Dream Book Panel

I'm working on my Hawaii post (cos hey, I was just in Hawaii and that was swell) but in the meantime I got an email from Eventbrite, with a post topic about my dream book panel and after not finding a catch I thought that was a pretty cool topic and I'm looking for writing prompts so yeah, let's do this thing. And also you guys should write up your panels cos I am super interested to hear who you would have or what questions you'd ask. Everyone play!

The prompt is "What if you could plan the perfect panel of authors or characters to speak at a conference?" OK here's my panel

Christopher Moore, Jasper Fforde, and all of my favorite authors get together to talk about how cool I am and also send me all of their future books as they're released. Oh also Bill Watterson decides to write new Calvin & Hobbes and that is how society will begin to heal. Right? That sounds fun for everyone.

OK FINE, let's do this thing for real.

Since I am deep into my feminist rant reading, let's take the topic of feminism with maybe some intersectionality thrown in there because yeah, we need that. And since this is my perfect panel, I'm thinking this can include both dead authors as well as characters. LET'S SEE HOW THIS GOES

Up first: Octavia Butler. I need to hear her thoughts on everything really, but particularly her thoughts on gender and race because she has some thoughts here, if her books indicate anything. Plus she was a black female author writing science fiction starting in the '70s, which I know, sounds like THE most welcoming environment.

Next Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie because have you read We Should All Be Feminists yet? Or seen her beautifully shut down the idea that Drumpf is not racist including the line 'As a white man, you don't get to define what racism is." And also all of the other line and laughter. It's wonderful.

How about some Sarah Vowell to add some history to the mix? Plus I feel she would bring some levity to the proceedings, cos things could get real heavy.

Speaking of people who can balance the serious and the funny, let's have Roxane Gay join as well. She will have lots of insightful things to say and then she can bring up House Hunters when we need a break. (But seriously, her live tweeting of HH is amazing.)

And then let's add Hermione because one, wouldn't it be awesome for Hermione to be on a panel? Also I think she could learn something. Yes, maybe she would bring some interesting thoughts to the mix but I would also like her to learn a bit about maybe not seeing herself as a white savior (thanks, Witch, Please)

Then let's include Celeste Ng because while I haven't written it yet I very very much enjoyed Everything I Never Told You and think she could bring some interesting thoughts about race and family and what is expected/allowed of women.

Crap, should there be a dude here? Umm, OK, Chuck Wendig cos from his blog and social media he seems like he gets it. He can come too.

Alright, I should probably stop here. But yeah, this seems great and if this could happen, that would be SUPER KEEN.

Thanks for the post prompt, Eventbrite, and hey people, if you need to manage an event or conference, they seem like a way to help with that so maybe check them out.

Everyone needs to be part of something

Oh man. Butler. Her stuff is intense. Excellent but oof.

Parable of the Talents is the sequel to Parable of the Sower. It's the not too distant future and everything is terrible. There's still an energy shortage. And food shortage. Basically all of the shortages and much of the government infrastructure has been privatized so some people live in walled-in communities, separated from the rest of the country. Those who don't have the money to live in one of these safe havens (most people) are trying to get by in a world marred by violence

I have also read that the Pox was caused by accidentally coinciding climatic, economic, and sociological crises. It would be more honest to say that the Pox was caused by our own refusal to deal with obvious problems in those areas. We caused the problems: then we sat and watched as they grew into crises.

Olamina has gathered her people and they've set up the settlement of Acorn. Things are going well in the community and Olamina and Bankole are even expecting a daughter. The story is actually told both through her now grown daughter's POV as well as chapters from Olamina's diary. But the country elects a new leader who is promising to "make America great again" and this is an actual quote from the book because Butler is a time traveler.

Jarret insists on being a throwback to some earlier, "simpler" time. Now does not suit him. Religious tolerance does not suit him. The current state of the country does not suit him. he wants to take us all back to some magical time when everyone believed in the same God, worshipped him the same way...and stomping anyone who was different. There was never such a time in this country. 

Naturally, this presidential candidate, Jarret, is garbage and terrible and his followers are frightening. Jarret uses the nation's fear over what has become to get elected and his followers hunt down settlements that don't follow Jarret's version of religion and set up re-education camps, to teach them the correct way to behave.

My ancestors in this hemisphere were, by law, chattel slaves. In the U.S., they were chattel slaves for two and a half centuries - at least 10 generations. I used to think I knew what that meant. Now I realize that I can't begin to imagine the many terrible things that it must have done to them. How did they survive and keep their humanity? Certainly, they were never intended to keep it.

Because this is Butler and she is amazing, there is a lot here discussing race and religion and freewill and family and feminism. She is not afraid to tackle difficult subjects, as is the case with all of her books. This is apocalyptic but doesn't include the supernatural as many of her others books do which gives it that much more a feeling of "this could happen now". Especially with quotes like "make America great again" and are you kidding me?

A warning, there is a lot of rape in the book. It's not gratuitous and it's not explicit but it is something that happens to multiple characters, multiple times. There are never scenes detailing it, but it is used as a war tactic in this horrible world.

I did not plan for my review for this book to go up now but the timing just worked out. That said, I'm glad I read this over the summer because as we get closer and closer to this election coming to an end, I don't know if I could have handled this book at that point. It would make me far too stressed out. It's making me stressed out trying to review it now and remembering everything that happened in the book. Read it, maybe with a happier book on the side.

Gif rating:

Title quote from page 379, location 5603

Butler, Octavia E. The Parable of the Talents. Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy, 2012. Originally published 1998.

A dangerous practice these days -- taking in strays

Before too much more time passes between my having finished the book and this review, I've decided I need to write about Clay's Ark. Like it's getting a bit embarrassing now.

Clay's Ark is the third book in the Seed to Harvest series, but I only know that because the book told me. Otherwise I am going to have to trust that the final book in this series will explain what this one is doing here. It doesn't have the same characters. The plot is similar in a general sense. There is a single guy making his own family with people with extrasensory powers.

In Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind, Doro was bringing together people who had these abilities, telepaths and the like, and was selectively breeding them to make more powerful people. (Note: Doro was sort of a dick. I guess being immortal/playing God will do that to you.) The first story took place in the 18th century, the next in 1970s.

In Clay's Ark we're sometime in a dystopian future. It's sort of Mad Max-esque. The cities seem safe enough. I guess. You just hear about them. But the open road is a free-for-all. Car families roam  the roads killing and kidnapping people stupid enough to travel. But there's apparently something...maybe not more dangerous, but certainly not something I'd want to go up against lurking out there.

The story switches back and forth between the present with doctor Blake and his twin daughters Keira and Rane, who are all stupid enough to travel, and the past with former astronaut and geologists Eli who returned to Earth after coming in contact with...something out there. Something that killed the rest of his crew and something that's changing him.

It's not an alien-being a la...well...Alien where it's going to bust through your chest cavity. Instead it's like a disease that connects with the hosts genetics and changes them. They become stronger, faster, more in tune with each other. And most importantly a compulsion to pass the disease on.

Eli, like Doro, wants to create a community of people like him. Unlike Doro, Eli makes his community instead of finding people who already have these extraordinary abilities. Eli wants to hold on to his humanity as much as possible, as much as the organism will let him. Of course, what does that mean for Blake, Rane, and Keira?

Butler books tend to be difficult to summarize, let alone summarize without spoiling anything. I don't want to say too much more but I'll tell you this book is much more of a thriller than her other books. She cuts the tension of the present with the past chapters that explain how Eli and his community came to be.

I will also say so far this is my least favorite of the Seed to Harvest series. Maybe because it doesn't seem to be part of the same series at all. It deals with similar themes but then again, a lot of her work deals with similar themes of power and humanity and free will so right now I don't see how this fits. But the story is still good. It still tackles difficult topics and for once a couple of the characters seem to show real emotion, which is something that tends to be lacking in her books.

I'd say "I'm thinking of taking a break from this series" except, I've obviously taken a break. I've read 3 non-Butler books since reading Clay's Ark so I suppose it's really a matter of when I'll make it back to the series. I will finish it and hopefully it will explain how Clay's Ark fits into the grander series.

Title quote from page 529, location 9238

Butler, Octavia E. Clay's Ark, part of the Seed to Harvest collection. Grand Central Publishing, 2007. Originally published 1980. Kindle edition.

I wish I knew what the hell you were doing. Aside from playing God, I mean

Originally I was thinking I would split up Butler's Patternist series. I'd read the first book, read something else, go back for the second book, repeat. Except yeah, that didn't happen. And it's not like the books end on a cliffhanger and you need to know what happens next. Hell, there's a couple centuries between the events of Wild Seed and the events of the second book* Mind of My Mind. But still. The book is right there and you think you'll just read a the prologue or something, get a taste for the next book, when suddenly you're halfway through.

When we last left Doro and Anyanwu (who now goes by Emma, which was a little sad cos she was so set about not changing her name to something the colonists would find easier to pronounce. Why should she change her name? They should just learn how to pronounce her name) Anyanwu had gone to California to a development Doro set up for her. Now it's sometime in the 1970s (I think, it's never said) and Anyanwu/Emma is still around. Cos, you know, immortal. Doro's still trying to breed a race of super people and Emma is helping with their transitions. He's been having trouble with latents, people with uncontrolled telepathic abilities. See, these people not only hear people's thoughts but they feel everything they're going through, and without the ability to block this out they're going crazy. Doro doesn't really care about the pain they're going through, cos he's an asshole, but latents have the possibility of having actives (telepaths that can control their abilities), which he would really like for that super race thing. Of course these latents are so tormented they usually end up abusing the children and killing themselves, so as you can see everything is sunshine and rainbows.

One of his latents has a daughter, Mary, that has the potential to be an especially strong active, one he takes extra interest in. But growing up in a home where her bother is a prostitute and her johns regularly beat the girl as a child can sort of mess you up. But Doro's right, she's powerful. More powerful than any of his other people. More powerful than he could have predicted. And she's pulling together her own network of connected telepaths.

Once again, Butler plays with the themes of control and free will, far more here than she did in Wild Seed. Doro has always controlled people, though he does it through a mixture of fear and love. His people have the ability to oppose him, although that usually results in their death. And they tend to love him. In Mind of My Mind the telepaths control non-telepaths, people they call Mutes, without these people ever realizing it.

"In pets, free will was tolerated only as long as the pet owner found it amusing."

One complaint I read on Goodreads about this book is that the characters are all coldly unsympathetic. And that's not untrue. It's actually sort of a thing with Butler's books, and one that isn't my favorite thing. I mentioned in the Wild Seed post that Butler's characters will never be my favorites, and it's still holding strong. The closest character I came to really liking, Anyanwu, isn't really prominent in this story. She's there, but the focus is really on Mary and Doro.

Overall I liked this one. I can't decide if I like this better or Wild Seed. It's a toss up. Let's see how Clay's Ark goes.

*As I mentioned in the Wild Seed post, the books in my copy of Seed to Harvest (the full Patternist series) go in chronological order, although they weren't written that way. However, I was pretty excited to see that either way Mind of My Mind comes second. Because I get excited about stupid things.

Title quote from page 299, location 5191

Butler, Octavia E. Mind of My Mind, part of the Seed to Harvest collection. Grand Central Publishing, 2007. Originally published 1980. Kindle edition.

Civilization is the way one's own people live. Savagery is the way foreigners live

Sometime between Thanksgiving and early January Amazon ran a whole bunch of discounts on Kindle books. Actually they run deals like that all the time, but during this period they ran deals on a bunch of books I want to read. Which is unusual for them. During this time I picked up Octavia Butler's Patternist series. The whole thing: Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, and Patternmaster. So that's pretty exciting. And it's been some time since I read Butler.

I don't really know what order I'm supposed to read this series. See my copy puts it in the order above. According to Wikipedia they were published Patternmaster (1976), Mind of My Mind (1977), Survivor (1978, which I don't have cos Wikipedia says she grew to hate the book and wouldn't let it be published), Wild Seed (1980), and Clay's Ark (1984). So that's confusing. I think (but as I haven't finished the series I'm not sure) that my book put the series in order that it takes place.

Anyway, the first book. That I read. Wild Seed. It's going to get a little weird. With the exception of Kindred, Butler's books do that. Not bad. They're really wonderful, it just means it might be a little hard to describe.

The book starts out sometime in the 18th century Africa where we meet the main character, Anyanwu, something of a medicine woman in her village. Except there seems to be something strange to Anyanwu. She's not the old woman she appears to be. It's hard to say she's really human. Or maybe she's a mutant, the next stage in human evolution and whatnot. She's being watched by someone. Something. And then we meet the next main character, an immortal Doro. Doro is thousands of years old and he can sense people who are different. Who are special. And he was drawn to Anyanwu. He learns she's also immortal, or at least is a few hundred years old. And she can heal herself. And also transform to look like other people or even animals. So she's like the mutant that got ALL THE POWERS.

Doro is the one with the power though. It's not really clear what his powers are, only that he controls a lot of people. He's drawn to them. He's trying to make more special people. He finds them, brings them together and pairs them based on the way he thinks they'll make the best offspring. Sort of like breeding animals. He convinced Anyanwu to go to North America with him and have children. Perhaps finally Anyanwu will get children she won't have to watch die.

Eventually it comes to light that Doro kills pretty constantly. He jumps from one body to another, keeping his self and his personality. The body is just a husk. This doesn't sit well with Anyanwu, although his other children/creations/people don't seem to mind. They worship him. A living god, someone they fear and love equally.

Anyanwu doesn't love and fear Doro the way he wants. she's a wild seed, someone who just seems to have the powers he's trying to breed in his people. But the wild seeds can't be controlled like his people and he tends to put those people down. But there's something more to Anyanwu. He's never met anyone like her. And I realize this is sounding like a romance, but yeah, don't get that idea.

That's the basic plot, without giving away anything. Of course the plot is important but it's also the things that Butler uses the story to explore. Control and free-will. Slavery. Anyanwu, an African woman (at least that's what she look like although the whole immortal, healer, transformer, deal it's difficult to say woman) comes over to America on a slave ship. And Butler plays with gender and sex.

There's a definite style to Butler's work. Anyanwu reminds me of Lilith from Butler's Lilith Brood trilogy and Shori from Fledgling. Maybe even some Dana from Kindred. They're strong, stoic, serious women. There's not a lot of humor in Butler's work, nor is there a lot of emotion. This does mean it can sometimes be difficult to connect with the characters, and while I admire her characters they're unlikely to become favorites. THAT SAID, her books are excellent and Wild Seed is no exception. We'll see how the rest of the Seed to Harvest series goes.

Title quote from page 96

Butler, Octavia E. Wild Seed, part of the Seed to Harvest collection. Grand Central Publishing, 2007. Originally published 1980. Kindle edition.

When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing

Finding Octavia Butler novels is far more difficult than it should be. I mean, it's not THAT hard (cos, you know, the internet helps) but they aren't readily available in bookstores and even digital copies are rare. Which is lame because she's AMAZING and places need to stock more of her. Of course, that will only happen when demand...well demands it. So please start demanding her.

OK, now that I got that out of the way, I should start talking about her book Fledgling, which was finally available on the Kindle one day. I'd heard very good things about it so I was excited to give this one a try. Especially because I'm nearing the end of the Butler bibliography, which sucks.

Fledgling is the story of a young Ina/vampire named Shori. Shori wakes up one day badly injured and burned, with no memory of who she is or how she got there. Slowly it's revealed that Shori's family was wiped out, most likely by fellow vampires who were unhappy her family was experimenting with genetic mutations in order to produce offspring who can stay awake for the day and have better protection from the sun.

I know Twilight cast a shadow over vampire books, whether you like that series or not. Both books actually came out a month apart from one another (Butler's in September, Meyers in October of 2005) so clearly the two books are in no way related, inspired, or anything with one another. As with most of Butler's novels, Fledgling deals with race. In this case Shori is the genetic experiment. Instead of having the very pale skin of her Ina ancestors, Shori has dark brown skin that doesn't burn so quickly in the sunlight. She's described by some of the vampire as a mongrel and less than Ina because her DNA has been mixed with human DNA.

When Butler is dealing with race the novel really comes to life. Unfortunately, this isn't really the main focus of the story. Or it is, but a LOT of the story takes place with Shori learning about Ina ways and especially about her symbiots.

See, in order to live, the vampires need to drink blood. As they do. And while technically they should be able to survive by just casually grazing (as they call it), the Ina whither away unless they bond with a human symbiot. This is more than just having someone around to regularly feed on, but it's an emotional connection with their people. The bond is so strong that if an Ina dies, their symbiots will likely die as well. If the vampire isn't in regular physical contact with their symbiots, regardless of if they feed on them, they will also die. Symbiots live unusually long lives (200+ years), free from health problems and derive extreme pleasure whenever their Ina feed from them. There are a lot more details about the relationship between Ina and their symbiots and had Butler lived longer, I feel like she probably would have written a few more novels about them, even if she does say Fledgling was just a lark.

There's one thing though that I had trouble getting past. Shori is a young vampire, but vampires live a very long time (500 or so years). Shori's around 53 years old, which should make whatever she does with her adult symbiots fine. Except Shori LOOKS like an 11-12 year old. And she has sexy time with her adult symbiots (in addition to just feeding from them). And that was awkward. And happened a lot, especially in early parts of the novel. Later when she's dealing with finding out what happened to her family, this happens less often and I found I enjoyed the story more. (Also this is when we're dealing more with the race thing, where Butler really shines.) I tried not to think about it too much, cos thinking about it made me think I'm going to be put on a list for reading this book. Though at least nothing is TOO explicit.

The other thing that I was sort of disappointed in was Shori's personality. Butler is great at writing strong female characters (which I've mentioned before) and Shori belongs in that group but near the bottom. She's stoic to the point of being monotone. She's lost everything and knows she can't even properly mourn her family because she doesn't remember them enough, but Shori hardly displayed any emotion. At times she would get angry and others would comment on her temper, but it never really came across to me. All of the female characters (at least those I've read) have been strong and somewhat stoic, but they still felt like real people and that they had real emotions behind their tough exterior. Shori didn't feel this way, which meant I didn't connect with her as much as the others.

Overall, I enjoyed Fledgling although not as much as the other Butler I've read. It's still a good one, and I'm still glad I read it, but if you're looking for some Butler to start with, might I recommend Kindred. Again. Because seriously, you need to read that one. It is superb.

Title quote from location 3242

Butler, Octavia E. Fledgling. Seven Stories Press, 2005. Kindle edition.

God Is Change

Ever since reading Kindred (and to a lesser extent the Lilith's Brood trilogy) I've wanted to read more Octavia Butler. Mostly because she kicks ass. I mean she was a black, female sci-fi author, with her first books published in '76. Look at all the shit "fake geek girls" get now for daring to hang out in a space typically reserved for white males. It's a nice bonus that makes my author stats look better. So whenever I went to my local bookstore I would browse the stacks to see if they had any of her books, especially Fledgling. For whatever reason, her books are hard to find. Or at least they're not regularly kept in stock at bookstores. In any case, there was only 1 Butler book, Parable of the Sower. The summary looked interesting ("unattended environmental & economic crises lead to social chaos", "night of fire and death", "flight for survival", "birth of a new faith") but the copy was a little battered* and I always found an excuse to put the book back. Yes, "always" because each time I went to the store, the same copy was sitting on the shelf. Eventually it tugged at my heartstrings enough** that I HAD to bring it home. And once again, Butler does not disappoint.

Parable of the Sower starts in 2024 in a dystopian world where the US has been plunged into what seems to be the Great Depression to the nth degree. The main character, Lauren Olamina, is born into this world and while her father remembers the world as it was, we never get a clear idea what happened to cause this chaos. There's ecological disaster (it hardly rains anymore), extreme poverty (a few companies have managed to set up situations where indentured servitude is a pretty good deal), and rampant drug abuse (in the form of a new drug that makes people set fire to EVERYTHING). So yeah, not a fun place.

Long before the book starts, Lauren has been keeping a journal she calls Earthseed: The Books of the Living as sort of an understanding of her world through a new understanding of God, which I know I just made sound pretentious or preachy but it's not. The book itself is made up of Lauren's journals, but only a sentence or two at the beginning of each chapter is from Earthseed. The rest is her talking about her life, her family, and once her home is destroyed, her travels as she and her band of survivors try to make it out in the world. How can humanity survive in such chaos?

My favorite thing about Butler is she creates some of the strongest female characters AND she realizes that "strong female character" doesn't equal "like a dude, but with boobs". Lauren is smart, a leader, tough but vulnerable. Actually vulnerable. Lauren has something called "hyperempathy" which means if she sees or hears anyone else in pain, she feels their pain. It can get to the point that she will start bleeding if she sees someone else bleed. A world where it's every man for himself and you better be prepared to defend yourself (with lethal force if necessary) this condition is a bit of a handicap.

Parable was supposed to be a trilogy but Butler only managed the second book, Parable of the Talents, before writer's block and then a case of "death" kept her from writing the final book.

While this isn't my favorite Butler book it's still an excellent book and if you guys still have yet to read any Butler, you should really fix that. Cos seriously, she kicks ass.

Oh hey, look, I've already completed one of my 2013 reading goals. Success!

*I always try to find the MOST PERFECT copy of any book. I'll grab the bottom book in a stack cos that is the copy least likely to have any folded edges.
**Damn you Brave Little Toaster!!

Title quote from page 3

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. Grand Central Publishing, 1993.

Slavery was a long slow process of dulling

I'd been wanting to read Octavia Butler's Kindred pretty much since I finished her Lilith's Brood/Xenogenisis trilogy. Unfortunately, Butler's work is apparently in some sort of Disney vault because I had been having the hardest time finding it, either in the book store or as an ebook. I've also been complaining about how my reading has been too white so the thought of reading another white guy was making me sad so I checked again for Kindred and lo and behold, it was available! And on sale! And I'm so happy.

This was amazing. It's another book I want to just shove in everyone's hands. I was going to say I'd like to drop copies on people from a blimp but that would probably cause a lot of lawsuits, so maybe you could all save me the legal trouble and just get your own.

Dana Franklin, a black woman living in California in 1976 one day finds herself transported to Maryland circa 1815. Not the best time for a black person to find themselves in.* Dana is connected to Rufus Weylin, the son of a slave owner and a distant relative. Whenever Rufus is in trouble he unconsciously summons her to him. She is only able to go back to her own time if she believes she's about to die. While she can be in Maryland for days, weeks or months, she's only gone from California for a few minutes or hours. So here you have the science fiction aspect that you'd expect from Butler. But think of this form of time travel more like King's in 11/22/63. (Or really King's is like Butler's cos her book came out first, but I assume in general the King book is better known.) It's there but the story doesn't dwell on it, and indeed it never ever addresses exactly how it's happening. Because that part isn't important. Dana's time as a slave on a Maryland plantation is.

Butler gives us a slave narrative but by having a modern woman go back and experience slavery first hand we get a modern context to what is going on. We have someone who knows what's going to happen with slavery but learns what the day to day existence is like, not just in terms of the work or living conditions, but in what being treated as a subhuman does to a person. And not only what these people go through, but how easily it's accepted by everyone, slaves and non-slaves. The story is heartbreaking. You see people beaten, families sold apart, woman raped. But Butler keeps the characters complex. It would be easy to just make the Weylins, the slave-owners, ruthless awful people. But they aren't. At least not entirely. There is more to Rufus and even his mother and father than just that single note. And the relationship between the various slaves on the plantation and the Weylins is more complicated than just pure hate. Dana is also surprised by this

Strangely, they seemed to like him [Rufus], hold him in contempt, and fear him all at the same time. This confused me because I felt just about the same mixture of emotions for him myself. I had thought my feelings were complicated because he and I had such a strange relationship. But then, slavery of any kind fostered strange relationships.

This could have been a melodrama. It could have been a story about slavery that was simplified to just black and white issues but instead Butler allows in shades of grey. People are people, and  they are both good and bad within a single person.

I'm sure while reading this I made ridiculous faces because there are so many parts to make you gasp and wonder what will happen next. Because on top of being a wonderful book full of complex characters, it's also a page-turner. Butler, how do you do it? So really, just read this.

*I can't help but think of Louis CK's "white people" bit, about how black people can't get in a time machine and go back much further than the '80s. If you haven't watched this yet, just go ahead and click that link. But do it after you read this post because otherwise you'll get sucked in and end up watching all the Louis CK videos. At least that's what happens to me.

Title quote from page 229/location 2300

Butler, Octavia E. Kindred. Beacon Press, 2004. Originally published 1979. Kindle edition.

Authors who deserve more recognition

It's Tuesday, which means the group over at The Broke and the Bookish have a new top ten list for us: what are the top ten authors that deserve more recognition.

I went back and forth about whether or not to take part in this. I know I won't come close to listing out 10 authors. And the authors I'll list are ones I've talked about and talked about almost ad nauseum. I don't want to include authors if I'm not familiar with a few of their books. A single book isn't enough for me to recommend an author. A book yes, but the author, no.

On the other hand, I do love these authors and want more people to check them out. And I figure I'll be hopping around to see what other authors are out there people want to spread the word on, so I may as well take part. If you are a regular reader, you already know who I'll say so feel free to skip over this.

Jasper Fforde - I have a post about his book Shades of Grey planned for tomorrow, so you'll see some fawning then. Fforde writes absurd, literary humor that doesn't easily fall into any genre without sticking a toe into several other pools. He has 3 series: Thursday Next, Nursery Crime and Shades of Grey. Thursday Next is about a Literatec agent who spends time policing literature in both the real world and the book world. My favorite series which has my favorite book (The Well of Lost Plots) and stars my favorite character (Thursday Next). Nursery Crime is a spin off of TN, and is a hardboiled detective working in a Nursery Rhyme world. And then there's the latest series Shades of Grey, which I'll go into in tomorrow's post.

Christopher Moore - He seems to have a fairly substantial following so he might be on the fence as to an author that needs more recognition but I figure I'll include him anyway since I've yet to read a book of his and not enjoy it. Another author with an absurd sense of humor though without the literary aspect of Fforde. Don't think that means the stories aren't smart, it just means there are less allusions to classic literature and scenes with jerking off.

Octavia E. Butler - I've only read one series of hers, Xenogenesis/Lilith's Brood,  but it was 3 books so I'm counting it for these purposes. She was an African-American female (obviously) science fiction author. A minority within a minority and she turned out some fantastic, literary science fiction. Writing literary science fiction pretty much adds another level to that minority status.  She should not be over-looked.

Alright so that's really all I've got. There are other books I've enjoyed, but I can't recommend an author based on a single book. Then there are the other authors I love, but I'm pretty sure Stephen King and even Bill Bryson don't need that much extra push from me.

So what are some authors you think need to get more recognition?

If you're curious to see some posts I've written about the above authors, check out the links below!
Jasper Fforde
The Eyre Affair
They keep an eye on...overtly thespian interpretations.
We try to make art perfect because we never manage it in real life.
You're Upsetting The Wo'rms! They're Starting to hy-phe-nate!

Christopher Moore
Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story
It was as if vampirism carried with it a crampless case of rattlesnake PMS

Coyote Blue

For a guy that maintains a low profile, you've built quite a little snowball of resentment
You can't just go around breaking people's legs like some Mafioso fairy godmother

Fool

We're all Fate's bastards

You Suck: A Love Story

You shouldn't kill a guy without asking. It's inconsiderate.

Octavia E. Butler

Lilith's Brood trilogy

A cancer growing in someone's body will go on growing in spite of denial.
Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status
Helpless lust and unreasoning anxiety were just part of growing up

Helpless lust and unreasoning anxiety were just part of growing up

Here we are at the third and final book of Butler's Lilith's Brood/Xenogenesis series.  I originally typed down that I liked this one best, but I don't know if that's the case.  The first book, Dawn is probably my favorite.  It not only provoked the most emotion from me, but I was surprised by it.  It never went the way I anticipated, I connected with Lilith more than I thought and overall it was a nice surprise.  Imago wasn't as good as Dawn but by this point I had connected with the characters and become more familiar with the alien Oankali that I found myself missing them when I finished the book.

Just as the point of view changed in Adulthood Rites, so it changes again in Imago.  The Oankali aliens are made up of 3 sexes: male, female and ooloi, which has no sex.  Butler says ooloi does not directly translate into English but can mean: "'Treasured stranger.' 'Bridge.' 'Life trader.' 'Weaver.' 'Magnet.'" (526).  Males and females cannot mate without an ooloi.  When new Oankali or construct (part Oankali, part human) children are born until they mature they don't have a sex and can become any of the 3 sexes.  Normally I try to avoid plot details in reviews because really, you can read those anywhere.  In this case understanding of what ooloi is is necessary to understand the main character Jodahs, who becomes a construct ooloi.  This is the first book that takes place in the first person, although I commented in my review of Dawn that I kept forgetting that it wasn't actually from Lilith's PoV. 

The aliens in the first two novels remain completely alien.  Even in the second novel, when Akin, the Oankali male construct is the main character, they were still separate.  By having Jodahs become the main character and to put the story in his point of view in the first person I was able to connect with the characters, to understand them in a way that I wasn't able to before.  I would say my lack of empathy with Akin from Adulthood Rites is a problem with Butler's writing but it's clear that this was her intention.  I learned more of Oankali via Akin but not enough to understand their motivations, for them to not seem so alien anymore. 

I mentioned above the different translations for the word ooloi and Lilith tells Jodahs that "magnet" is the definition she prefers.  "People are drawn to ooloi and can't escape...the chemical bonds of mating were as difficult to break as the habit of breathing," (526).  What you learn once you see the world for Jodahs point of view is the ooloi don't capture humans but are just as drawn to humans.  Ooloi literally cannot survive without their mates and something about this detail made them seem more relate-able.  Other ooloi would tell Lilith about the connection but it never seemed true.  They were always so seemingly disconnected from everything. 

I just realized I said that the ooloi would tell people about their attraction but that it didn't seem true, that it seemed like a lie.  But the Oankali do not lie.  They may not tell the truth but they don't lie.  Butler uses the Oankali to examine the human experience and I wonder if my disbelief about what the Oankali actually meant is based on my own experience is that people lie all the time and why should I believe this alien?  Even when Butler sets up the Oankali to be so completely different I still understand them based on my own experience and obviously (in case you thought I was from another planet) that is the human experience. 

I have enjoyed the Lilith's Brood trilogy and I would recommend it even if you aren't a sci fi fan.  I'm not typically.   The story is well written and doesn't expect you to be a sci fi fan to appreciate it.

Title quote from page 649

Butler, Octavia E. Imago. Lilith's Brood.  Warner Books, New York.  1989.

Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status

I recently finished the second book in Butler's Lilith's Brood/Xenogenisis trilogy.  Unlike in Dawn, Adulthood Rites is told from the point of view of Lilith's male construct son Akin.

Quick background! In the first book, Lilith and other humans are saved from an Earth that has been destroyed due to nuclear war by a group of aliens called Oankali.  The aliens saved them because they want to "trade" with them, meaning essentially creating a new species that is neither Oankali nor human and that will have the best features of each.  Free will and control are examined in the first book, as most of the saved humans aren't too keen on this trade.  Now back on a newly constructed Earth jungle some humans, including Lilith, have agreed to the trade and those that haven't are sterilized.

Like in Dawn, Adulthood Rites continues to examine the morality of the Oankali's decision to end the human race.  They make the argument that human's hierarchical tendencies coupled with their intelligence means the eventual destruction of humans at their own hands is inevitable again.  Humans cannot help but want to dominate each other, the land, other animals and the Oankali believe that giving them back Earth and allowing them to continue on is cruel.  It's like allowing animals to live together, even when you know that they will, in the end, hurt each other.  And so they give the humans long life and allow them to live on Earth but they cannot reproduce without the Oankali.  Butler makes a convincing argument for the aliens to not allow humans to destroy each other again; they are acting in the people's best interest.  But of course no one wants to become obsolete, which is exactly what the Oankali are doing to the human race.

Akin is a human construct: born to a human woman (Lilith) but has characteristics of both human and Oankali. The humans who have refused to live with the Oankali are desperate for children and these "resister" groups kidnap Akin and bring him back to their village Phoenix.  Akin looks mostly human but at a few months old is able to speak and comprehend complex ideas and has the cold logic displayed by the full Oankali.  He sees firsthand the destruction and violence the human resisters are capable of but he also comes to understand their frustration and anger at not being able to have their own children.  Life becomes pointless and even though they know Akin won't be able to give them what they want he represents a ray of hope.

The story tackles the human condition and the seeming inevitability of human violence and domination.  It never suggests that humans are able of overcoming these characteristics; even the humans seem to believe in this yet they want the chance to prove the Oankali wrong.  It also examines the Oankali acting in the people's best interest, yet they remove their choices.  Lilith talks about how the Oankali treat people the way humans treated animals.  The decisions made are for their own good, even if the people don't like it as they don't.

As I said in my review of Dawn, I'm not a huge sci fi fan and it's not really the aliens and the sci fi part that interests me with this trilogy.  I've found, even though this story is told through Akin's eyes, that I still sympathize with the human characters.  I understand why the Oankali behave as they do but I can feel the human's anger.

One more book in the trilogy (obviously) and then I'll be moving away from sci fi for awhile but for now I am enjoying this.  I feel like this review was difficult to write, which sometimes happens if I didn't really care about the book but honestly, I had trouble putting this down.  It slowed for me in the end but I went through this much quicker than I expected.  I hope Imago holds my interest in the same way.

Title quote form page 329.

Butler, Octavia E. Adulthood Rites. Lilith's Brood.  Warner Books, New York.  1989.

A cancer growing in someone's body will go on growing in spite of denial.

I'm currently re-reading Dawn, the first part of the Lilith's Brood trilogy by Octavia E. Butler.  I originally had to read Dawn for a college class: Gender, Sex and the Rhetoric of Science.  It was a great class but it involved a lot of strange books to read and this is up there.  I think the quote on the back of the book sums this up nicely, at least the first book:

Lilith's Brood is a profoundly evocative, sensual - and disturbing - epic of human transformation.

"Evocative", "sensual", and "disturbing" are 3 very good words to describe this book. It's not a traditional sci fi book, according to my very limited understanding of sci fi.  OK, I guess according to my limited stereotype of sci fi.  There are aliens involved and, again this is based on my sci fi generalizations, while they are main characters, they are consistently a source of disgust for the main character Lilith.  There is none of the sense of camaraderie between Lilith and the Oankali that you might fight in something like Star Wars. Everything is so literally alien that Lilith can never completely trust Jdahya (if you know the pronunciation for that, please feel free to add it in the comments. In my head I pretty much just call him "Jad"), any of the other aliens she lives with or the living ship they're on.

The books is written in the third person limited and I keep finding myself repeatedly surprised to find that the story isn't in the first person.  Not that I think stylistically it would be better in the first person, but rather I'll read something that says "she said" and I'll have to go back and re-read before I remember that Lilith, the main character is the "she" and there is no I.  I'd say this is just the case with the style, but I never noticed it with other works, such as Harry Potter (the Wikipedia entry may have pointed out that's written in the same  narrative mode).  You end up empathizing with Lilith so completely probably because Butler has made the aliens so incredibly, well, alien. This style connects you to Lilith without actually letting you as close to her as a first person narrative would do.

I've obviously mentioned a number of times already that aliens play a big part of this book, but I want to again stress this doesn't feel like a typical sci fi book.  There isn't really (so far or in what I remember) much action.  Thus far the book is really an examination of free will or rather the removal of it.  The Oankali want Lilith to learn about them and they want to learn about her but they do keep her ignorant of their actions.  They keep her a prisoner, though a prisoner in nice conditions.  The book opens while Lilith is in isolation and Bulter is such a talented author that within a few pages you really feel Lilith's pain and fear.

The book is split into 4 parts: Womb, Family, Nursery and The Training Floor.  The first two sections deal with Lilith learning about and coming to terms with the Oankali and the second two sections deal with Lilith teaching other humans about the aliens and how to survive in the jungle.  I found I was more interested in the first two sections and wished these parts were longer.  There's more action in the latter sections but I liked the tension and learning about the aliens and the ship with Lilith.  Because I related to her in the first sections I found myself frustrated with the other Awakened humans when they wouldn't just play nice.  Obviously this would have made a much less interesting book but I felt Lilith's frustration and hopelessness. 

When I began reading the book I had only planned on reading Dawn.  The book went by so quickly and I'm not ready to be done so I'm going to continue on Lilith's journal and start reading Adulthood Rites the next part of the trilogy.  I've read the first few pages before, right after I finished Dawn the last time, but books for class got in the way of me finishing it.  At least I'm hoping that's why I never finished it and not because it was so bad I blocked it from memory.  I suppose I'll find out soon.

Title quote from page 39

Butler, Octavia E. Dawn. Lilith's Brood.  Warner Books, New York.  1989.