2/26/2006

Holt Shit! Now Octavia Butler?

Steven Barnes is reporting that Octavia Butler died Saturday. I guess it's true, because the SFWA has a remembrance page up. Nothing in the news yet, though. I first found the workso f Octavia Butler a couple of years ago. I liked Parable of the Sower, but I loved Kindred. Kindred is one of those books that stays with you for the rest of your rest of. It's science fiction in that the story revolves around a woman who keeps getting drawn back in time every time a certain man is in danger. She stays in that long ago time until her life is in danger, whereupon she returns to the modern day. The catch is that this young woman is African American, and the man she is drawn back to save is her white, slave-owning great-something grandfather, who owned her great-something grandmother. It digs deep into the psych of both sides of the equation: how does a person come to live as a slave or a slave-owner. All the while, the science fiction side is handled coherently and self-consistently, with appropriate examination of the time travel paradoxes.

I could go on and on about the woman's work , but I couldn't really do it justice, so I'll stop here. I recommend that anyone who is old enough to do so, read this book and others of hers as well. I hope the reports are wrong, Octavia. You wrote some deep, kick ass sci fi. Don't be gone.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Looks like the reports are true, at least if you believe The Trib [http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/news/celebrity/sns-ap-obit-butler,0,7663390.story?coll=mmx-celebrity_heds]. Sorry, dude.

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