Rest in Peace Octavia Butler... 1947-2006

I checked Tayari Jones' blog yesterday afternoon, and saw the following:

R.I.P. Octavia Butler

All I could do is stare, because it did not compute...

Octavia Butler had died.

That couldn't be right. It couldn't be true.

And there I was, holding her latest book, Fledgling, in my hands. I'd made it to the halfway point, hoping that I could look up her tour schedule so that I could get her to sign it...

Afterall, she was one of the greatest African American Science Fiction writers of all time.

At first, I thought it was a hoax, because there was nothing about it on the AP wire... But then, I saw Stephen Barnes site, and Ed Champion's site... They both called the coroner's office and reporters, etc,. and got it confirmed.

I, personally, am devastated, because she is one of my favorite writers...And I just happen to be reading her latest book, her first in seven years, when I read that she had died.

I just don't believe it...

It clearly remember when I first learned of her...

One of my best friends, a white dude name Tim, is an avid science fiction reader. I being a big time black lit reader, have always picked on him about reading some black lit, instead of all that science fiction B.S.

"Dude, you need to read some black lit!"
"Um... I don't think so," he said with a frown.
"All this science fiction crap, you need to leave that alone."
"Uh, no."

I've thought that it was strange that he wouldn't read black lit. Especially since he is married to a black woman. I thought he would like a good black lit book... But dude loves science fiction. It's either science fiction or nothing at all with him.

"Well I ain't reading it. My people don't write stuff like that."
He cocked his head at me. "Ooooooh, yes you do!!!"
"Yeah right."

Tim proceeded to go to his bookshelf and pull a couple of paperbacks off the shelf.

"Here's one of my favorite authors: Octavia Butler! She's really good! I like her a lot!!"
He flashed the book proudly in my face.
"Man, go head on with that!, I yelled, blowing him off with a wave of my hand. " I ain't reading no damn science fiction."

Well, fast forward about 6 months later. I picked up an anthology entitled Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora edited by Sheree R. Thomas. I am a big fan of anthologies. If I read a story I like, I will usually go buy everything by that author.

Well, Octavia Butler had a short story entitled "The Evening and the Morning and the Night" in this anthology collection. It was a story surrounding a cure for cancer that had an interesting side affect: it created a disease that caused one to self-mutilate oneself and kill others...

It knocked my socks off. It was the most interesting, weirdest, and creative short story I have ever read...

It was exceptional.

And I had to have more...

I called up my boy Tim, and told him about it. He said, "See, I told you!!"

The next time I went to his house, I watched him pull every book he owned by Octavia Butler off of his bookshelves. He explained each series of her books to me, and let me decide what I wanted to read. I chose to read the three books of the Xenogenesis Series: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago. All three of these books have been recently combined into one book entitled Lilith's Brood.

The Xenogenesis series has to be by far the most creative piece of fiction I have ever read. It details the interactions and cross breeding of the Oankali, a three gender alien race, with humans living in a post nuclear holocaust war earth... The main character is a young black woman name Lilith Iyapo, and we read about her and the offspring struggles in dealing with this particular arrangement with these aliens and life on earth...

Yikes...That's the best way I can explain it... And it was, um... quite creative, to say the least. It blew my damn mind.

I next read the Patternist Series: Patternmaster, Mind of my Mind, and Wildseed. Two other books, which I haven't read are in this series: Clay's Ark and Survivor. These books surround the creation of a society of networked telepaths and the Immortal who has created them, etc. A couple of these books, Mind of my Mind, and Wildseed, had strong black female characters, and strong social issues... Again, they were highly creative, exceptional books!

Finally, I read the Parable Series: Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. Now, these were my favorites amongst her novels. I even did a post on Parable of the Sower last year, as it was eerily (in my mind) similar to what was going on during the Hurricaine Katrina disaster.

I also read one of her most popular books, Kindred, a novel which is usually found in the black lit section in bookstores. It is the story of a modern black woman who keeps falling back in time to rescue her slave owning ancestor. This book has also been used as required reading for literature classes...


And right now, I am reading Fledgling, a story about an amnesiac black female vampire, and her quest to find out who she is, and who has destroyed her family....

It too is amazing...

And I am so sad that we have lost one of the most powerful and creative African American writers of our generation...

If you've never read anything by her, do yourself a favor and go check it out... You too will be truly amazed... and enlightened.