New Omnibus from Octavia Butler

Good news for fans of Octavia Butler and those who still look forward to reading her work: her early Patternmaster series, previously issued as four short novels, out of sequence with the internal story order, has been reissued in one volume as Seed to Harvest.

Butler was one of the earliest African-American women in the science fiction field, offering a different perspective in her work. She wrote thoughtful "soft" (sociological, anthropological) science fiction: literary, accessible works concerned with ambiguities and the role of outsider in racial or sexual themes, and with the philosophical and psychological underpinnings of human nature.

Last year I read her more recent Xenogenesis trilogy, published in one volume as Lilith's Brood, a fascinating examination of what it means to be human. It was a story that has stayed with me, and I think of it often.

















She described herself as "comfortably asocial—a hermit in the middle of Seattle—a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive." Sadly for all of us, she died outside of her home on February 24, 2006, at the age of 58.

Octavia Butler photo credit: Joshua Trujillo/Seattle Post-Intelligencer