'Throughout centuries the immortal telepath Doro has struggled to build a new race, one with powers to match his own. But down all those generations, there has been no one like Mary.Only Mary is able to draw others to her side, into a complex network of global psychic energy that unites them and ...
I am going to start this review off by asking a theoretical question. There is a huge wave coming, it will wash you and everyone you love out to see. What do you do? Do you back up away from the water? Move to higher ground? Build a boat to ride it out? Or do you turn your back on it, play o...
SpoilersKind of engrossing but not in an enjoyable sort of way, the main characters were far too unlikeable and frustrating to fully enjoy the story, everything they said and did irked me in some way or another. On the plus side, the premise, the setting, and certain secondary characters managed ...
Sometimes you find something amazing in the most random ways. I first discovered Octavia Butler while waiting in a mall. I haven't really been a mall person since I was about 17, but it was Christmastime, and I suppose malls are unavoidable. While listening to a band play holiday tunes in the ...
Contains the novels Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, and Patternmaster. In her classic Patternist series, multiple Hugo and Nebula award winner Octavia E. Butler established themes of identity and transformation that echo throughout her distinguished career. Now collected for the first ti...
*** this review has spoilers that will do irreversible damage to those who have not read the book, is long, and is, i'm afraid, rather academic in tone, because i just think that way. be warned. ***Fledgling opens with a birth scene of sorts. a little girl (we don’t yet know that she’s a little g...
A solid collection of mostly excellent stories:Bloodchild The first story in this collection is Butler's "Bloodchild", winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novelette in 1985.Humans live in a Preserve provided by the alien Tlic. Tlic have an awful lot of limbs, not to mention a tale with ...
After loving Parable of the Sower (see my review) I was frustrated by this one. No the 1st wasn't flawless, but for 2/3 of its length it was nearly so. This one, on the other hand, is more defective than perfect, and despite a brilliantly realized, realistic dystopia -- an all-too-rare feat tha...
At first I expected Clay's Ark to have more ... human interest? for me than Mind of My Mind.Both novels concern a sort of new development for humanity -- Mind of My Mind has people with psychic abilities who are gaining power by working as a group, and Clay's Ark has an isolated set of people inf...
The last volume of the mind blowing, thought provoking Lilith’s Brood series (I prefer the original name Xenogenesis myself, it has a nice sci-fi ring to it).Jodahs the protagonist of this book is another offspring of Lilith Iyapo. The least human of the series' central characters, especially aft...
Akin had not realized it would do this—an Akjai ooloi telling other Oankali that there must be Akjai Humans. It spoke through the ship and had the ship signal the trade villages on Earth. It asked for a consensus and then showed the Oankali and construct people of Chkahichdahk what Akin had shown...
Such abilities could bridge age-old divisions of race, religion, nationality, etc. as could nothing else. Psi could have put the human race on the road to utopia. Away from the organization. As far away as I could get. 855 South Madison. An unfurnished three-room house for...
It had not been hard since he lived in a different section of the dwelling and since people who wanted to see him usually had to go to him. I had not wanted to see him—although I was probably lucky I did, when I did. I had just hit one hunter with a stone—he had earned the blow—and I was about to...
T'Gatoi's sisters had given us two sterile eggs. T'Gatoi gave one to my mother, brother, and sisters. She insisted that I eat the other one alone. It didn't matter. There was still enough to leave everyone feeling good. Almost everyone. My mother wouldn't take any. She sat, watching everyone drif...