| Glenn Seaborg |
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Octavia Butler
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i’m not sure
it’s any favor to octavia butler to label her writing “science fiction” but there can be no doubt it is a huge favor to science fiction at first read i found her work heavy difficult but it sticks with you like an ellwood kieser story where you don’t just shoot somebody and move on where you really explore what it means and the full spectre of ramifications with octavia butler you don’t just hop thru a worm hole and shake hands with an alien she’s really a speculative sociologist who takes the ideas of another world or this world in our globally-warmed future and contemplates the people what it might take to survive the trade-offs the compromises the harsh realities |
octavia butler does not write stories about bourgeois americans galloping about the cosmos where people love them simply because they’re beautiful she writes stories about people in unfamiliar circumstances and the prices they must pay to get along to survive the portions of their sense of self they must sacrifice she describes her work as hopeful but it’s not a free ride you don’t get to hopeful till you wade through a river of humanity’s darkness at first read i found her work difficult now the rest of science fiction seems simplistic next to her richly textured characters captain kirk was able to solve any problem in about an hour with enough spare time for a few commercial breaks for the good life octavia butler’s characters face far more protracted struggles |
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28 September 99
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