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Seed to Harvest Octavia E Butler 9780446698900 Books

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Seed to Harvest Octavia E Butler 9780446698900 Books

Octavia Butler's Patternist series is a well thought-out and executed science fiction classic. This collection brings together the four stories as they were meant be be enjoyed... leaving you to pace yourself and decide if you want to tackle them all as one or give yourself time between as Ms. Butler did. Some of the themes she returned to again and again are search for place and ownership of others who are your inferiors. She handles both of these topics with gentleness and we can feel the characters dilemmas of conscience and desire for belonging as palpable things.
Treating each book separately, I reviewed as I went...

Wild Seed, the first in this book series, reminds me of all that is good about Octavia Butler's writing. She has meaningful, complex characters and shows how people change rather than just telling. In some ways, the main characters in her story are the compassionate version of Heinlein's long lived family in his future history series. Unlike Heinlen, Butler obviously cares more about people feelings than their intercourse. She has a wonderful grasp of the biology of breeding and the problems that arise in husbandry as you try to encourage only certain traits. In addition, her political leanings are less obviously apparent except in that she seems to see a need for a system of some type rather than Heinlien's much more libertarian bent.

Mind of My Mind was a story that moved the two main characters from Wild Seed on (with some changes) and introduced a new main character, Mary. The desire for a sense of family and belonging are strong themes in this book and make me wonder if Butler lost her parents at a fairly young age. The story and the powers of the individuals made sense and were interesting, but what really made this story memorable was that the ending was at once surprising and exactly how it should have happened.

Clay's Ark was a disturbing novel of an alien invasion. Quite possibly the most insidious alien invasion sorry I have read and with many reminders of Heinlein's Puppetmasters.
Following the family in the story through their changes and interspersed with flashbacks of how the organism first found a foothold on Earth, Butler tells this story in a way that bothered me at first but which, ultimately, was exactly right.

The Patternists, the final novel in the series, seemed in some ways to be the most incomplete and the most different in tone from the others. Like the other novels, The Patternists had a theme of the search for place, in this case the place for a young man wanting to build his own life. In the other novels, however, as the characters changed, they always seemed to want to hold on to the behaviors and moralities that made them human. Not so in this book. From a beginning with a ruler in an incestuous relationship (think the Ptolmecic Dynasty in Egypt), to casually treating humans infected with an alien disease as animals to be slaughtered the issues of humanity in earlier books seem inconsequential in this one.

In the end, I was left wondering if Bulter had intended to write another book to finish the series. However, since she had something like twenty years to do so, I suppose not. This can lead your thoughts in fascinating ways as you have to decide which faction you identify with the most and where you think humanity would go from where she ended.
If you like sci-fi that makes you think... especially about society... This series is more than worth picking up.


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Seed to Harvest Octavia E Butler 9780446698900 Books Reviews

These books are related, yet not a series in the more common sense of the concept. Separate books that share background, yet differ in style, pace, depth and, to my taste, intelligence and appeal. It comes short of an epic story, and somewhat more that disparate creations.
The best ones - Patternmaster and Wild Seed, are almost literally worlds apart. Wild Seed protagonists don't develop in the next installment (big disappointment), the character of Anyanwu is all but lost in Mind of my Mind and that of Doro doesn't gain depth (and lost my interest), while the newly introduced character of Mary is one of those rare cases that a main character doesn't manage to pull its weight at all. Clay's Ark stands out as a near classic of Sci-fi, I liked it, but it didn't break ground. All in all, worth pulling through for getting a scope and gaining a more varied impression of the writer's abilities, yet not always a sweeping read.
I never read any of Octavia Butler's books before this one, and I am looking forward to reading more of her books.

This science fiction trilogy deals with earthling interactions with an alien race so different from our own that it was interesting to see how the characters interacted and bonded while having completely different world views, or should I say universe views. Even though each book seems like it would stand on its own, the development and evolution of the characters over time, including multiple generations makes me think it is best taken as a whole.

The numerous internal issues related to cooperation (whether willing or coerced), individuality, assimilation, and camaraderie are thought provoking and drew me in and kept me intrigued throughout the series. There are no space battles, as is too common in science fiction for my taste, but there are conflicts to add some tenseness to the tale. The conflicts are deep and personal, challenging the views of both earthlings and aliens beyond anything that either group had experienced before.

I would definitely suggest this Edition of the trilogy for anyone looking for a science fiction read that is more about the beings involved than the technology.
Octavia Butler's Patternist series is a well thought-out and executed science fiction classic. This collection brings together the four stories as they were meant be be enjoyed... leaving you to pace yourself and decide if you want to tackle them all as one or give yourself time between as Ms. Butler did. Some of the themes she returned to again and again are search for place and ownership of others who are your inferiors. She handles both of these topics with gentleness and we can feel the characters dilemmas of conscience and desire for belonging as palpable things.
Treating each book separately, I reviewed as I went...

Wild Seed, the first in this book series, reminds me of all that is good about Octavia Butler's writing. She has meaningful, complex characters and shows how people change rather than just telling. In some ways, the main characters in her story are the compassionate version of Heinlein's long lived family in his future history series. Unlike Heinlen, Butler obviously cares more about people feelings than their intercourse. She has a wonderful grasp of the biology of breeding and the problems that arise in husbandry as you try to encourage only certain traits. In addition, her political leanings are less obviously apparent except in that she seems to see a need for a system of some type rather than Heinlien's much more libertarian bent.

Mind of My Mind was a story that moved the two main characters from Wild Seed on (with some changes) and introduced a new main character, Mary. The desire for a sense of family and belonging are strong themes in this book and make me wonder if Butler lost her parents at a fairly young age. The story and the powers of the individuals made sense and were interesting, but what really made this story memorable was that the ending was at once surprising and exactly how it should have happened.

Clay's Ark was a disturbing novel of an alien invasion. Quite possibly the most insidious alien invasion sorry I have read and with many reminders of Heinlein's Puppetmasters.
Following the family in the story through their changes and interspersed with flashbacks of how the organism first found a foothold on Earth, Butler tells this story in a way that bothered me at first but which, ultimately, was exactly right.

The Patternists, the final novel in the series, seemed in some ways to be the most incomplete and the most different in tone from the others. Like the other novels, The Patternists had a theme of the search for place, in this case the place for a young man wanting to build his own life. In the other novels, however, as the characters changed, they always seemed to want to hold on to the behaviors and moralities that made them human. Not so in this book. From a beginning with a ruler in an incestuous relationship (think the Ptolmecic Dynasty in Egypt), to casually treating humans infected with an alien disease as animals to be slaughtered the issues of humanity in earlier books seem inconsequential in this one.

In the end, I was left wondering if Bulter had intended to write another book to finish the series. However, since she had something like twenty years to do so, I suppose not. This can lead your thoughts in fascinating ways as you have to decide which faction you identify with the most and where you think humanity would go from where she ended.
If you like sci-fi that makes you think... especially about society... This series is more than worth picking up.