Bloody vampires as a new race of humans, economic and climate disaster during the societal collapse of 2024, centipede-like aliens ruling over the human race. Octavia E. Butler has written vast amounts of speculative and science fiction worlds. Only death could stop her strangely prophetic stories from being written.
The Woman, The Myth, The Legend
Octavia E. Butler was born in Pasadena, CA to Laurice and Octavia M. Butler. Her father died early on in her childhood, and she was brought up solely by the women in her life: her mother and grandmother. After watching the B-rated science fiction movie Devil Girl from Mars (1954), Butler realized she could get paid for writing stories better than what she had watched. From there, her stories Kindred (1979) and Wild Seed (1980) sprouted her career in science fiction writing.
This amazing woman was a pioneer for Black speculative fiction. During an interview with the New York Times in 2000, when asked why she put Black women at the center of her work, Butler stated: “I wrote myself in, since I’m me and I’m here and I’m writing. I can write my own stories and I can write myself in.”
Butler led the way to many other African American women writing not only science fiction but other genre fiction as well. In letters between her and one of her closest friends, Toni Cade Bambara, they often touched on their works and even critiqued them. At one point, they both published a book in the same year, and worked on an anthology together one year later. They remained close up until Bambara’s death in 1995, with Butler surviving her for only 10 more years. Both of their stories, novels, and more live on.
Science Fiction, Gore, and More
Butler’s first published novel, Patternmaster (1976), was set in a dystopian world where humans are divided into “patternists,” their animalistic enemies the “clayarks,” and the enslaved Mutes. Patternmaster was one of Butler’s many science fiction novels, but one of her first successes.
One of my favorite short stories of Butler’s is “Bloodchild.” The story combines body horror, a future where human are used as incubators, the complicated idea of parasites, and a little bit of gore. When I first read “Bloodchild” in my Women’s Literature class, I was enthralled by the storytelling and how real it felt. Butler depicts the Tlic birth so eerily but so very realistically, and the way she describes the horrors her protagonist witnesses makes you want to know more no matter how terrified you feel. Ms. Butler was way ahead of her time writing a story about the horrors of pregnancy that, to me, gives off the same vibes as The Handmaid’s Tale.
Her most well-known work is the Parable of the Sower (1993), the first book in the Earthseed series. Both of these books re-entered the New York Times Bestseller list in 2020, nearly 30 years after their initial release. So, what got this series to resurge? Well, it’s set in the late 2020s, and follows society slowly failing from climate change and economic ruin… Sound familiar?
I wish Butler could’ve lived long enough to see her book prophesize the future. How did her idea come to be? Would she be upset by the turn of events after her death?
The Future… of your reading list
If you’re brave enough, you should check out a couple of her stories. Her works are incredibly beautiful, but also contain horrors of the body, the mind, and society. Fledging (2005), her last published novel before her death, has some interesting views that I’d love to see others’ opinions on. If you want to check out her work, her site has an archived collection of her entire body of work and where to find them.
This Women’s History Month, Butler and her legacy continue to inspire me and many other science/speculative fiction readers almost 20 years after her death. Her prophetic voice lives on in our minds with each of her books. As much as I love Butler’s writing, though, I hope it won’t continue to be as prophetic as some her other works. I guess we’ll see!