Adulthood rites

Author: Butler, Octavia E.

In the sequel to "Dawn," Akin, the son of Lilith, struggles to cope with his dual human and alien Oankali legacy while preparing for the time of metamorphosis when he will take on the form of future human beings


Warner Books, 1988, 277p.

Library Journal Review: The product of alien genetic intervention designed to save humanity by altering its genotypic structure, Akin faces a world of hostile humans who recognize him as the son of the woman who either betrayed or saved the human race. This sequel to Dawn portrays a young man's coming of age in a world forever changed. Recommended where the author has a following. JC

Kirkus Reviews /* Starred Review */ Second in the Xenogenesis series (Dawn, not reviewed), from the talented author of Clay's Ark (1984), in which the alien Oankali have descended upon an Earth devastated by nuclear war. The Oankali, who look frightful but have vast biological talents, have rebuilt both the Earth's biosphere and the surviving humans--giving the humans long, healthy lives while withholding their ability to reproduce without the Oankali's aid. Why? Well, the much-traveled aliens make their living by collecting and interpreting genes--so they know that any nascent human civilization will inevitably destroy itself. Some humans cooperate with the Oankali (they have a third, neuter, sex, ooloi, that mediates reproduction) and produce "construct" offspring, fusions of human and Oankali. The uncooperative wild humans, unable to bear children, often try to kidnap the construct children despite their nonhuman attributes (sensory tentacles, indeterminate sex, a final repellent-looking metamorphosis, and so forth). The wild humans, then, pose a thorny problem for the kindly Oankali--so when Lilith's young construct son Akin is kidnapped, the Oankali refuse to rescue him (Akin is, however, self-reliant and mature far beyond his human age) in the hope that he will, by coming to understand the wild humans from an Oankali viewpoint, find a solution. Butler's spare, vivid prose style invites comparison with the likes of Kate Wilhelm and Ursula Le Guin. Add on the intriguing, well-developed ideas here, the solid characters and crisp narrative: Butler in top form.
(Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 1988)



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0446603783 : Paperback - Mass Market
0446514225 : Hardcover


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Bloodchild: and other stories

Author: Butler, Octavia E.

New York: Seven Stories Press, 1996, 145 p.

Booklist Review: Referred to as "the grande dame" of science fiction, Butler graces new mansions of thought with her eloquent, distinguished, and poignant prose. This collection of novellas and stories is quirky only in its diversity of subject matter. From what she calls her "pregnant male title story" to a sympathetic tale of incest to a bleak futuristic world of violence and nonverbal communication, Butler's imagination is strong--and so is her awareness of how to work real issues subtly into the text of her fiction. A nice addition is the afterwords that follow each story or novella. Written by Butler, they contain firsthand analysis and discussion of the impetus and influence in her own work. Although this book is little in size, its ideas and aims are splendidly large. ((Reviewed Sept. 1, 1995)) -- Janet St. John

School Library Journal Review: YA--Collected together for the first time are the complete shorter works of the Hugo and Nebula award-winning author. "Blood Child," her "pregnant man story," both a coming-of-age and a love story, revolves around a young man and an alien. In "The Evening and the Morning and the Night," two lovers faced with the stark reality of their deadly genetic inheritance have tough choices to make. The three other selections deal with incest and a dysfunctional family, alcoholism, and a disease that destroys humankind's ability to communicate through speech. The author leaves readers with a glimmer of hope in otherwise bleak situations. Each of the selections has an insightful afterword about Butler's inspiration for writing it and her own thoughts and comments about each one. Two very literate and readable essays about persistence in writing and growing up as a black, female science-fiction writer round out the collection. The youthfulness of some of the protagonists and the contemporary tone of the themes, viewed through a glass darkly, should appeal to YAs. Five intense, thought-provoking tales of people caught up in extraordinary situations.--John Lawson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

Publishers Weekly Review: Collected in this slim volume is the entire output of short fiction from the pen of MacArthur Award winner Butler (Parable of the Sower). "I hate short story writing," Butler admits in her preface; not surprisingly, then, there are only five tales here, ranging in date from 1971 to 1983. Two essays round out the volume: one an inspirational piece about making writing a habit, the other a more personal reminiscence about what it's like to be poor, female, black--and to persist in the writing of SF anyway. "Bloodchild" (which won both a Hugo and a Nebula ) is a compelling and horrifying novella combining a love story between a human and an alien with a coming-of-age tale; it is, as Butler puts it, a "pregnant man" story. "The Evening and the Morning and the Night" concerns genetic disorders, personal responsibility and pheremones; "Near of Kin" takes a sympathetic look at a dysfunctional family; and "Speech Sounds," another Hugo winner, depicts a near-future society in which a virus has nearly destroyed people's ability to communicate. Here, too, is "Crossover," Butler's first published story, which deals with the ghostly by-products of hopelessness and drudgery. Following each entry is an enlightening afterword that provides a refreshing look into Butler's writing process and that helps to clarify what excites and motivates this exceptionally talented writer. (Oct.)

Library Journal Review: This slim volume brings together the author's five previously published short stories and two essays. Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards for science fiction/fantasy novels, her latest being Parable of the Sower (LJ 10/15/93), Butler professes in the introduction to "hate short story writing." Nevertheless, she shows mastery of this literary form in both science fiction ("Bloodchild") and general fiction ("Near of Kin"). An afterword follows each offering, giving insight into its origin. Of particular interest is the autobiographical "Positive Obsession," a series of vignettes showing us her development from her literary awakening at age ten until she was established as the only African American woman writing science fiction for a living. Recommended for both science fiction and mainstream short fiction collections.--Robert Jordan, Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City



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Other titles associated with this book:
Blood child


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1888363363


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Clay's ark

Author: Butler, Octavia E.

A handful of people exposed to a disease of extraterrestrial origin combat their nearly irresistible impulse to infect others, as they struggle to make a life for themselves in self-imposed desert isolation


St. Martin's Press, copyright 1984, 201 p.

Kirkus Reviews /* Starred Review */ Despite the basic triteness of its premise and its backdrop: another technically scintillating novel from the author of Kindred (1979) and the Patternmaster series. Clay's Ark, the first interstellar spaceship, returns carrying a deadly alien parasite and crashes in the desert; only pilot Eli survives. Transformed by the parasite, he is stronger and faster than before and nearly invulnerable. But the alien unmercifully drives him to infect others. (There's a powerful sexual compulsion too.) So Eli takes over an isolated desert community, hoping to confine the disease there while shanghai-ing occasional new recruits--such as thoughtful doctor Blake Maslin and his daughters, self-reliant Rane and leukemia-stricken Keira. Soon, then, all three are infected; aware of the alien nature of the parasite, they try to escape. But a vicious bandit gang intervenes. . . and violent complications ensue. The parasite's victims are sympathetic--with superior abilities, tenderness, and the will to fight against their alien-inspired compulsions. On the other hand, these characters look terrible; they eat raw meat, carry contagion, produce non-human offspring. And Butler maintains this ambivalence beautifully throughout--in a strong, supple narrative with tense action. Superior science fiction, then, even if many readers will be disappointed by the non-originality of the parasite notion--and by the sketchy, clichÉd near-future setting.
(Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 1984)



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0446603708 : Paperback - Mass Market
0441110894 : Paperback - Mass Market
0312143214 : Hardcover


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Dawn

Author: Butler, Octavia E.

Known for her African-American feminist perspective, the author presents the first installment of a trilogy exploring the death of the earth as we know it and the advent of interbreeding between humans and extraterrestrials. Reissue.


Warner Books, 1987, 264p.


Booklist Review: This first installment in the Xenogenesis series bodes well for the rest. A band of nuclear holocaust survivors is in the hands of an alien race that offers to save them. The price is high though: the survivors must participate in the evolution of the aliens by bearing children that incorporate some of the aliens' characteristics. Butler is one of the few sf writers who can handle effectively a slow-moving plot that emphasizes characters' emotions. Her command of the language is superior, and her aliens are quite convincing creations. RG. [CIP] 87-6195 --



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ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0446603775 : Paperback - Mass Market
0446513636 : Hardcover


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Fledgling
Octavia E. Butler

Author: Butler, Octavia E.

A young girl suffering from amnesia wakes up to find that she's actually a middle-aged vampire.


New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005, 320 p.

Booklist Review: /*Starred Review*/ Renowned sf author Butlers first novel since Parable of the Talents (1998) delves deeply into the world of vampires. Shori, a 53-year-old vampire who appears to be a prepubescent girl, awakes alone in a forest, badly burned and scarred, with no memory of what has happened to her. She wanders to a road, from where she is picked up by young Wright Hamlin, whom she bites once she realizes she is a vampire. Wright shelters her, and the two begin a relationship, but Shori is drawn to the site of the fire that burned her. When she and Wright are attacked at the site, she learns of an older vampire, Iosif, who may have the answers she seeks. But when she meets Iosif, she learns that he is her father and that he, too, is in the dark as to who burned the enclave in which Shori and her mothers and sisters were living. When Iosif's enclave meets a similar fate, Shori and Wright flee, determined to track down the people responsible for destroying Shori's family. Butler has a reputation as a master for good reason, and her narrative flows quickly and seamlessly along as Shori seeks those who would destroy her. Gripping and memorable, Butler's latest is a welcome return performance. -- Kristine Huntley (Reviewed 10-15-2005) (Booklist, vol 102, number 4, p37)

Library Journal Review: Awaking blind, in pain, confused, and alone, Shori Matthews manages to survive amnesia and what should be crippling injuries and starts looking for answers???who hurt her, who she is, and where she comes from. She quickly learns that she is not a young human girl but a genetically altered vampire. Her black skin allows her to survive sunlight and remain alert during the day, but she faces grave danger from those threatened by her strength and heritage. Accompanied by several human hosts who feed and love her, Shori tries to protect her new family and friends from an increasingly hostile threat. Some readers may find Shori's sexual relationship with her adult hosts offensive, as she has the appearance of an 11-year-old girl. This is Nebula Award winner Butler's (Parable of the Sower) first novel in seven years; the conclusion suggests it is likely the start of a series. Recommended for all public libraries. [Butler's collection of short fiction, Bloodchild, will be reissued with two new stories in October.???Ed.]???Devon Thomas, Hass MS&L, Ann Arbor, MI --Devon Thomas (Reviewed August 15, 2005) (Library Journal, vol 130, issue 13, p66)

Kirkus Reviews /* Starred Review */ A little girl suffering from amnesia wakes to find that she's actually a middle-aged vampire, in this suspenseful novel from Butler, her first in seven years.

Shori wakes up horribly injured and starving, knowing only that she needs to feed, preferably on blood, and that she doesn't necessarily want to kill anyone. Once she's drunk someone's blood—as quickly happens with Wright, a man who picks her up on the side of the road—that person becomes tied to her in a relationship that's closer to love than it is to slavery, though it's an uncomfortable mix of the two. Soon, Shori meets other vampires, a millennia-old race who call themselves the "Ina." She starts to drink the blood of humans (whom the Ina call "symbionts" and regard as their children, or lovers). She discovers that she's a unique Ina, the product of a genetic experiment using human DNA that makes her able to withstand sunlight (her African-American pigmentation helping her do so). This unique status appears to be why someone killed her Ina family and their symbionts, and why she is herself being hunted. Butler (Bloodchild and Other Stories, 1995, etc.) effortlessly navigates what are pretty queasy waters, what with Shori's frank and carnal relationship with her symbionts, complicated by her looking like a ten-year-old girl when in fact she's 53. Racist fears of miscegenation are also given an interesting spin in a story so convincingly told, via Butler's hardboiled yet emotional prose, that one is likely to forget it's about vampires.

A finely crafted character study, a parable about race and an exciting family saga. Exquisitely moving fiction.
(Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2005)



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1583226907
0446696161 : Paperback


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Imago

Author: Butler, Octavia E.

The conclusion of the Xenogenesis trilogy chronicles the life of Jodahs, the offspring of human parents and an alien whose mission is to function as a gene trader in a human world increasingly hostile to aliens.


Warner Books, copyright 1989, 264p.


Booklist Review: Butler concludes her trilogy of human evolution under the aegis of the alien Oenkali. The Oenkali have three sexes-- male, female, and neuter (or olloi)--and the hero of his novel is the first human construct to develop as the latter. Jodahs realizes the need to seek his Oenkali partners while avoiding retaliation from humans who cannot fight the Oenkali but will attach their constructs and sympathizers. A literate, detailed story, very much up to Butler's high standards (although one does wonder if an alien race would be so continuously concerned with human sexuality). Recommended where the previous volumes have found readers.--Roland Green --

Kirkus Reviews Third in the Xenogenesis series (Adulthood Rites, 1988), exploring the impact of the kindly but implacable alien Onkali upon an Earth devastated by nuclear war. Most of Earth's surviving humans are unable to reproduce without Oankali aid; the aliens, you see, collect and engineer genetic material and will eventually develop a new race, a fusion of human and Oankali. However, from compassion the Oankali have given the humans who reject Oankali aid the planet Mars to colonize and develop as they will. Jodahs, then, is not only a "construct" (mingled human and Oankali) but the first construct ooloi--or third (neuter) sex that mediates reproduction. Jodahs is also well into its final metamorphosis (per the title), when it will grow sensory arms, develop powerful abilities to heal, and feel an overwhelming urge to seek mates. Unfortunately, the Oankali mistrust Jodahs' ability to control its talents. Banished, therefore, from human-Oankali colonies, Jodahs comes across a rare, isolated colony of wild, fertile humans; thus it is able to select mates--siblings Jesusa and Joao--and cure them of inbred genetic defects. But Jodahs' ooloi sibling, Aaor, is less stable and accomplished than Jodahs, and might well die unless mates can be found for it. Another well thought-out, often absorbing exploration of human-alien sexuality. What's lacking here is narrative tension--a sense that any of this really makes a difference to the larger designs that Butler has previously sketched in.
(Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 1989)



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ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0446603635 : Paperback - Mass Market
0445209771 : Paperback - Mass Market
0575042397 : Paperback
0446514721 : Hardcover


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Kindred
Octavia Butler

Author: Butler, Octavia E.

Dana, a black woman, finds herself repeatedly transported to the antebellum South, where she must make sure that Rufus, the plantation owner's son, survives to father Dana's ancestor.


Doubleday, 1979, 264 p.

Kirkus Reviews /* Starred Review */ Butler is one of those accomplished science-fiction writers (Mind of My Mind, Survivor) who tap out their tales so fast and fine and clear that it's impossible to stop reading at any point. And this time the appeal should reach far beyond a sci-fi audience--because the alien planet here is the antebellum South, as seen through the horrified eyes of Dana, a 20th-century black woman who time-travels in expeditious Butler fashion: "The house, the books, everything vanished. Suddenly I was outdoors on the ground beneath trees" . . . in 1819 Maryland. Dana has been "called" by her white ancestor, Rufus--on her first visit, Rufus is a small child, son of a sour slaveowner--and she'll be transported back to Maryland (twice with her white husband Kevin) to rescue Rufus from death again and again. As Rufus ages (the Maryland years amount to hours and days in 1976 time), the relationship between him and Dana takes on some terrifying dimensions: Rufus simply cannot show the humanity Dana tries to call forth; Dana, drawn into the life of slaves with its humiliation and atrocities, treads carefully, trying to effect some changes, but too often she returns beaten and maimed to her own century. And most frightening is the thought that, in the "stronger, sharper realities" of Rufus' time, Dana is "losing my place here in my own time." At one point Kevin and Dana lose one another (Kevin returns haggard, after five years working to help escaped slaves), but finally Dana, fighting off complete possession by Rufus, kills him and that past forever--but not the memories. There is tremendous ironic power in Butler's vision of the old South in science-fiction terms--capriciously dangerous aliens, oppressed races, and a supra-fevered reality; and that irony opens the much-lamented nightmare of slavery to a fresh, vivid attack--in this searing, caustic examination of bizarre and alien practices on the third planet from the sun.
(Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 1979)



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ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0807083690 : Paperback
141762941X : Glued Binding
0671834835 : Paperback - Mass Market
0385150598 : Hardcover


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• TID: 018282

Lilith's brood

Author: Butler, Octavia E.

In an anthology of threee science fiction novels, all of humanity must share the world with uncanny, unimaginable alien creatures after war destroys Earth.


New York: Aspect/Warner Books, 2000, copyright 1989, 746 p.

Notes:
Originally published under the title: The Xenogenesis triology


Contents:
Consists of the three complete novels of the Xenogenesis series: Dawn, Adulthood rites, and Imago.

Author Web Sites:
1. About Octavia E. Butler : Features a profile of the author.
2. Octavia Estelle Butler : The African American Literature Book Club provides a bibliography of Butler's works.


Other titles associated with this book:
Dawn
Adulthood rites
Imago
Xenogenesis triology


ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0446676101
0613279417 : Glued Binding


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Mind of my mind

Author: Butler, Octavia E.

A young ghetto telepath launches a psychic struggle against the four-thousand-year-old immortal who has been her father, lover, master, and creator to free her fellow telepaths. Reprint. PW. K.


New York: Warner Books, copyright 1977, 217 p.

Kirkus Reviews The first chapter in a history that Butler has already taken up at a much later stage in Patternmaster (1976). Mind of My Mind begins with Doro, a ruthless mutant as old as the pyramids who has spent the last 4,000 years trying to breed a race in his own image. The culminating experiment is his daughter Mary. But, to Doro's astonishment, Mary's first instinct on attaining her full powers is to begin building a mental community--a Pattern--out of the wretched thousands of Doro's haft-telepathic failures and partial successes. Despite some ragged moments, Butler is clearly on to a promising vein--something like Zenna Henderson's "People" stories without their saccharine silliness. There's a lot of intrinsic energy in the Pattern idea, and one wants to see where this erratic, gifted storyteller will pick it up next.
(Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 1977)



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1. About Octavia E. Butler : Features a profile of the author.
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ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0446361887
038512600X : Hardcover


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• TID: 018283

Parable of the sower

Author: Butler, Octavia E.

In 2025 California, an eighteen-year-old African American woman, suffering from a hereditary trait that causes her to feel others' pain as well as her own, flees northward from her small community and its desperate savages.


New York: Warner Books, 2000, c1993, 299 p.


Booklist Review: Although conventional gloom-and-doom scenarios of civilization on the brink of collapse are rapidly becoming passe in contemporary science fiction, original variations occasionally appear to give new life to the form. For instance, Butler's latest novel. Written in diary form, "Parable" chronicles the sometimes grim adventures of Lauren Olamina, an adolescent girl living in a barricaded village in Southern California amid the rampant socioeconomic decay of the early twenty-first century. After her neighborhood is overrun by a cult of drug-demented pyromaniacs, Lauren takes to the road and bands together with other refugees of violent attacks. Withstanding fire and marauding thieves, the group gradually makes its way toward refuge in Northern California, while Lauren wins converts to her homespun "Earthseed" philosophy--a creed espousing community survival for a future among the stars. Sustained by skillful characterizations and an all-too-uncomfortable realism, Butler's narrative holds a mirror up close to our own contemporary blight of moral and economic disintegration and implicitly poses the question, Can we really let it get this bad? ((Reviewed Nov. 15, 1993)) -- Carl Hays

School Library Journal Review: YA-On Friday, July 30, 2027, Lauren Oya Olamina's California walled neighborhood is burned and plundered by pyro addicts. She and two other teens appear to be the only survivors and join the seemingly endless stream of poverty-stricken people looking for a better life or, at least, for another day. Like her Baptist minister father before her, Lauren carries her faith in her religion, Earthseed, with her. In the insanity of this future world, her faith, practical skills, and determination to survive (whatever the cost) are enhanced by the basic goodness of the folks who expand her group. YAs may see the similarity between Lauren's world and the nightly TV-news coverage of current war-torn nations. They should appreciate this tender coming-of-age story and/or the glimpse into a future they can work to prevent. Romance; science fiction; a strong, black, female protagonist; and a hopeful ending should attract readers to this novel.-Barbara Hawkins, Oakton High School, Fairfax, VA

Publishers Weekly Review: Hugo and Nebula Award-winner Butler's first novel since 1989's Imago offers an uncommonly sensitive rendering of a very common SF scenario: by 2025, global warming, pollution, racial and ethnic tensions and other ills have precipitated a worldwide decline. In the Los Angeles area, small beleaguered communities of the still-employed hide behind makeshift walls from hordes of desperate homeless scavengers and violent pyromaniac addicts known as "paints" who, with water and work growing scarcer, have become increasingly aggressive. Lauren Olamina, a young black woman, flees when the paints overrun her community, heading north with thousands of other refugees seeking a better life. Lauren suffers from `hyperempathy," a genetic condition that causes her to experience the pain of others as viscerally as her own--a heavy liability in this future world of cruelty and hunger. But she dreams of a better world, and with her philosophy/religion, Earthseed, she hopes to found an enclave which will weather the tough times and which may one day help carry humans to the stars. Butler tells her story with unusual warmth, sensitivity, honesty and grace; though science fiction readers will recognize this future Earth, Lauren Olamina and her vision make this novel stand out like a tree amid saplings. (Dec.)

Library Journal Review: In 21st-century California, a land of walled enclaves, drug-crazed arsonists, and rampant joblessness, 18-year-old Lauren Olamina discovers a new way of looking at a hopeless world. When circumstances cut her adrift from the only community she knows, she takes to the road, attempting to put her ideals into practice. The author of Kindred ( LJ 8/79) and Wild Seed (Doubleday, 1980) infuses this tale with an allegorical quality that is part meditation, part warning. Simple, direct, and deeply felt, this should reach both mainstream and sf audiences.

Kirkus Reviews Diary of teenager Lauren Olamina, 2024-27, as she struggles to survive the collapse of civilization and formulate a new religion that spells out her notion of God as change: from the author of Clay's Ark, the Xenogenesis series, etc. Only walled enclaves like Robledo, California, stand against total descent into barbarism, criminality, and madness; even so, one by one the enclaves are being overrun by drug-crazed "Paints." Olamina's younger brother Keith, tiring of his father's strictures and determined to make a life for himself outside, runs away, to live by robbery, murder, and drug-dealing--and quickly ends up horribly dead. Olamina, despite her hyperempathic sense (she can feel the pain of those near her) learns to be tough; seeing that Robledo will soon fall, she plans to flee north with her boyfriend Curtis. But then the enclave is attacked and destroyed. With two other refugees, Harry and Zahra, Olamina heads north along the beach. An earthquake compounds their problems. Others, impressed by Olamina's caring and determination, join the three, including Bankole, an older man who owns property where the group could settle and found a new community based on Olamina's philosophy. A vanishingly thin plot and dreadfully preachy: imperfections for which Butler's usual virtues--lucid prose, a realistic progression of events, and splendid texture--unfortunately fail to compensate.
(Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 1993)



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2. Awards (Best Fiction) - Young Adult -> Best Fiction -> Literary -> YALSA Outstanding Books for the College Bound -> 1999

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4. Explore Fiction - Adult -> Explore Fiction -> Science Fiction -> Disasters


Author Web Sites:
1. About Octavia E. Butler : Features a profile of the author.
2. Octavia Estelle Butler : The African American Literature Book Club provides a bibliography of Butler's works.


Other titles associated with this book:
Sower's parable
Sower parable


ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0446675504
0446601977 : Paperback - Mass Market
1888363258 : Hardcover
0785756175 : Glued Binding
0606192204 : DEMCO Turtleback


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• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 001166

Parable of the talents: a novel

Author: Butler, Octavia E.

Lauren Olamina's daughter, Larkin, describes the broken and alienated world of 2032, as war racks the North American continent and an ultra-conservative religious crusader becomes president


New York: Seven Stories Press, copyright 1998, 365 p.


Booklist Review: Butler concludes the spiritual and physical journey, begun in Parable of the Sower (1993), of Lauren Oya Olamina, an 18-year-old African American who has survived most of her family's demise and a lengthy journey on the dangerous roads of early-twenty-first-century California. She has created her own religion, Earthseed, which empowers people to master change and has as its ultimate goal the colonization of other worlds. Olamina has gathered around her a community of outcasts and wanderers that is beginning to thrive when a fundamentalist Christian wins the presidency. His zealots overrun Olamina's village, enslave the adults with pain-inflicting collars, and adopt the children into Christian American families. Olamina must somehow free herself and her followers and begin another painful journey to find her infant daughter. She is unexpectedly reunited with her brother Marcus, but instead of helping each other, they are on opposite sides of a deep religious chasm. The novel revolves around the question of which is more important to Olamina: her fledgling religion or her own flesh and blood. ((Reviewed November 1, 1998)) -- Roberta Johnson

Publishers Weekly Review: Lauren Olamina, a black teenager, grew up in a 21st-century America that was tearing itself apart. Global warming, massive unemployment, gang warfare and corporate greed combined to break down society in general and her impoverished southern California neighborhood in particular. A victim of hyperempathy syndrome, a disorder that compels its victims to believe they feel others' pain, Lauren found herself homeless and alone in a violent world. Escaping from the urban jungle of Los Angeles, Lauren founded Acorn, a hard-working, prosperous rural community based on the teachings of Earthseed, a religion she herself created and centered on the ideas that God is Change and that humanity's destiny is to go to the stars. Butler's extraordinary Parable of the Sower (1996) detailed the aforementioned events. In this equally powerful sequel, Acorn is destroyed by the rising forces of Christian fundamentalism, led by the newly elected U.S. president, the Reverend Andrew Steele Jarret. A handsome man and persuasive orator, seemingly modeled in part on Pat Robertson, Jarret converts millions to his sect, Christian America, while his thugs imprison, rape and murder those they label "heathens," all the while kidnapping their children in order to raise them in Christian households. The narrative is both impassioned and bitter as Butler weaves a tale of a frighteningly believable near-future dystopia. Lauren, at once loving wife and mother, prophet and fanatic, victim and leader, gains stature as one of the most intense and well-developed protagonists in recent SF. Though not for the faint-hearted, this work stands out as a testament to the author's enormous talent, and to the human spirit.. Author tour. (Nov.) FYI: In 1995, Butler received a MacArthur Foundation ("genius") Award.

Library Journal Review: In this brilliant sequel to Parable of the Sower (LJ 10/15/93), Nebula and Hugo Award winner Butler continues the compelling story of Lauren Olamina, chronicling her struggle for survival in a socially and economically depressed California in the 2030s. Lauren has founded a quiet community called Acorn, where she teaches people about Earthseed, her belief that God is simply another name for Change. Her community of believers is threatened, however, by the election of an ultraconservative president opposed to any religion not his own. Among his followers are fanatical terrorists who will stop at nothing to destroy what Lauren has built, including forcibly separating parents from their children. Butler tells this story through Lauren's journal entries, her poetry, and commentary from her daughter. Powerful, moving, and beautifully written, this book belongs in every library.--Laurel Bliss, New Haven, CT



Other related features:

1. Awards (Best Fiction) - Adult -> Best Fiction -> Fantasy -> Nebula Award -> Best Novel

2. Awards (Best Fiction) - Adult -> Best Fiction -> Science Fiction -> Nebula Award -> Best Novel

3. Awards (Best Fiction) - Adult -> Best Fiction -> Science Fiction -> New York Times Notable Books -> Science Fiction -> 1999

4. Explore Fiction - Adult -> Explore Fiction -> Science Fiction -> African-American Science Fiction

5. Explore Fiction - Adult -> Explore Fiction -> Science Fiction -> Disasters


Author Web Sites:
1. About Octavia E. Butler : Features a profile of the author.
2. Octavia Estelle Butler : The African American Literature Book Club provides a bibliography of Butler's works.


Other titles associated with this book:
Talents parable., The


ISBNs Associated with this Title:
1888363819
0446675784 : Paperback - Mass Market
0446610380 : Paperback - Mass Market
0606218548 : DEMCO Turtleback
0613914317 : Glued Binding


Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• Booklist, published by the American Library Association
• Publishers Weekly, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Library Journal, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 001167

Patternmaster

Author: Butler, Octavia E.

A telepathic race is ruled by the strong mind of the Patternmaster, but his ruthless son craves the ultimate power of the position and has murdered everyone who stands in his way except a final victim--his younger brother


Doubleday, 1976, 186 p.

Kirkus Reviews This is fine, old-fashioned sf about a distant future in which the earth is ruled by Patternists whose psi powers let them control the "mutes" who have no mental voices and do battle with the Clayarks--strange creatures with four legs and human faces. A brief passage two thirds through the book offers a throwaway explanation of how this state of affairs came to be, but the how and why are less important here than the compelling conflict between Teray and his brother Coransee, both of whom seek to become Patternmaster--the ruler of this strange world. Escape fiction in the best Patterned tradition.
(Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 1976)



Author Web Sites:
1. About Octavia E. Butler : Features a profile of the author.
2. Octavia Estelle Butler : The African American Literature Book Club provides a bibliography of Butler's works.


ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0446362816 : Paperback - Mass Market
0380418061 : Paperback - Mass Market


Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Baker & Taylor
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 018284

Survivor
Octavia E. Butler

Author: Butler, Octavia E.

Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978, 185 p.
Kirkus Reviews On an alien world, a sect of fundamentalist, anthropocentric "Missionaries" are drawn into the affairs of two native communities: the apparently friendly Garkohn and their enemies, the Tehkohn, who preserve a harsh but just hierarchy of which the Garkohn society is a debased mockery. Alanna, foster daughter of the Missionary leader, is kidnapped by the Tehkohn and soon finds a satisfying kinship with their valorous ways. After her marriage to the Tehkohn leader Diut and subsequent recapture by the Missionaries, Alanna must bring about an alliance between the two groups before the treacherous Garkohn can enslave the humans to their own purposes. Butler, a vigorous and nimble storyteller (Patternmaster, Mind of My Mind) has yet to prove herself a deeply thoughtful novelist. The Missionary society is a mere cardboard foil to the more vivid portrayal of the Tehkohn, and the one complex figure in the story--Jules, Alanna's loving but xenophobic foster father--is never explored with the thoroughness he seems to deserve. Still, one suspects that this author may give us something really first-rate one of these days.
(Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 1978)



Other related features:

1. Explore Fiction - Adult -> Explore Fiction -> Science Fiction -> African-American Science Fiction

2. Explore Fiction - Adult -> Explore Fiction -> Science Fiction -> Romance


Author Web Sites:
1. About Octavia E. Butler : Features a profile of the author.
2. Octavia Estelle Butler : The African American Literature Book Club provides a bibliography of Butler's works.


ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0385133855


Credits:
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 001168

Wild seed

Author: Butler, Octavia E.

While attempting to move his people--a group of psychic witches--to the New World, four-thousand-year-old Doro encounters Anyanwu, a woman who refuses to submit to his control


Doubleday, 1980, 248 p.

Kirkus Reviews Butler's "Patternmaster" series has been appearing jigsaw-wise rather than in consistent chronological sequence of events; this latest piece fits into the puzzle somewhere before Mind of My Mind (1977). Doro, the mysterious and cruel immortal who has been wandering the earth since the days of the Pharaohs trying to breed up a race with abilities worthy of his own, has succeeded only in erratically (and often dangerously) reinforcing various predispositions to telepathy and telekinesis among his selected human strains. Collecting a shipload of African slaves to take to one of his breeding-colonies in 17th-century America, he chances on a female "wild seed"--a second though lesser immortal perhaps generated in the wake of some long-ago experiment of his own. But Doro's new discovery proves to have shape-changing abilities which enable her to rebel against his casual creation and destruction of obedient subjects, and a century and a half later to set up her own kinder equivalent of Doro's communities. Butler, a vigorous narrator, has presented herself with an unfortunate dilemma: should everybody speak characterless 20th-century English or some artificial story-book argot? Better the former, which she chooses--but at the cost of divorcing her characters from any real sense of the supposed historical settings. Good story, not quite the right underpinnings.
(Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 1980)



Other related features:

1. Annotated Book List - Popular African-American Fiction

2. Awards (Best Fiction) - Adult -> Best Fiction -> Science Fiction -> New York Times Notable Books -> Science Fiction -> 2001

3. Explore Fiction - Adult -> Explore Fiction -> Science Fiction -> African-American Science Fiction

4. Explore Fiction - Adult -> Explore Fiction -> Science Fiction -> Immortality

5. Explore Fiction - Adult -> Explore Fiction -> Science Fiction -> Mutants

6. Explore Fiction - Adult -> Explore Fiction -> Science Fiction -> Romance

7. Explore Fiction - Adult -> Explore Fiction -> Science Fiction -> Superhuman Powers


Author Web Sites:
1. About Octavia E. Butler : Features a profile of the author.
2. Octavia Estelle Butler : The African American Literature Book Club provides a bibliography of Butler's works.


ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0446606723 : Paperback - Mass Market
0446676977 : Paperback
0613175999 : Prebind
0613911644 : Glued Binding
0671430661 : Paperback
0385151608 : Hardcover


Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Baker & Taylor
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 018285