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jennyyates 's review for:
Patternmaster
by Octavia E. Butler
Octavia Butler is one of my favorite writers, but this is my least favorite of her books. It was also written first, earlier than the other books in the Patternmaster series, and all the rest of them are more nuanced and thought-provoking.
The setting is interesting, though. At this point, there are three different groups of humans living on the planet: the Mutes, the Clayark people, and the Patternists. Mutes are ordinary people, with no telepathic ability, and they are basically slaves. The Clayarks are like animals, having a communicable disease which causes people to mutate, and they are constantly at war with the Patternists. The Patternists are in charge, and have a rigid hierarchy, with women subservient to men. They are the ones with powerful paranormal abilities, such as being able to read minds, kill, and heal.
There’s so much killing in this novel that I got a bit overloaded with it. At one point, Teray, the hero, massacres hundreds of Clayark people. The novel is basically about a power struggle between two Patternist men, Teray and Coransee, for the top spot in the organization. They can kill each other with their minds, and they are always threatening to do so. There’s a lot of macho posturing, and of course, Butler is only describing it, not advocating it. But there’s nothing here to counter it.
Teray is the young one, just out of school, but he has such psychic potential that the older, stronger Coransee sees him as a threat. Coransee is aiming for the job of chief Patternist, after the current one, Rayal, dies. Teray and Coransee are brothers, both sons of Rayal, but there’s no sense of family connection. Teray is portrayed as a little more humane than Coransee, more concerned with the plight of helpless Mutes, less likely to abuse his position. He is also accompanied by a woman, Amber, who has maintained her independence for a long time, at great cost, and he treats her respectfully. I would say that she’s the most interesting character in the book.
Octavia Butler often wrote about the tensions between two different cultures or world-views, but that’s not really happening in this novel. The basic structure of this world is not particularly challenged by anyone. And it’s a bleak world, especially for women and non-psychic humans.
The setting is interesting, though. At this point, there are three different groups of humans living on the planet: the Mutes, the Clayark people, and the Patternists. Mutes are ordinary people, with no telepathic ability, and they are basically slaves. The Clayarks are like animals, having a communicable disease which causes people to mutate, and they are constantly at war with the Patternists. The Patternists are in charge, and have a rigid hierarchy, with women subservient to men. They are the ones with powerful paranormal abilities, such as being able to read minds, kill, and heal.
There’s so much killing in this novel that I got a bit overloaded with it. At one point, Teray, the hero, massacres hundreds of Clayark people. The novel is basically about a power struggle between two Patternist men, Teray and Coransee, for the top spot in the organization. They can kill each other with their minds, and they are always threatening to do so. There’s a lot of macho posturing, and of course, Butler is only describing it, not advocating it. But there’s nothing here to counter it.
Teray is the young one, just out of school, but he has such psychic potential that the older, stronger Coransee sees him as a threat. Coransee is aiming for the job of chief Patternist, after the current one, Rayal, dies. Teray and Coransee are brothers, both sons of Rayal, but there’s no sense of family connection. Teray is portrayed as a little more humane than Coransee, more concerned with the plight of helpless Mutes, less likely to abuse his position. He is also accompanied by a woman, Amber, who has maintained her independence for a long time, at great cost, and he treats her respectfully. I would say that she’s the most interesting character in the book.
Octavia Butler often wrote about the tensions between two different cultures or world-views, but that’s not really happening in this novel. The basic structure of this world is not particularly challenged by anyone. And it’s a bleak world, especially for women and non-psychic humans.