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Octavia E. Butler

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2017 Read Harder Challenge

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What Members Thought

Jun 06, 2016 Mary rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: format-audio, summer-bingo-2016

Summer 2016 Bingo - a slave narrative.

I first heard about this book on Bookriot's Get Booked podcast - time travel/sci-fi, slave narrative and an early book from Octavia E. Butler. I put it on my to-read list and was happy to find "A slave narrative" on my bingo card this year. The book did not disappoint. Butler crafted a great story; I love how she connected the two time periods (and I get why the connection had to be so violent, but I wish it hadn't had to be) and brought humanity into each ...more

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Apr 05, 2018 Adjrun rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, fantasy-and-sci-fi

Brilliant and brutal and heartbreaking and complex.

It’s not really science fiction - maybe there was nothing else to call it when it was published in 1979. It uses time travel to contrast a black woman from the 1970s with her ancestors in the South in 1815.

It’s astoundingly modern for being 40 years old. It asks questions about power and race and gender and privilege. And key to it’s themes are that everyone - both in the past and today - bear the scars and damage from America’s past slavery.

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Apr 19, 2017 Roman Colombo rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Incredible

How do you even process something this powerful? The story is amazing itself, but Butler's characters are so intensely complex that the novel it is agonizing in the best way. The novel tears and rebuilds hope within moments.

The narrator of the Audio, Kim Staunton, was wonderful. She perfectly voiced Butler's writing. This was also my first whisper sync experience, which was actually pretty cool. ...more

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Jan 04, 2018 Emily rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy-sci-fi, classics

I'm not sure how I missed reading this one before, but I am so glad I picked it up now. It was brutal, but also so effective in illustrating the hold that the past can have on us through the lens of time travel fiction. A must read. ...more

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