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4.18 AVERAGE
4.18 AVERAGE
Now this is the kind of shit I expected of Octavia Butler. Wow, this is fucked up and fascinating.
This is another deeply challenging, disturbing read from Octavia Butler with similar themes to her Xenogenesis series. It's a really hard book to rate because it's very well written, but I can't say it's enjoyable; more like morbidly fascinating. For it's originality and willingness to tackle difficult themes I haven't really seen with anything close to the depth they are here I'll give it five stars. But proceed with caution, this is *not* light reading as some assume fantasy/scifi is.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A lengthy psychological study of what it means to be an immortal and feed off the lives of others. In a lot of ways, probably a better vampire novel than most vampire novels (note: WILD SEED contains no vampires).
I think it has its flaws (one drawback for me was Butler's style of having one small story event happen, followed by ten pages of what someone thinks about it), but the accusations of its supposed "misandry" only work if you willfully ignore most of the text.
Moving on to the sequel now.
I think it has its flaws (one drawback for me was Butler's style of having one small story event happen, followed by ten pages of what someone thinks about it), but the accusations of its supposed "misandry" only work if you willfully ignore most of the text.
Moving on to the sequel now.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Octavia Butler's concepts are always so imaginative that they are almost unbelievable, and yet so full that they become believable, natural. A few clunky moments where the speculative fiction and the historical fiction bump heads, attempting to account for famous historical events with less terrible alternatives (specificity works against her in my opinion). Sweeping, epic, but balanced with spare language. One of those books I would just love to see as a movie, a feminist retelling of the transatlantic slave trade and early US settler colonialism with flawed, folktale-like supernatural protagonists.
I looooove Octavia Butler. She writes hit after hit, I can't wait to read the next books.