Review:Easy to see why this is a classic - Octavia Butler creates a world (dystopian, if you consider the self-destruction of humanity a bad thing), and writes an engaging story. The characters (many of them alien) are a bit flat and, among the humans, stereotypical or hard to relate to, but this is to be expected in a novel so ambitious in terms of its philosophical questions, e.g., "what is human? what is alien? what values define us? what values threaten to destroy us?". The first part of a trilogy. Read more

Review:After reading the first book I was interested in what the second would have to offer. I thought I was set up to que for more information but ended up purchasing the book instead. It was all right but nothing to get excited about. I will not continue on to the third. Read more

Review:Warning - some spoilers ahead...

Imago is the final book in the “Lilith’s Brood” (or Xenogenesis) trilogy. This conclusion to the series focuses on Jodahs, the child of a union between humans and Oankali. Jodahs is maturing into the first human-Oankali construct ooloi (a third gender for the alien Oankali). Because of this, it is seen as potentially dangerous – uncontrolled ooloi have the capacity to do massive genetic damage to everything they touch, and an ooloi with a human side poses ... Read more

Review:Octavia Butler was a literary genius! The way she talked about heavy issues using characters that did not attack any group of people was refreshing and brought the message home without guilt or accusation. Read more

Review:This is the second time I re-read Lilith's Brood. Loved it many years ago and thought I would love to re-read it again to see what I might have missed. I am so glad I did, it is just as great as the first time. Read more

Review:After reading the first book I was interested in what the second would have to offer. I thought I was set up to que for more information but ended up purchasing the book instead. It was all right but nothing to get excited about. I will not continue on to the third. Read more

Review:Depressing! An interesting portrayal, but thank goodness, not that realistic. This is pure dystopian that is weighed down with abject hopelessness. I prefer more realistic speculative-type fiction. Anyway, I'm glad I sampled Ms. Butler's work, but I'm not interested in pursuing anything else of hers. Read more

Review:The book is set in the post-SHTF world, action taking place in the Pacific Northwest/Northern California. It describes United States in a such a way that Germany leading up to the Second World War comes to mind. Violence, poverty, unemployment, inflation and a general sense of despair pervades the world of this book. Simple existence and the sense of humanity is not taken for granted, as characters in this book are forced to fight for their place under the sun.

Protagonist of this novel i... Read more

Review:Until her death in 2006, Octavia Butler was one of the jewels of science fiction. She was primarily a novelist rather than a writer of short stories. This volume collects two early works of her short fiction, although the first one is long enough to categorize as a novella. The important themes she explores in these excellent stories are representative of those she tackled in her longer work.

"A Necessary Being" imagines a caste-based alien society divided among hunters, judges, fighters,... Read more

Review:Unpredictable and provocative, this is a look at the intersection of gender, race, and power across time and continents. Like life, this novel is neither a dystopia nor a utopia as it explores questions of what it means to be human in a world of extraordinary possibilities. Read more