Octavia Butler
I just found out that Octavia Butler, one of my favorite sci-fi authors, died on February 24, 2006. BoingBoing has a nice entry about her passing.
Mrs. Butler’s novel Dawn opened my eyes about science fiction, politics, race, self-determination, freedom, imperialism… it is such a varied and subtle book that I would recommend to anyone, sci-fi fan or no. It literally changed my life.
Lillith Iyapo survives the human race’s descent into near self-destruction only to learn that a race of interstellar gene manipulator’s have determined that humans are, by nature, doomed… this race will entirely rule the future of humankind and forcefully entertwine their genetic futures whether the human races wants to or not. Humans have no choice: they must be reborn into a new world entirely re-created by the Oonkali in their image of perfection, by their rules, under their aegis… in fact, the aliens have redefined what it means to be human. Humans cannot go backward, cannot rebel in any macro sense. They just have to adopt these new identities and gestalt them with some new idea of self-determination that, hopefully, does not include armageddon. Can they do it?
Thank you Octavia Butler. I owe you so much!
March 6th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
Hey! Michelle Parcell mentioned you to me. You are the “Veronica Mars” fan…
Anyway, I also love Octavia Butler and am sad to see she passed away. I read “Dawn” and liked it quite a bit, but I loved her other book much better. The one about time travel and slavery called “Kindred.” I highly recommend it!
I’ve been meaning to read the book that comes after “Dawn,” but have yet to get around to it.
I look forward to exploring your blog!
March 7th, 2006 at 8:43 am
I’ll have to go pick it up and put it in my queue.
It’s nice to meet you… I’ll have to be adventurous and try some of those recipes on your site… good luck with your novel! It always makes me happy when people pursue their dreams. ( =
March 8th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
Nice to meet you in a cyber-spacey way, too.
Ok, I have to ask. Do you like Veronica and Logan together or not? I kinda miss their super-hot chemistry. But they are so good together when they hate each other…
March 9th, 2006 at 12:18 am
I think they are perfect in their fluctuation… kind of like (über-geeky) Mulder and Scully. The tension is perfect, the release a let down… as long as they don’t Dawson it to death (never saw the show, just heard about the effect): the romantic triangle doesn’t grow it just keeps oscillating between the two obvious extremes. Ugh.
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