How Octavia Butler Changed Literature Forever
The first time I read Octavia Butler my knees became noodles and my heat beat faster than a hummingbird’s wing. I genuinely could not believe what I was reading. It’s like I had finally found what I was searching for all my life. This was a book named Wild Seed.
My second time coming into contact with Butler’s work was for a class called American Voices, where we had to write about our experiences as Americans from the United States. That time I had read Kindred. It was another mind boggling experience.
These books were my first time reading science fiction that centered around a Black woman. Her writing is womanist. Butler gives agency to her characters; things don’t just happen to them, but they make the things happen. She centers the Black women’s gaze, acknowledges spiritual warfare in her characterization all while exploring themes of family, land, and identity.
Here is a brief timeline of her books, in order of when they were published:
*Anthologies
**Short stories
1976: Patternmaster
1977: Mind of My Mind
1978: Survivor
1979: Kindred
1980: Wild Seed
1984: Clay’s Ark
1985:The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection*
1987: Dawn
1988: Adulthood Rites
1989: Imago
1993: Parable of the Sower
1995: Bloodchild and Other Stories**
1998: Parable of the Talents
2001: Nebula Awards 35*
2005: Fledgling
2010: The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction*
2011: Crucified Dreams*
2014: Unexpected Stories**
2015: Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology*
Octavia Butler was a psychic. She has managed to predict the terrors that have come to reality in 2024. Her book, Parable of the Sower takes place in our current times, the 2020s. She has been called the mother of afrofuturism, and rightfully so.
In an interview with Democracy Now!, Butler recalls the exact moment she decided she would become a science fiction writer. She had seen a movie called “Devil Girl from Mars” and it allowed to see the possibilities that science fiction held. It is as wide as outer space, and she showed many that the genre could accomplish a lot more than the popular movies like Star Wars or Alien.
Even though she didn’t see herself in the classical writings of science fiction, she knew that her place in the world was not defined by this erasure, so she wrote herself in. This is the legacy that Octavia Butler leaves with us. She wasn’t defying the standards when she wrote her novels but simply creating a new one. Her contribution to the literary world has been one defined by many successes.
What many saw as politics that they could ignore, Butler chose to highlight repeatedly in her novels. She transformed anxieties about climate change and economic collapse into nail-biting sci-fi adventures with unexpected turns at every corner.
Octavia Butler was a manifestor. She wrote religiously in her notebooks that she brought everywhere with her. In between jobs, she would write as well. She wrote affirmations because she understood the power of the word. Her explorations on the human condition were a product of her curiosity and what she witnessed in the world around her.
The Patternist Series
The Patternist Series was written during a time where instead of googling the business that you needed a service from, you went to the White Pages instead. Within those pages you would find the telephone numbers and addresses of most local businesses.
The year is 1976, and something was happening during this time that never happened before. A writer named Octavia Butler comes onto the scene with the publication of her first book, Patternmaster.
The novel is set in a distant future where humans who can fight and communicate with each other telepathically are called patternists. Rayal is the Patternmaster and it is his job to lead his people against a group called the Clayarks.
Patternmaster is not just about the battle between these two groups, but the politics that characterize the internal struggle between the patternists themselves. The book is the first published of a series called The Patternist.
The second book published in this series is Mind of My Mind. This novel explores how the patternist society was created. There is the creator of this society, Doro, a malevolent spirit who has the ability to wear the skin of human beings.
When he inhabits their skin, their soul dies and he is able to have control of their body. The novel is about his daughter, Mary, who is able to challenge Doro’s power with her own telepathic ability. Her actions set a precedent that changes the state of the patternist society forever.
Clay’s Ark is the third book in the series, though it was published last. This novel centers around a father, Black Maslin, and his twin daughters, as they are kidnapped and come to the slow realization that Earth has been infected with alien microorganisms. Anyone infected by this organism is compelled to spread it.
Butler published the last book in the series, Wild Seed, in 1980. This novel is about Doro’s encounter with a woman named Anyanwu, who also has powers. Their encounter is what sets off the spark to the creation of the patternist society.
What I love most about the Patternist series is the timeline of the books. The events that happened in the first published book of the series were chronologically last in the series. Even though Wild Seed was published last, the events in that novel happened first in the series. So we get to see Anyanwu’s descendants in Patternmaster.
Chronological Order (by the events that happen in the book):
Wild Seed
Mind of my Mind
Clay’s Ark
Patternmaster
Chronological order (by the publishing date):
Patternmaster
Mind of My Mind
Wild Seed
Clay’s Ark
Whichever book you read first will change your understanding of the story, a testament to the skillful writing of Octavia Butler. Whatever book you decide to pick up by her, it will be guaranteed to change your life!
