Talk Back

[alyson]

About eight months ago I was reading books about writing, and one was specifically about sci-fi and fantasy, by Orson Scott Card. If I remembered the title I'd tell you, because that was a good book. But he used various other works as illustrations for his various points, and that is how I heard about Wild Seed. Card referred to it extensively, and used it as an example of skillful writing and story-crafting. It has been enjoyable to read in part simply because I can reflect on his observations as I read the scenes from which samples were taken.

Wild Seed is about two effectively immortal people: how they meet and react to each other, what their immortalities have been like, and how they affect the world around them.

It possibly is more of a girl book than a boy book, dealing as it does with relationship dynamics and emotional situations, but it's not sentimental. Guys might be able to get into it when you consider that the issues tend not to be, "how do I feel about this?" but more, "considering how I feel, how should I react to this?" It becomes more about problem-solving, seen from that perspective.

I only have one big problem with this book, and it doesn't have anything to do with the story at all. It was published by Warner books, and there are typesetting errors everywhere. It's gotten so that I have to correct each one with pen, or write a line next to it acknowledging its existence, so that they won't drive me crazy every time I read this edition.

Anyway. If anyone has read her work and likes this one, can you recommend any of her other books?
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Eschew obfuscation.

[jeffp]

Octavia E. Butler is an interesting writer, and I say that never having read anything she's written. I've heard of her, though, and I've heard an interview with her on NPR. In addition to being a woman SF writer (rare enough) she was also African American, which puts her into a class almost by herself as far as I know. According to the Wikipedia entry on her, she was also a 1995 recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant.

Sadly, she died in 2006.

It appears that Wild Seed is part of a series. In fact, it's number 4 of 5, so if you want to read more by her, the rest of that series could be a place to start. You can find all the books in the series on the Wikipedia page listed above.

I'd be interested in recommendations by her as well, since - as I say - I haven't read anything by her just yet. She's definitely on the list of authors I want to read, though. From what I've head and been told, she's quite good.

[malabar]

Octavia Butler was amazing. Her Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents (see my reviews in 2006) were incredible post-social-collapse novels, and the whole Patternmaster series (of which Wild Seed is a part) takes "aliens among us" to new levels.