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Octavia Estelle Butler (born June 22, 1947 in Pasadena, California) is an American science fiction writer, and one of the few African-American women in the field. She has won both Hugo and Nebula awards and is also the only science fiction writer (as of 2005) ever to be a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "genius grant".

Originally from the Los Angeles area, Butler moved to Seattle in November, 1999.

Contents 1 Bibliography 1.1 Patternist Series 1.2 Xenogenesis/Lilith's Brood series 1.3 Parable series 1.4 Other 1.5 Listening 2 External links

Bibliography

Patternist Series

• Patternmaster (1976) - Far in the future, regular humans are dominated by a society of networked telepathic humans who, in turn, are ruled by the most powerful telepath: the Patternmaster. Also hostile to the remaining regular humans are Clayarks, mutant humans created long ago by disease unwittingly brought back to Earth from outer space by astronauts. The story evolves around the aging of the current Patternmaster, spawning a battle among telepaths to see who will become the next Patternmaster.
• Mind of My Mind (1977) - An immortal's breeding program has created a society of networked telepaths that he struggles to control.
• Survivor (1978) - With Earth being ravaged by the disease that was brought back from outer space, and telepaths now asserting control over what remains of humanity, regular humans are caught in the middle, and one group of them has decided to escape it all to a new planet, where they now, as aliens, must struggle to co-exist with the race that already lives there. (Octavia Butler, herself, has come to dislike this novel.)
• Wild Seed (1980) - Prequel to Mind of My Mind. Two immortals, one who changes bodies and another who has perfect control of her own, struggle to live together over generations, as one concentrates on creating a new race through his own breeding program. - James Tiptree, Jr. Award winner
• Clay's Ark (1984) - A colony of people mutated by a disease that astronauts have unwittingly brought back to Earth from outer space struggle to keep themselves isolated enough that the disease does not spread throughout all humanity.

Xenogenesis/Lilith's Brood series

• Dawn (1987) - After the near-extinction of humanity, a woman is resurrected by the alien Oankali as part of a plan to colonize the earth with alien-human hybrids.
• Adulthood Rites (1988) - An alien-human hybrid child is abducted by sterile human resisters.
• Imago (1989) - An androgynous being comes of age and integrates human and alien societies.

The three volumes of this series are also collected into two omnibus editions, Xenogenesis (out of print) and Lilith's Brood.

Parable series

• Parable of the Sower (1993) - a girl with heightened empathy develops a benign philosophical and religious system during her childhood in a walled suburb in a dystopian anarchic future Los Angeles. When the suburb's security is compromised, her home is destroyed, and her family murdered, she travels north with some survivors to try to start a community where her religion can grow.
• Parable of the Talents (1998) - as the U.S. continues to fall apart, the protagonist's community is attacked and taken over by a bloc of religious fanatics who inflict brutal atrocities like rape and murder. The novel is essentially a harsh indictment of fundamentalism and in that respect is similar to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.
• Parable of the Trickster (yet to come?) - Butler has long had in her mind the idea to write a third Parable novel, tentatively titled Parable of the Trickster, which would focus on the community's struggle to survive on a new planet after having left Earth. She attempted to embark on this novel after finishing Parable of the Talents, and mentioned her work on it in a number of interviews, leading to a great deal of anticipation about it. However, at some point, she encountered a writer's block that prevented her from being to proceed with it any further. Eventually, she allowed her attention to turn in a different direction, resulting in the novel Fledgling (see below). As of late 2005, Butler has said that she has not yet given up hope of being able to get Parable of the Trickster written at some point, though her experiences with it so far have taught her not to make any further promises about her future work.

Other

• Kindred (1979) - Often shelved in Literature or African American literature, rather than with science fiction. Story of a modern African-American woman who keeps falling back through time to rescue her white, slave-owning ancestor.
• Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995) - Title story, "Bloodchild" (1984), won Hugo and Nebula Awards. Also includes four other stories and two essays. The pieces span Butler's career, the first finished in 1971 and the last in 1993. In 2005, Seven Stories Press released a second edition of Bloodchild and Other Stories expanded to include two newer short stories copyrighted by Butler in 2003.
• Fledgling (2005) - a vampire novel. ISBN 1583226907

Listening

• Interview on Democracy Now! radio program, 11 November 2005

External links

• Literary Encyclopedia (in-progress)
• Voices from the Gaps biography
• NPR
• Octavia E. Butler at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

• "The Book of Martha" at Scifi.com
• "Amnesty" at Scifi.com

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