estirose: A pixel portrait of a woman (Default)
estirose ([personal profile] estirose) wrote2006-03-05 10:34 am

The Science Fiction genre lost another writer....

Octavia E. Butler, one of the few well-known black female science fiction writers, died February 25, 2006, from injuries sustained from a fall.

Octavia Butler, for those not familiar with her writings, never wrote stories that were easy to read. And when I say "never wrote stories that were easy to read", I mean that her language was accessable, but she touched upon issues with no easy resolution. She wrote about racism and utopia, about alien and human.

I have her "Xenogenesis" trilogy, which I read an ad for in the magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy. At the time I read it, I was in my teens, and one of my memories was trying to explain to my family why I wanted a hardcover book with a semi-naked woman on the cover. (I wish I could find a copy of that bookcover online; it demonstrates the artist's complete inability to get Octavia Butler and left me under the delusion for several years that Octavia Butler was white.)

Darn, now I'll have to pick up "Kindred" as well; it sounds like a great book. And knowing Octavia Butler, a very uncomfortable, interesting one as well.

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