My current research project deals with women in dystopian fiction (with some sci-fi crossover), and it’s been to my eternal shame that I’ve never read any Octavia E. Butler. Thankfully, crystalclear got me Kindred for the Cannonball exchange last Christmas, and I was more than eager to dig in. In February of 2016, I was on a conference panel with a professor who had read a paper on Kindred, which had piqued my interest in the first place. It was an intriguing historical time-travel novel, […]
Intensely Well Done
CN for entire review: Racism, Rape, Slavery Best for: Really anyone. I don’t think you need to be into graphic novels or science fiction to enjoy this work. In a nutshell: Somehow Dana — a young Black woman living with her white husband in 1976 — ends up being transported back to the mid-1800s when a young son of a slave master fears death. Without warning, she is then transported back to 1776. This cycle continues, and times including her husband. Line that sticks with […]
Kind of dips back into familiar territory.
It’s hard to give this minor collection of stories more than a three because it’s only two stories and they’re kind of well-worn territory for Butler and one of them was even commissioned, and it’s fine, but it’s just not quite the same as something a little more inspired. That said, these are definitely Octavia Butler stories. There’s all the trademarks, and if you’re especially familiar with her work, namely the two early series of novels she wrote, then these feel either very familiar or […]
A time to plant, a time to reap
Writing reviews for CBR is not easy. I can’t just relax and read something. I read books with the upcoming review in mind, analysing their building blocks, paying attention to details, overthinking them. As a result, I sometimes finish them and -unless I straight out loved a book- have no idea how I felt about them. Did the story touch me? Did it make me think? Would I recommend it to others? When that happens, I like to go on Goodreads and read other people’s […]
I am trying to figure out the audience here.
Kindred by Octavia Butler
I need to say straight away that I love the novel Kindred, which I read for a Black Women’s Writers class in college. It was an inspired choice to put on the syllabus that also included Song of Solomon, Brothers and Sisters by Bebe Moore Campbell, Dessa Rose by Sherley Anne Williams among others. I think that that novel is a tremendous combination of sci fi, 1970s Black writing, political fire, angst, and a few other things all tied into one great novel. It shares some really important themes […]
Terrifying time travel
How have I never read anything by Octavia Butler before? This book was fantastic, and I have got to find more of her work — does anyone have any suggestions?? Kindred stars a black woman named Dana, who lives in California in the 1970s. On her 26th birthday, she starts to feel dizzy, then suddenly finds herself on the side of a riverbank next to a drowning boy. She saves the boy, almost on instinct, and later realizes that she’s traveled back in time & […]