Megatext 2: Octavia Butler

Megatext 2: Octavia Butler

Thursday, August 25th, 7pm

Open Books, 651 W. Lake St.
(Facebook Event Page)

For our second Megatext discussion, we're going to be talking about Octavia E. Butler (1946-2008), who's had a powerful impact on the genre. This discussion is being supported by Open Books, who are hosting, and by Think Galactic.

The idea behind the "Megatext" book club is that we talk about an author as a whole, rather than one specific book. Feel free to come if you've read everything Butler's written, if you've only read one book, or if you're just interested!

photo via Joshua Trujillo

Butler's science fiction engages a wide range of topics. Some we may get into include:

• race and the history of slavery
• concepts of family and alienation
• post-humanism
• sex and power relations
• Afro-futurism
• religion

Books we might talk about include:

• Kindred (1979), probably her most widely-read novel, about time travel and slavery
• Patternist series, involving ancient aliens, telepathy, genetic modification, and lots of intriguing questions about power
• Patternmaster (1976)
• Mind of My Mind (1977)
• Survivor (1978)
• Wild Seed (1980)
• Clay's Ark (1984)
• Xenogenesis, a trilogy about humans' interactions with the aliens who resurrect them after a nuclear holocaust. Lots of aliens, sex, hybrids.
• Dawn (1987)
• Adulthood Rites (1988)
• Imago (1989)
• Earthseed, dystopia dealing with religion, belief, and fanaticism
• Parable of the Sower (1993)
• Parable of the Talents (1998)
• Fledgling, intriguing take on vampires
• Short Stories, two collections:
• Bloodchild and Other Stories
• Unexpected Stories
• Essays and talks- There are a ton, I'll try to link to some!
• Related Works- lots of critical and related works (Like the Octavia's Brood collection, which Think Galactic discussed last year), people inspired by her fiction; we might talk about some of that too!

Looking forward to a great discussion! Spread the word!