As close to a perfect book as I can imagine. There’s almost nothing that one could do to improve Butler’s prose, pacing, or characterization. She never gives you an excuse to not turn the page . . . which is why I read Wild Seed in a single sitting. The moral issues Butler addresses make for fascinating drama.

2021 Reread review:The 2021 updated version of the audiobook narrated by Robin Miles is nothing short of divine. Well worth the repurchase.Now I demand an update to the rest of her books!What can I say, I adore Anyanwu💜Reread 2020 review:Anyanwu remains my most beloved literary character ever.I CAN NOT wait until this becomes a TV show🥰

“Recently, however, I began to suspect that calling myself a science fiction critic without having read anything by Octavia Butler bordered on the fraudulent.”“Books to Look For” - Orson Scott Card I have to thank OSC for the above-mentioned article (from 1990) which piqued my interest for reading Octavia Butler. It is strange that I first read Wild Seed in January 2012, I loved it and it made me a lifelong fan of Octavia Butler, but since then I have not read any of the sequels. I have, however...

Dear Goodreads friends,If you like to read science fiction / fantasy you should get to know Octavia Butler.Love,LynButler’s 1980 novel Wild Seed is the first chronological book in her Patternmaster series. This details the beginnings of the sub-race of humans that will, in Patternmaster, be set in the far future. Butler begins her narrative in 1390, in West Africa, where her protagonist Anyanwu meets a strange young man named Doro.So begins a centuries old relationship, often rocky, between two

blog | goodreads Most of us don't believe in gods and spirits and devils who must be pleased or feared. We have Doro, and he's enough. What can I say about Wild Seed that could come anywhere close to doing it justice? This is the story of how Doro met Anyanwu, the only living soul on Earth who could possibly match his will; test his patience, endure his passive cruelty, and time and again defy him in ways even she could not possibly understand.And forever is a long time to endure one another w...

School book this semester & was not a fan. It gave me the creeps

4.5/5As Woolf once said Middlemarch is one of the few English books written for grown-ups, so too is this one of the few pieces of science fiction written for the real world, not marketing and academia. Of course, so chock full is this work with critical engagement and unflinching history that the cries of 'polemic' and 'bias' would not be an unlikely reaction. If that doesn't work, 'prosaic' could always be used as a strong condemnation via completely arbitrary standards of institutionalized re...

I really don't know where to start with this review. Wild Seed is unlike anything I have ever read before but yet it was still very accessible and easy to read. I would say this book is a combination of urban fantasy, horror, historical fiction and fantasy. Butler addresses slavery, gender roles, racial issues, sexuality, and class issues so subtlety you can miss the commentary if you want to and she does this all through the lens of a fantasy world involving supernatural beings that are seeming...

“In my years, I have seen that people must be their own gods and make their own good fortune. The bad will come or not come anyway.” Absolutely fantastic! Wild Seed (Patternmaster #1) is my latest dip into Octavia Butler's work, and I continue be amazed by Butler's vision and talent. After her community is wiped out by slavers, Anyanwu, an immortal shape shifter and healer, travels to colonial America with another immortal named Doro. Their aims and origins are very different. Anyanwu wants to

Butler's sci-fi classic has so much to recommend it. She is a very talented writer, and she creates a mythology and cosmology which are, if not unique, then arguably the best-developed of their kind. "Wild Seed" is beautiful and lyrical and powerful, but the rampant misandry and peculiar romanticization of pre-colonial Africa mar it -- infect it like a virus. There is neither subtlety nor nuance in Butler's representation of the two sexes. No woman is ever a criminal or a monster or a villain --...

A great book, I can’t believe that I just discovered Octavia Butler this year. She has been one the gems that I have encountered while reading through the NPR list of classic science fiction and fantasy. This novel could easily be a stand-alone novel, but I was intrigued when I realized it was the first in a series—I will be very interested to see where Butler takes the story from here.Although this is another book about extraordinarily long life, Butler examines it from a very different view po...

I had heard of Octavia Butler before – I'd heard of books like kindred and the parable of the sower. But I had never heard of this series, The Patternist. And I didn’t know what to expect at all. I didn’t even really read the plot of this one. I knew it was a prequel to The Patternist – which is some sort of dystopian sci-fi. Everyone raves about Butler’s writing and prose, and when I saw a recent review of one of the later books in this series it sounded fascinating so I thought I would pick th...

Wild Seed: Two African immortals battle for supremacy in early AmericaOriginally posted at Fantasy LiteratureWild 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 I will focus on the main 4 volumes. Wild Seed is an origin story set well befo...

"You are all I have, perhaps all I would ever have." She shook her head slowly. "And you are an obscenity."So What's It About?Wild Seed tells the story of Anyanwu, an Igbo woman who has lived for hundreds of years through her regenerative powers and her ability to shapeshift into any living form. She catches the attention of Doro, another shapeshifter who is thousands of years old in comparison to her hundreds, and who survives by killing and inhabiting the bodies of those he kills. Doro is obse...

My first foray into the unique world of Octavia Butler's imagination does not disappoint. Terrify, yes, and fascinate in an almost grotesque way, but it's oh so worth it. It is also a good example of speculative fiction and what you can do with it.For over three thousand years Doro has wandered the Earth, gathering together those born special, with latent potential or abilities, usually mental, that can endanger themselves or others. Born human, Doro died during his own "transition" as a boy, ye...

A+, her best (per me). Immortal body-shifter vs. shape-changer. Awesome book, based on West African legends and folktales, with a dose of Hollywood flash (she grew up in SoCal). This would be a great graphic novel. Or Marvel comic!There's a long-term exhibit of her papers up at the Huntington. Almost worth braving the horrors of LA traffic. She gave them her stuff: https://www.huntington.org/verso/2018... Great leading photo!Died way too young. RIP.Notes for 2018 reread, in progress:Currently re...

I really like what I've read by Octavia Butler so far and I wish I could give this at least three stars, but I can't because I hate Doro with a passionate fiery hatred and I wish he would die. I do not care if he is secretly a brain-hopping alien parasite and so thinks differently and that makes it okay for him to do eugenics. (Although, ooh, it will be supercool generations later when his offspring develop the power of flight and stop being crazy about their telepathy and basically become the X...

A unique fantasy novel that centers around supernatural/superhuman characters from Africa. The story begins in the time of slavery, when slaves were captured and brought to America. I found it to be a very unique and refreshing premise, compared to the common tropes of fantasy, be they paranormal or Tolkeinian.The two central characters (and antagonists) were interesting personalities. One seems to represent the Earth Mother--the power of healing and nature and animals. The other seems to repres...

I’m not sure what Butler intended readers take away from this novel but I found it demeaning toward women and largely abhorrent.The story focuses on two “people.” Doro is an evil shade thousands of years old who survives by jumping from body to body, killing the host, and absorbing the new body’s energy to survive until jumping to the next host at few week intervals. He has thus killed some hundred thousand people when this book begins.His entertainment over the millennia is rounding up people w...

This review is going to be hard, because Octavia Butler has a big reputation in the sci-fi world, and given that fact I had started this book in the series. But unfortunately this book was a huge disappointment, also I don't get as to how can I call this book sci-fi because although there were many people in this book with X-Men like abilities, but without a coherent story I just did not get the point of throwing them together.The book has basically has two main characters with some side charact...