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Nov 09, 2011

M— rated it:

On October 5, 2004, Octavia E. Butler visited my graduate university to give a lecture and book signing. I was really impressed by her. She actually spent several hours at the university, giving a public interview with one of the professors, then a short lecture to a large auditorium, then a book signing. I even skipped class in order to attend.

The interview was really fascinating, where Butler answered questions about how she worked to write Kindred and how she felt about the chara More...

1 comment like (19 people liked it)

Nov 21, 2011

Kaion rated it:

Octavia Butler appears oasis-like as an answer to all that clinical, super-non-human, detached science fiction with Kindred- a tale that cleverly uses time travel tale to confront our contemporary relationship with the history of slavery.

Dana, a young black writer in 1973, finds herself inexplicably transported to 1820s Maryland just in time save the life of a drowning white boy. This boy Rufus is the son of a cruel plantation owner, and her long-forgotten ancestor. And try as she More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Apr 23, 2008

Janice rated it:

The first time I read KINDRED I viscerally identified with the modern day black female heroine (I'm not black but I am a female) who travels, without control, to a past in which she was a slave girl. In the present, she is married to a white man and she is trying to become a writer. Her experiences as a slave shock her into a reality she never suspected.
It's difficult for her to explain to her husband what she is experiencing as she travels back and forth from past to present. And when More...

4 comments like (9 people liked it)

Feb 20, 2009

Tattered Cover added it

I feel that many female sci-fi authors have wider appeal than their male counterparts. This is especially true of Octavia Butler (and Ursula K LeGuin, but that's for another review) and 'Kindred' is no exception. This book follows a modern black woman who is suddenly transported back to the deep south during slavery and saves the life of a young white son of a slave owner. The woman, Dana, keeps getting sent back for longer and longer periods, to help the past but to also save her present/futur More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 22, 2010

Cootie rated it:

I just finished this book, and you should not even bother to read this review. You should seek out a copy and read it right away, preferably with a friend or book club. Go. Shoo.

Although it's labeled as science fiction, I think of it as fantastic realism, since the time travel is more of an unstoppable, almost biological force than it is any product of scientific tinkering. I think the author called it "grim fantasy." Anyway, the premise serves to tie the present (1976 a More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Apr 19, 2008

Christine rated it:

Wow... intense book! We're reading this for school, and my teacher has warned us again and again that this book was NOT written for kids... we've learned that already after reading a quarter of the book already! However, I am pretty happy that we're reading this because it goes with our curriculum, and it really is pretty interesting... I actually like reading historical fiction books.... they teach people about history without them having to open a textbook every time....
Anyway, this boo More...

10 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 07, 2011

Adrienne rated it:

I was a captive audience of one. Science fiction that I love, a female author so rare, setting close to my heart. It started off great, sort of like a really awesome Star Trek: The Next Generation time travel episode. I mean, man, what a premise! Modern black woman goes back in time to rescue an ancestor and slave owner from a death that would lead to her having never being born. And I was totally absorbed in it, until the realization that the highly charged, emotional and traumatic beginning ha More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 19, 2009

bookczuk rated it:

When this book arrived, I picked it up, skipped past the introduction and came to the first two sentences of the prologue.

"I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm"

Reading that, I knew I had to read this book- just to see what had happened.

This is not an easy book to read, because of the subject matter. The phrase "man's inhumanity to man" takes on real meaning. I have never been able to comprehend how one culture or ethnic grou More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 26, 2011

BunWat rated it:

This is a deceptively simple and truly wonderful book. If you've read any reviews of it at all, and/or have not been living in a cave, you know the premise. A black woman of the 1970's inexplicably finds herself back in the antebellum south, living among the people -both black and white - who will become her ancestors. The brilliance here is in the discipline and economy with which Butler lays the story before us. Here it is, slavery and its corruption of the spirit for the enslaved and the More...

1 comment like (9 people liked it)

Mar 25, 2009

Vixenne rated it:

When I read this back in the 1980's, I didn't think black people wrote science-fiction. Of course, I didn't know that Samuel Delany (another favourite of mine) was black. It seemed the publishers went out of their way to "whitewash" him (not to mention he's also a gay man).

Kindred began my life-long admiration of Octavia Butler and I still feel a deep kinship with this woman whose life in some ways mirrored my own.

It's a time-travel novel that doesn't focus More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 11, 2011

Sony rated it:

I wanted to love this book. But it has many flaws. I'll get to that in a few, but first, let me gush about what's great about it.

The plot/premise is brilliant. I love the idea of a modern black woman being propelled back into time to help one of her white ancestors to survive, even if he becomes a mean and despicable slave master. I love the fact that it used time travel, which I usually hate, but found tolerable here. I love the observations of the protagonist, Dana. She's an interes More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 26, 2011

booklady rated it:

Although I'm not usually one for the time-travel, sci-fi or fantasy genres, this book—which is all three—worked for me. It will probably top the list as the most unusual book I'll read all year and yet, it was still incredibly believable.

Dana, a black woman, is married to Kevin who is white; they live in mid 1970’s California until Dana begins to be involuntarily pulled back in time to early 19th century Maryland to rescue a distant relative. It doesn’t take Dana long to figure o More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 14, 2011

Caitlin rated it:

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. It was an assigned read for class and judging from the cover and the other texts we read for the same course(which I was unenthusiastic about the whole way through,) I assumed it would be another heavy theory book on race and feminism. Kindred deals with these elements but it prides itself in being a work of creative story telling first. Butler manages to use the past, colonized southern America during slavery, to shine light to issues of today. This soun More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 23, 2011

Chanda rated it:

Although I couldn't stop listening to this one I can't say why. The story didn't have a great plot but it was an interesting vantage point from which to tell the story of slavery. The ultimate problem with this book is that the men in it are so terrificly annoying that you find them unbearable in spite of the fact that they dont' technically exist. They're really such whiners, pissing and moaning about their lot in life. And the problem with that is it isn't even the enslaved men doing the whini More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 02, 2008

Finkle rated it:

this was a very interesting book because of the way that it takes place in so many different time periods. The way that the author switches from the present to the past is truely amazing.

Kindred is a book for people who like to read fictional books because of the magical way she transports from present to past. I like the way it is set up, but for someone who does not like make believe scenarios, they would not like it. Personally i didn't like the ending but it did cause a dramatic More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 20, 2007

James added it

Kindred was written by Octavia Butler. It's a story of Dana, who travels through time. Through her adventures, she loses her arm, and kills a man. She does more than she ever thought she could.

I thought it was interesting how Butler truly painted a picture through her description. I could see the Weylin house, I could envision it in my head because of her skilled description. I really liked the plot twists in the story. At the beginning of the story, I wasn't sure why Dana was going More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 03, 2008

Vince rated it:

Thought provoking, stimulating, and intriguing. These are just some words that come to mind when I think of the book Kindred, by Octavia E. Butler. Octavia E. Butler has won many awards including the Hugo award twice, and the Nebula Award. In the book Kindred, Octavia Butler uses fictional time travel to show how slavery was like in antebellum America, and how mistreated the African Americans were. The novel is about how a young interracial marriage in the 1900’s is accepted; unlike it would be More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 20, 2007

Jenn rated it:

The novel Kindred by Octavia E. Butler is a modern science-fiction story about a colored woman, Dana, living in the 1970's who travels back in time to the early 1800's. This story shows both older and modern struggles of human rights dealing with race, and skin color, and how Dana learns to over come and gain empathy for these struggles.

I found the plot line to be very creative and entrapping. The way that Butler tied both modern and 19th century times and race struggles together More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 20, 2007

Courtney rated it:

The book that i have recently just finished is Kindred by Octavia E. Butler. Octavia has written many other books including Parable of the Talents. In this book a young women of African American deseants is brought from her present day life back to the 1800's. The young women dana experiences being a slave of the time and she experiences the hardships her ansestors had to go through. Little does she know that her trips to the past have a reason, simply to save her family's fate.
The thing t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 20, 2007

Jamie rated it:

Thought provoking, stimulating, and intriguing. These are just some words that come to mind when I think of the book Kindred, by Octavia E. Butler. Octavia E. Butler is a well-known Arthur who has also published the books Wild Seed and Dawn. She has won many awards including the Hugo award twice, and the Nebula Award. In the book Kindred, Octavia Butler uses time travel to show how slavery was like in antebellum America, and how mistreated the African Americans were. The novel is about how More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 20, 2007

Drew rated it:

Kindred was written by Octavia E. Butler. Other books she has written include Dawn, Wild Seed, and Parable of the Sower. This novel revolves around the main character Dana and her travels back in time to the antebellum south to rescue her distant ancestor Rufus. The story shows the differences between her home time period, and the slavery stricken antebellum south.

First, This book kept me interested because it never really repeated any storylines. When she went back in time for examp More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 20, 2007

Nolan rated it:

The wonderful novel Kindred, by Octavia E. Butler, was a fantastic story. She has written other fantastic novels such as Wild Seed and Lilith's Blood. The story is about a women named Dana. She marries a man named Kevin. She starts to travel back in time to the Weyling Plantation in early to mid 1800's. She saves a boy named Rufus many times throughout the novel. She realizes that She keeps going back to the past when Rufus is in trouble. At the end of the novel, she kills Rufus when he tries to More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 22, 2007

El rated it:

This is about a 20-something black woman, Dana, in 1976 Los Angeles who is suddenly transported against her will to antebellum Maryland. She discovers she is being called to this particular time and place in order to save a young white plantation owner's son who will eventually grow up to father the daughter of Dana's ancestor. Each visit to the environment takes longer and she is expected to live as a slave, challenging Dana's beliefs, strengths, and personal safety.

Unlike other s More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 03, 2007

Stephany rated it:

As many of you know, Octavia Butler died recently. I have wanted to read one of her works for a long time, particularly after many of her interviews have been replayed after her death. Kindred is not one of Octavia Butler's most typical books, from my understanding. She often wrote about futuristic dystopian societies, vampires, and the like. This book involves time-travel. Whether or not that places the book within the science-fiction is still up for debate-- probably not for sci-fi purists.
More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 20, 2009

Cam rated it:

This book was so good I've had to edit my profile for my favourite books EVER!
That is especially impressive as I don't usually do science-fiction. Kindred would be best described as time-travel/historical-fiction. The central character Dana, is a modern dayish (1976) African American woman that spontaneously gets sent back in time to the antebellum South, to save the life of the Son of a white plantation owner.
This book was so terrifying, so horrendous it could turn the strongest s More...

6 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 12, 2008

Rhona rated it:

This is a great book! Because of it's Sci-Fi category, some people won't read this, but it shouldn't be missed. It is a story of a young black woman in 1976 being sucked back into her relative's tumultuous lives of 1815 when slavery was at its worst. Dana,a modern day person married to a white man, has to experience the horrors and reality of slavery if she is to survive and return to her own time. She is "summoned" whenever her very, very great grandfather's life is in danger, and More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jan 19, 2008

Pam rated it:

What I learned from this book? That we can accommodate ourselves to just about anything -- abusive relationships, jobs we hate, systems that tyrannize the weak.

I appreciate that Dana wants to change things -- like teaching Carrie and Nigel to read -- but on the other hand I thought it was foolhardy to put them in danger. Dana is a bit too full of herself and superior at times -- also understandable -- but I wonder if she would have put herself out like that if she didn't know th More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 19, 2012

Cateyesmd rated it:

I read this book over a 2-day period while on vacation and was drawn in from the very beginning. I'm not a sci-fi reader, but this was extremely good without the "science". I thought it was very cleaver to basically end the book where it started off. The Reader's Guide (Critical Essay) was very helpful in understanding the mindset of the Author and gives great insight into the actual time period that the main character time-traveled to. I would recommend this book to anyone who enj More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 20, 2011

Sue rated it:

This is a fabulous book about a woman who time travels to the 1800's and experiences life on a plantation--as a black woman. Her experiences will make you think. Great book!

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 31, 2011

Marc added it

There weren't many times that I could put this book down. It offered me so many new ideas and fresh perspectives to think of regarding slavery and modern responses to it. Published in 1979, the story is written from the point of view of Dana, a 26 black woman living in 1976. She is "called" back in time to the early nineteen hundreds Maryland by Rufus, the son of a slaveowning plantation farmer, whenever he is in mortal danger. This happens a half dozen times throughout Rufus's life, More...

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