If you’re a fan of sci-fi or speculative fiction, Octavia Butler is one author you should have in your to-be-read (TBR) pile. What better book to bring with you to bed than one that blows your imagination while also tackling important issues like race, sexuality, gender, and tribalism.
What makes Octavia Butler even more impressive is that she’s managed to soar in a genre that white men tend to dominate. In addition to 15 novels, she has short story collections under her belt, and won two Hugo and two Nebula awards. Although she passed away due to a stroke back in 2006, whatever she has left us are surely must-reads in this genre.
Not only has she crafted believable, thought-provoking stories, she also left behind some wise advice in her short story collection called Bloodchild and Other Stories. For example, in it, she tells us that “habit is more dependable” than inspiration, saying that it’s habit that will lead you to finish and refine your writing. Good advice for any aspiring authors, wouldn’t you say?
13 Octavia Butler Books to Add to Your Collection
If you haven’t tried reading Octavia Butler, we recommend trying out the first books in each series, or pick up a standalone book from this list.
The Parable Series
Here are the first two books in Butler’s The Parable series.
Book 1: Parable of the Sower
One of Butler’s most popular works, this dystopian novel is set in the 2020s, where Lauren lives with her family in the Los Angeles outskirts. The world has been almost completely destroyed, but they live in relative safety, until their home also ends up destoryed and Lauren’s family is killed. She then needs to lead the survivors to safety.
Book 2: Parable of the Talents
In this next book, we take a look at Lauren’s journals, as well as see the world thorugh the eyes of her daughter Asha. Now the nation is falling under hyper-Christian fanatics. But what if, instead of “making America Great Again,” they end up struggling with survival and slavery?
The Patternist Series
Check out four books from The Patternist series.
Book 1: Wild Seed
Doro and Anyanwu are two immortals who, during the 17th and 18th centuries, steal people’s bodies. They each have different powers—Doro has created a utopian society, complete with selective breeding to produce perfect individuals, while Anyanwu the shapeshifter has healing powers—and need to learn how to survive together.
Book 2: Mind of My Mind
More than one century later, Mary is one of the closest examples of perfection in the selective breeding project. As she grows up, she comes to know about her psychic powers. But what happens if she refuses to cooperate with her father’s plans?
Book 3: Clay’s Ark
In this book, we look at the same world but from the perspective of Blake Maslin and his two daughters, kidnapped by humans infected with a virus. Blake and his daughters have the choice of accepting their fate or attempting a close-to-impossible escape.
Book 4: Patternmaster
This perfect climax to the series brings two warring groups of characters from the first books in the ultimate power struggle. The Patternists are several generations down from Doro’s experiments, and their telepathy can heal or destroy using only the power of their minds. The other group is the Clayarks, mutants who struggle against the Patternists for freedom, survival, and ultimately control.
Xenogenesis Trilogy
Here are 3 books from the Xenogenesis trilogy.
Book 1: Dawn
In the first book of this trilogy, Lilith Iyapo wakes up two hundred and fifty years after a nuclear war destroys planet earth, among the Oankali alien race. They had apparently saved the human survivors, and now they assign Lilith with the task of leading the survivors back to the healed earth.
Book 2: Adulthood Rites
Now we follow Akin, Lilith’s son who is among a group of human-alien hybrids, created with the goal of purging the self-destructive aspects of humanity. He’s touted as the future hope of the human race. But what if Akin still has to reconcile his own identity before fulfilling everyone else’s goals for him?
Book 3: Imago
By Book 3, interspecies breeding has become the new norm, so Jodahs isn’t anything unusual—until he comes of age and finds himself morphing into an ooloi, or a sexless alien subspecies. All eyes are now on him, and he has the power to save the rest of humanity, or complete its destruction.
Standalone Books
The following Octavia Butler books are standalone novels, not part of a series.
Kindred
This literary masterpiece is considered Butler’s most well-known novel. Dana is a young black woman living in Los Angeles in the late 1970s, when she’s strangely thrown to Maryland during the Civil War years. Each time Dana travels back in time, she stays longer, threatening her future life.
Bloodchild and Other Stories
This short story collection includes the award-winning story “Bloodchild,” set on Tlic, a distant planet where humans are raised to host the eggs of the creature called Tlic. The collection also includes the stories “Speech Sounds” and “The Meaning and the Morning of the Night.”
Fledgling
In this novel, Butler explores issues of sexuality and race through the strange story of a 10-year-old who suffers from amnesia and discovers that she’s actually 53 years old and a vampire! She needs to fight for her memories to save herself and the people she loves.
Unexpected Stories
This posthumously-published collection contains two stories that Butler wrote during the 1970s. The first is “A Necessary Being,” a dystopian set in a world where they determine leaders biologically. The other is “Childfinder,” about a black woman during the 1970s who tries to imagine what the human race will look like in the future.
Reading Octavia Butler Books
Octavia Butler books aren’t really what you would call an easy read, but if you’re looking for thought-provoking pieces full of imaginative settings and characters, they are a must-read! Even if you’ve not tried reading sci fi or speculative fiction before, we believe she just might be able to make you fall in love with the genre.
If you know someone who enjoys sci-fi or dystopians, we also highly recommend you to gift them one of these books or series. They will surely thank you for it!
Did you find this post helpful? Let us know in the comments below!
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Yen Cabag is the Blog Writer of TCK Publishing. She is also a homeschooling mom, family coach, and speaker for the Charlotte Mason method, an educational philosophy that places great emphasis on classic literature and the masterpieces in art and music. She has also written several books, both fiction and nonfiction. Her passion is to see the next generation of children become lovers of reading and learning in the midst of short attention spans.
