‘A book that shifted my life… Epic, game-changing, moving and brilliant’ VIOLA DAVIS on Wild Seed
‘A literary pioneer’ VANITY FAIR on Octavia E. Butler
A PATTERNIST NOVEL: BOOK TWO
The baby’s name is Mary, and her father is immortal.
For thousands of years, Doro has pursued perfection, experimenting with humanity and seeking out rare – and powerful – talents. His finest creation is Mary, a young black woman who grows up on the rough outskirts of Los Angeles.
Doro knows he must handle Mary carefully or risk her ending like his previous experiments – dead, either by her own hand or his.
What he doesn’t suspect is that Mary is beginning to learn just how much power she wields. As she comes of age, Mary must harness her newfound abilities to challenge the ruthless man who controls her – and fight to free her people once and for all.
‘A literary pioneer’ VANITY FAIR on Octavia E. Butler
A PATTERNIST NOVEL: BOOK TWO
The baby’s name is Mary, and her father is immortal.
For thousands of years, Doro has pursued perfection, experimenting with humanity and seeking out rare – and powerful – talents. His finest creation is Mary, a young black woman who grows up on the rough outskirts of Los Angeles.
Doro knows he must handle Mary carefully or risk her ending like his previous experiments – dead, either by her own hand or his.
What he doesn’t suspect is that Mary is beginning to learn just how much power she wields. As she comes of age, Mary must harness her newfound abilities to challenge the ruthless man who controls her – and fight to free her people once and for all.
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Reviews
One of the most significant literary artists of the twentieth century. One cannot exaggerate the impact she has had
Butler's prose, always pared back to the bone, delineates the painful paradoxes of metamorphosis with compelling precision
[Her] evocative, often troubling, novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately, what it means to be human
No novel I've read this year has felt as relevant, as gut-wrenching or as essential... If you've ever tweeted "All Lives Matter", someone needs to shove Kindred into your hand, and quickly
Kindred is that rare magical artifact . . . the novel one returns to, again and again
One cannot finish Kindred without feeling changed. It is a shattering work of art
[A] must-read novel
Everyone should read at least one novel by the grand dame of science fiction, and Kindred is a perfect (and harrowing and disturbing and brilliant) place to start
The immediate effect of reading Octavia Butler's Kindred is to make every other time travel book in the world look as if it's wimping out... This is a brilliant book, utterly absorbing, very well written, and deeply distressing. It's very hard to read, not because it's not good but because it's so good
A searing, caustic examination of bizarre and alien practices on the third planet from the sun
One of the most original, thought-provoking works examining race and identity
If you haven't read Butler, you don't yet understand how rich the possibilities of science fiction can be
Butler's books are exceptional
Few writers in our field are so good at blending page-turners with philosophical questions so seamlessly
A dark, compelling and still horribly resonant time travel story
Impossible to turn away from once you've devoured the first few pages
