book, except slower and more boring, as if Lauren herself selects what to publish/show.

The story picks up in 2032, 5 years after we left Acorn and its inhabitants. They had somehow survived and even if they are not exactly thriving, they had managed to make a life for themselves. After slogging through them surviving, living through an election that should not have finished as it did (reading this in 2021 makes me wonder what kind of crystal ball did Butler have...) and through more of the new religion Earthseed, the story finally picks up when Acorn is destroyed. While I can see why we needed that first part, it could have been a lot shorter and concise - the first book had most of it already and did it better... And then Larkin is born, Acorn falls and Butler finally gets to writing the story of Earthseed and Lauren Olamina.

Suffering, betrayals, people coming back after being considered dead, people dying when you least expect it and a lot of misery and heartbreak. The United States of the 2030s is anything but a happy place. But people survive and fight for their future and families. It is a cruel world, ran by zealots and idiots and it does not seem to be getting any better. But there is always a hope somewhere in there - as long as people can see future for their children, they will keep fighting.

And then there is the cult/religion Earthseed. We know that it did not die - Larkin knows about it and considers it her mother's favorite child. It is unclear early on if it is because it got widespread or because she is writing a paper about something in the past but the hints are all there. And despite it driving the story and is the point of the story, it still did not sit well with me - Lauren was getting almost zealot-ish in places, carrying more about an idea than about a person (despite what she was writing/saying, her actions showed something different). I disliked her in the first novel and I am not sure I liked her here either.

We get most of the story post-2035 only in the last chapter - I kept reading because I wanted that story. It did not disappoint but it kinda highlighted the pacing issue.

I wonder how much of my opinion of the book got colored by my expectations. I usually do not have issues with slow moving books but something here was off from the start. It felt like a book that should move faster but somehow failed to as opposed to being designed to be slow.

Still, it was worth reading. But I still find the first one to be the better book.

===
And I have a few more of hers lined up so I will be back :)

>28 Tara1Reads: "I do think the book is short on the sci-fi aspects; it's more like a literary dystopia which was fine with me because I really enjoyed the book."

SF is not just rockets and space travel :) I know that a lot of mainstream readers think so but the genre kinda grew out of these a century ago. Glad to hear that you liked it. And I hope it will also make you check other books that are labeled SF - you may be surprised ;)

**There may be what some would consider spoilers below since this post is about a sequel.**

I also recently read Parable of the Talents.

I enjoyed it! I did not see the issues Larkin had with her mother. I thought Lauren did the best she could under the circumstances to find Larkin. Once Lauren had wealthy families to support Earthseed and Lauren was invited on a speaking tour, she did seem to abruptly drop her search for Larkin and focus on Earthseed then.

I couldn’t understand Lauren’s insistence on using Marc as a source of information for Larkin’s whereabouts because Marc was clearly an unreliable source when he was refusing to believe what Lauren told him had happened to her.

The Earthseed books are a very bleak look at the 2020s and 2030s. Unfortunately, the climate change aspects and electing a fascist president have already came true. And I fear for Butler’s predictions about the collapse of the public education system coming true.

In my library copy of Parable of the Talents, there is an interview with Butler at the end. She said she had originally intended the two books to be one book but realized it would be too long. Butler said she struggled with writing Parable of the Talents. She also did not have the Lauren and Larkin mother-daughter aspect in Parable of the Talents until after her own mother died.

There were also points where Butler said she didn’t like Lauren but then came to like her later. I never had a problem with Lauren in either book. I either felt neutral towards her or was sympathetic towards her. That’s why I had a hard time with Larkin’s point of view in the second book because I didn’t think her mother was as bad of a person as she thought she was.

I am glad I read both books and look forward to reading more by Octavia Butler in the future.

>34 Tara1Reads: I never had a problem with Lauren in either book. I either felt neutral towards her or was sympathetic towards her. That’s why I had a hard time with Larkin’s point of view in the second book because I didn’t think her mother was as bad of a person as she thought she was.

Same here!

>28 Tara1Reads: , >33 AnnieMod: I would recommend Ursula K. LeGuin and Margaret Atwood if you enjoyed Butler's Earthseed books. Particulary LeGuin's Hainish Cycle series and Atwood's Maddaddam series.

>36 sweetiegherkin: :) I love LeGuin. My relationship with Atwood's books is complicated - I need to reread some of them I think - I may have been a bit too young for them...

While I am here, another Butler:


121. Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler

Type: Novel
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2005
Series: N/A
Genre: Science Fiction
Format: hardcover
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Reading dates: 8 August 2021 - 8 August 2021

The Ina had always been here alongside humanity. They have longer written records than us and they can pass for us - except that they cannot survive under the sun and they need human blood to survive. Yes, they are the vampires of all the mythologies of the world - except as usual things are not exactly as myths will make you believe them to be.

We do not know this when the novel starts - we are in the head of a creature who can reason but has no memories of what happened. She is badly hurt but seems to be recovering. No memories come back but some feelings and knowledge occasionally filters in and allows our narrator to find some security for awhile. She is the only survivor of her household - everyone else died in the fires that destroyed her home - and when she finally finds someone else who knows her and give her back her own name, Shori Matthews, they get destroyed as well. And she is off, trying to find what happened to everyone and why and hot to survive and keep her people safe.

Shori is different - she is black in a race consisting of pale white people. Her family had been playing with genetics after they realized that the answer to the biggest problem for the Ina is melanin - while Shori still burns under the sun, she can stay awake during the day and she can even survive in the light for awhile if needed (although she blisters a bit). And it becomes clear before long that this is the reason for the violence that engulfed the Ina - they may be a different species but they seem to have learned racism from their human companions.

The novel can be disturbing in places - Shori is 53 but he body is that of a 10 years old girl and that makes all of the sexual scenes very disturbing - none of them is really explicit but they are in there. It is an exploration of the difference - you need to remember what she is (even when we did not know what the Ina are, we knew she was different and that she can control people we her bites). It is a coming of age story for an amnesiac child (even if she is old enough in human years, she is still an Ina child - even if that means something else for them) and it is an exploration of a race which looks like us but is not human. The latter part of the novel deals with the politics of the Ina and that's where you start realizing just how different they are - from keeping symbionts (humans tied to Ina) to their understanding of personal freedoms and choices.

This is the last novel published by Butler and it may have become the beginning of another series - the story itself has a good ending in the book but it could have easily been continued. She does not shy from bringing in various vampire lore and myths - sometimes confirming them in her story, sometimes ridiculing them. The Ina are not Dracula and yet they come from the same region and some of their stories match - every myth has a kernel of truth.

Using the vampires to explore gender roles and racism is not something you will see every day. In less capable hands, it could have become a joke. Butler pulls it off - it is not a perfect novel but it is a very good one. And just like Lauren in the Earthseed series, Shori is a flawed young woman who is trying to keep the people she feels responsible for safe. And while doing that, she makes mistakes, people die but ultimately she follows her own path, learning about the world and herself in the process.

PS: Vampires tend to be automatically fantasy but these ones are closer to Science Fiction than to Fantasy IMO.

>36 sweetiegherkin: sounds like a really interesting read!

>38 sweetiegherkin: Did you mean >37 AnnieMod:? It is - unexpectedly so (the less you think you care about vampire stories, the more you will probably like this one.

And one more (I seem to be talking to myself... should I stop posting here?):


137. Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Type: Novel
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1979
Series: N/A
Genre: Science Fiction, Time Travel
Format: hardcover
Publisher: Beacon Press
Reading dates: 20 August 2021 - 21 August 2021

On her 26th birthday, Dana Franklin finds herself in a place she does not understand. She did not learn where she was at the time - she saved a boy and then found herself in her own living room. It all looks like a nightmare until it happens again and she finally realizes where (and when) she is - a plantation in Maryland in the 1810s. Which is the worst place she could be - Dana is black.

Time travel is one of the staples of Science Fiction - most of the major authors had tried their hand at it. Butler tackled the topic early in her career and put her own spin on it - not only she sends a black woman to the slave-owning South of the early 19th century, she also changes the rules of how time travel works. Dana did not end up there because of an experiment - she just got pulled into the past by something. And any time when her life is in danger, she goes back to 1976 just to be pulled back into the past. Time passes differently in the two eras with no real relation - days and minutes in 1976 seem to cover years in the past although the relationship is not exact.

Before long, Dana and her husband Kevin realize what is pulling her back (if not how) - a boy, and then a man, who is prone to incidents and who appears to be one of Dana's ancestors, Rufus, is always in danger and Dana is always there to save him. The boy is white (which causes some distress - she had no idea he was white even if she always had known his name) and his family owns slaves. If it was not tragic, these first meetings of the 1976 black woman and the boy who owns slaves would have been hilarious.

And so the story goes - Kevin gets stuck in the past by not being close enough to Dana once (although as he is white, his life is not as bad as it would have been... even if it is not easy either), Dana gets pulled at all kinds of weird situations and when she least expects, Rufus manages to grow up despite his attempts not to. And every time she goes back she needs to forget who she is and become someone else in order to survive.

The novel explores slavery in a way that I had not seen before. Butler does not even attempt to make Dana submissive - she may submit but it is because she needs to survive so she can go back to Kevin. It is Dana's story so she narrates the story - and that means that we only get what she sees and learns. Early in the novel Dana sees how slaves are made - by making them scared about their lives and about their families; by removing all but one thread from their lives - sell all children but one - so they have a reason to behave. Dana decides to live - despite being whipped, despite all that happens to her - so she finds a way to submit.

But even though she tells us often enough that this is a different world, she seems to still expect Rufus to change and do things the way 1976 men would behave and keep getting disappointed. On one hand, that's the everlasting hope but on the other, by the later years, she should know better - slavery did not survive for as long without the help of the slave-owners who really believed that are not doing anything wrong.

Butler's story is linear except for a few flashbacks where we see Dana and Kevin meeting and falling in love and the very first chapter. For some reason, it seems popular for books to pull a later chapter and start a novel with it. In some cases it works well - here I think it was a mistake. It told us that Dana survives long enough to lose a hand and that Kevin is there with her in the current timeline when that happens. Which takes a lot from the novel's dynamics - you know that no matter what happens, as long as we do not see this incident, she will be fine and Kevin won't be lost forever. On the other hand it allows a reader to concentrate on what is actually happening and not worry about Dana being shot (or worse). And yet - if anyone asks, I will recommend to leave this first chapter alone and read it just before the epilogue.

That's not the first Black depiction of slavery I had read but the contrast between the racism of the 70s (both families are really not that happy about the marriage) and the casual racism of the 1820s and 1830s is scary. Slavery may be gone but its influence is still with us (and even Dana's job is not slavery per se, you can draw a lot of parallels there as well). Add the rest of the characters - both slaves and slave owners and just as with Dana, the 19th century feels more like home and reality than 1976. One wonders if that was part of the intention - to show that we are not as far removed as one would have thought.

The novel is 40+ years old but for all intents and purposes it can be set today. Society may be better in masking some issues but not much had changed. And it can serve as a cautionary tale - people grow up learning their worldview and they rarely change - no matter how many times you save their life (for example).

Highly recommended - even if you do not like time travel and science fiction - under all of it is a historical novel which needs to be read. And if you ever believed Scarlet to be an independent woman, you really need to meet Dana.

>39 AnnieMod: yes, yes I did :)

>40 AnnieMod: Not talking to yourself at all ... sometimes we all just get a little behind on threads. I feel like Kindred is probably her best known work; it certainly sounds interesting.

>42 sweetiegherkin: It is the most conventional of everything of hers I had read and it is essentially a very good historical novel with a woman with modern sensibilities thrown in. That is what allows the exploration of race and freedom in a new way. The whole time travel thing allows the novel to work together - otherwise you end up with a bad translations of 20th century morals into an earlier times.

Please don't stop posting! I've been reading.

Me, too. I added Fledgling to my TBR a few weeks ago. Kindred was my introduction to Butler, and I’ve read a few more of her novels since. A couple of them have been much more enjoyable than others, so I appreciate your detailed reviews!

:) One more then (and I will be back with a few more this month - some of my holds are coming in faster than expected).


Patternmaster by Octavia E. Butler

Type: Novel
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1976
Series: Patternist (1)
Genre: science fiction
Format: ebook
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy

I wondered for awhile if I want to read this series in chronological order or in the order it initially got published (and written). The preferred order all over internet is the chronological. I tend to prefer publication order. So I decided to stick to my own way and I am glad I did.

Patternmaster is the first novel published by Butler (only a single story "Crossover" was published 5 years earlier). Unlike the 4 novels I had read before (the two Parables, Kindred and Fledgling), this novel is a lot more typical both in the storytelling and in the choice of main character (the younger brother who is forced to fight for his own life because noone believes him that he does not want the throne/powers/whatever is a pretty standard trope in speculative fiction). Which does not make the novel standard or typical - despite the common elements, the novel showcases Butler's ability to build a believable world and her main topics of slavery and who has the right to control and make choices for people are already here.

The story is set in the far future on Earth (so far in the future that it takes awhile for a reader to realize that we are indeed on Earth). At some point humanity tried to leave for the stars and failed, bringing back or causing a mutation which had lead to a disease altering both the mental and physical appearance of people. These people are killed on sight by the rulers of the world - the ones that do not have the disease. But not everyone who had been spared that fate has the same rights - some people have mental powers (telepathy and the ability to influence living matter with one's thoughts); some don't. The latter group are called mutes (because they can only talk with their voice) and are enslaved - they are the chattel slaves of this future world. The ones that have the powers? They somehow also managed to incorporate slavery amongst each other with heads of households owning everyone in their house (women can be heads of households) and everyone else being more or less a slave - physically, mentally or both.

And on top of them all is the patternmaster - the strongest of them, the one that can control/intimidate everyone. The novel starts with an attack on his house - and then we jump a couple of decades to meet two of his sons - the one who wants to succeed him (Coransee) and the one who does not (Teray). Once their paths cross, the final battle is inevitable - Coransee cannot believe Teray is not going to challenge him because he would have in his space; Teray is slowly learning what he can do.

That part of the story is almost boring - if you had read enough, you had read it a few hundred times. What makes the novel work is the fact that you do not understand the world and the few characters which are added to the two brothers (especially Amber - the healer who seems to be special - she seems to be the character that will later turn into the main character for Butler's later novels - she just went for the traditional here and made her the secondary character but she still outshines both brothers frequently). And that's where I was happy that I started with this novel.

Part of what made me love science fiction and fantasy back in the days was the discovery - figure out the world and the rules it operates under. No long exposures and 200 pages to explain everything, the story just drops you into it and you need to work it out from clues and thrown in sentences. And that's what Butler does here. You will piece it together (some people seem to consider that a spoiler for the 4 prequels which were written later and in a way it can be but... this book was out first). It is a cruel world and in a lot of places you wonder how things got that weird (and that's where these prequels will help). It is also a very small world - it is unclear if we got a glimpse at just an island somewhere or if the scope of this is a lot bigger - the world has no technology so everything is possible.

The end was inevitable as soon as the main story started. As much as tricky endings had become a norm lately, they need to be grounded in the story. But then Butler never really did tricky endings on her later novels either - she tells you a story, she does not try to turn the tables on you in the last 5 pages.

Butler's handling of slavery is both more subtle and more direct at the same time compared to the later works. Being so far removed from our times, it does not sound as urgent as in the other 4 novels I had read - but at the same time it is a lot more complete and pervasive - everyone is a slave in one way or another, even the patternmaster. I wish she had written a sequel to this novel although considering that I did not like the second Parable as much as I liked the first, it may be a good thing that we will never see how Teray turns out.