Customer Reviews

Seed to Harvest

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I found this title while browsing around Amazon's New in Fiction January list, and was quite excited about the prospect of a new Butler book. Unfortunately, it is a compilation of books I've already read...bummer! I echo the comment left before me -- if you're new to Butler, great series to read.

Compilation includes the following novels: Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, and Patternmaster.

I was extremely excited to learn that Octavia Butler had written a final book before her departure, and as she was my favorite author I rushed out to get this last work. Unfortunately, its a trick because its only a compilation of her pre-existing work and contains NO NEW MATERIAL! So, unless you're new to Butler, don't bother picking this one up. If you are new to Butler, its an excellent read and saves room on the bookshelf!

Think Sherri Tepper at her height (not the preachiness she's descended to). Think Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Think the moral dilemna's and characterization of Robin Hobb. When you think of these things you're close to understanding this series by Octavia Butler. Being a black woman I was initially intrigued by the idea of afro-centric science fiction. But this is soooo much more than that. Octavia Butler is one of the most talented sci fi writers I've read in god knows how long. Her characters may be racially African-American (and sometimes just African, and usually a mix of a lot of different races) but this book has nothing really to do with that. It does lightly explore racial inequalities, but focuses more on social inequalities, the plight of the impoverished. Even better than that the REAL focus of the book is the science fiction. It's not just a social commentary with a touch of the extraordinary. It's true hard core sci/fi fantasy, and it is extraordinary.
The book follows a race of mentally gifted individuals of all ethnicities forward in time from the pre-slavery era to around 2225. These individuals are breed like cattle to be the companions, family, science project and ultimately FOOD of the scariest super villian you ever want to read about....Doro. Doro is a superbeing, a soul-vampire. He is immortal in that he jumps bodies but not like the rather kindly Lestat in Anne Rices series. He has to jump bodies, it's how he feeds. He likes it. And the more mentally talented the person is the better the food tastes to him. He also has the ability of tracking a person that he's met anywhere, across continents and across time. You cant escape him, and the last thing you want to do is kill him. That would only precipitate him jumping into YOUR body. Doro, collects mentally gifted individuals and breeds them together for his own amusement and as a source of food. I don't want to tell you much more becuase it would ruin the surprise. Suffice it to say that because of his tampering he breeds a race of humans that become a bit much to handle in later years.
The description I've just given you is pretty clinical. THe great thing about this book is that Octavia's superb writing allows you to live in these peoples lives, experience their powers and their terrible limitations. She puts the slave collar on your own neck and lets the blisters rise on your own skin. You can see, feel and taste their world.
I strongly reccomend this book to anyone who likes the writers I listed in the first paragraph. My advice to you is to be mentally ready...you're about to go on a real rollor coaster ride.

I can say without hesitation that this is one of the best hard sci-fi series that I have ever read. The concepts are breathtakingly ambitious - the birth of two new species of humans burst over 1,000 years - with wonderfully complex and realistic characters. I have read each of these novels separately several times, with great enjoyment, but this is the first time I have read them in sequence. The quartet is enthralling and, as with the best sci-fi, believable because scientifically plausible.

The first novel is perhaps my favorite. Doro, a seemingly immortal vampire-like mutant who is attempting to breed a race like himself, senses another powerful mutant (Anyanwu). Her follows her "scent" and compels her to accompany him, for breeding purposes. The result is a battle of wills like none that I have ever encountered in fiction: Doro is a cold and implacable killer, but Anyanwu is a healer that respects life. Over the course of over 300 years, they fight, through the lives of Doro's people, her escape and recapture, to a compromise. It is as exquisite as it is bizarre, full of historical imagery and unusual concepts.

In the second novel, Doro in a sense achieves his goal, but the result is not at all what he expected. The surviving mutants exhibit a range of powerful abilities, growing from the destructive side effects of Doro's many semi-failed experiments. There is a new battle of wills, as a new human species emerges. There is also the emergence of a new kind of social organization, a dependency between the two human species. Again, fascinating ideas and characters that evolve with great realism in fantastic situations. It takes place more of less in the present.

Taking place somewhere in the near future, the third novel introduces something unexpected, from space. Once again, a new species of symbionts is born, radically at odds with the rest of humanity. While I felt that this novel was far weaker, it is crucial to the series and full of surprises.

The final novel pulls it all together. Hundreds of years in the future, the old societal order of man has entirely crumbled, much of it literally into dust. As new abilities enabled some to gain socio-political power, the old mechanized culture has essentially vanished. There are three species of human: two are integrated and mutually dependent, the third represents an almost alien enemies, which are dangerously contagious and super-humanly agile. They exist is an unstable equilibrium. The locus of the plot is a struggle for power in one of the groups, whose social organization and super-abilities are slowly revealed. A new leader must take over, but the competitors - full brothers - could not be more different: one is without question the more powerful, the other more subtle and with a different mix of abilities. The climax, during an extremely dangerous trek with war brought by the other species, is wonderfully frightening. Characters are at the heart of this novel, though human potential is also a theme. It is truly wonderful and fascinating.

Warmly recommended. Re-reading these together is a rare treat, in which the reader is transported to an unimaginable future and danger and possibility. It is unlike anything I have ever read.

"Wild Seed" (1980) is one of two books which established Octavia Butler as a first-rank SF writer (the other is "Kindred", published about the same time). The plot is simple enough. One of the major characters, Doro, is a wild talent. When his body dies, he eats the spirit of someone nearby and takes over his body. He doesn't even have to wait for death - he can make the transfer any time he chooses, and the old body immediately dies. Over the years he's found that some kills are more satisfying than others, and he's since then been attempting to breed a better race of food. 3,700 years later, he has little colonies of his people scattered all over the world. The best of them are wild talents of one type or another, the worst are dangerous psychotics. Doro breeds and weeds, and looks after his people.

The "Wild Seed" of the title is Anyanwu, a healer and shape changer who has watched over her children and descendants for 300 years. When Doro finds her, he induces/seduces/forces her into his breeding program. The book is the story of the first 150 years of their relationship. It's not easy on either of them, and neither of them will ever be quite the same.

With this book, Butler created two of the most interesting and fully conceived characters of her career. Unlike so many other of her later books, Butler doesn't grind any axes nor attempt any social commentary. It's the story of two people, both of whom are effectively immortal and for the first time are attempting to deal with someone else who isn't ephemeral. It asks interesting questions about the nature of parenthood, love, authority and responsibilities without ever going for simplistic or shallow answers. Ultimately they both pay a price for finding the other, and neither emerges unscathed.

Strongly recommended. And yes, it's still in print nearly 30 years later.

Semi-trivia comment: if you've read "Mind of My Mind", one of Butler's earlier novels, the Emma Anyanwu mentioned near the end is the same Anyanwu. She was there as backstory to Doro's more prominent role in "Mind", and that backstory eventually nagged at Butler enough that she wrote "Wild Seed." This isn't to say you should go get "Mind of My Mind", which was at best a mediocre novel. But if you're interested, "Wild Seed, "Mind of My Mind", "Patternmaster" and "Clay's Ark" are now available in this omnibus edition "Seed To Harvest." Given that "Clay's Ark" is also a fine novel, it's worth spending the couple of extra bucks and buying the omnibus. Just don't expect much from "Patternmaster" or "Mind of My Mind." To my point of view, one should read "Seed" and "Ark" and then pretty much ignore the other two.

Ive always loved this author and have been hunting for her in used book stores, shes hard to find in my local library. But all of her series are worth reading and this is no exception. It's very convenient to have the several books in one.

Octavia was one of the greatest authors of our generation. If you haven't read these novels separate then you have to do yourself a favor and read them now. I've meet this author and she was joy to speak with. She had an insight that is very rare in today's authors. I'm happy that the publishers have decided to keep her words alive with this new edition of some of her work. And to Octavia....I will always miss you. May your books never go out of print and give you the immortality that you so eloquently wrote about.

I'd heard of Octavia Butler for years but somehow never read any of her books. Finally, a friend highly recommended this collection as a good intro to her work so I bought it for myself for Xmas.

I like that it is a LONG book, and therefore a good read - I'm a fast reader and most SF books are just too short for my taste.

She's an excellent writer and her characters are well-drawn and interesting. I recommend this to people who are "Butler-newbies" like me, who want to sample her work.

This book is well written. It's a great book by a great and wonderful author. It's a good book and I encourage any fan to get it.

Great way to keep all "Pattermaster" series in one book compilation. An essential travel item.