Back in print after five years, this is award-winning Octavia Butler's thrilling paternist novel about a reincarnate and a healer who travel together through exotic lands and centuries of time. Advertising in Locus, Science Fiction Chronicle and Amazing. Reissue.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Wild Seed: Patternist Series, Book 4 (The Patternist Series)
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About the Author
Octavia E. Butler was the first black woman to come to international prominence as a science fiction writer. Incorporating powerful, spare language and rich, well-developed characters, her work tackled race, gender, religion, poverty, power, politics, and science in a way that touched readers of all backgrounds. Butler was a towering figure in life and in her art and the world noticed; highly acclaimed by reviewers, she received numerous awards, including a MacArthur "genius" grant, both the Hugo and Nebula awards, the Langston Hughes Medal, as well as a PEN Lifetime Achievement award.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
By stephanie314
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This is a thoroughly enjoyable stand-alone novel with well-developed characters and a frightening premise: two immortals with roots in Africa go to America to build communities of people with superhuman powers. The more manipulative of the immortals is named Doro, and his immortality is based on death and destruction (he must possess and kill the bodies of others in order to sustain his deathless life). The other immortal, Anyanwu, is diametrically opposed to this kind of behavior, as her powers are based on an innate understanding of life (she is able to understand and manipulate each of her tissues and bacteria living within her body, and so she is able to halt aging and even shape change). Anyanwu is thus also able to sustain the lives of others since she is so in-tune with biological organisms that she can create cures for those without her special abilities. Thus, she bases her life in raising tribes of moral people around her, who she can help and protect, while Doro raises people as if they are livestock, to feed his hunger for the souls of others. Yet, Doro and Anyanwu do have one irresistible bond: they both know that their loved ones will inevitably die, but they will be doomed to live forever. Wild Seed is therefore essentially a character study of the relationship between these two very strange, yet strangely familiar, characters who hate and love each other at the same time for very good reasons.
This was the first Octavia Butler book I ever read. Now that I have read several of her other novels, I can easily say that this one is my favorite so far, but some of her others come close. If you enjoy this book, read her Lilith's Brood series; it is similarly based on genetics and biology as a background to incredible happenings.
Butler certainly rivals the likes of Orson Scott Card and others in creating believable, sympathetic, flawed characters; highly recommended.
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Good book; several layers of reference, including gender dynamics, the Old Testament, and even a touch of the conflict between vampires and werewolves.
This particular edition has an irritating frequency of editorial errors (duplicated lines, wrong words, wrong letters), which I found distracting.
By DivaMagnus
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Wild Seed was the first of her books read. After reading WS I was HOOKED. I ran out and bought the Xenogenesis series. The follow ups to WS and the only Parable book they had. I also found Kindred on EBay and bought that one as well.
This was one of the best Sci-Fi books I've ever read. It left me wanting more.
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4.7 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Downright Laughable
One can not deny that Octavia Butler has a gift for writing. But she also seems to have a voyeuristic and rather prudish attitude towards sex, which turned a good premise to a... Read more
Published on May 11 2004 by lucky_kari
5.0 out of 5 stars
Loved it, Loved it, Loved it!!!
This is probably one of my favorite books of all time! I've re-read it at least 3 times now and everytime that I do, I just get lost in the world that Octavia Butler created. Read more
Published on Jan 30 2004 by smayo
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the Greatest SF Novels Ever Written
Wild Seed is nothing short of outstanding. I've read it several times over the past decade, and find it more compelling each time. Read more
Published on Nov 18 2003 by Michael Thomas
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantasy at its best...
It is always a delight, when reading science fiction, to come across a writer who can actually WRITE. Read more
Published on Nov 17 2003 by JR Pinto
5.0 out of 5 stars
...wow.
This is something I don't say often...but I loved this book. Unabashedly loved it. There's nothing I didn't like about it. The writing was amazing. Read more
Published on Aug 20 2003
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well written, but still something lacking
This is a book that I really wanted to like. The premise is interesting and the characters have real depth. Read more
Published on Aug 3 2003 by Gary Riley
5.0 out of 5 stars
Loved it!
This is the first Octavia Butler book I read and I loved it. Its a very different sort of sci-fi/fantasy and incredibly original. Read more
Published on July 12 2003 by Eric P. Medlock
5.0 out of 5 stars
OB at her best!!!
This is a great introduction to the world of Octavia Butler. It you are a sci-fi fan, you don't want to miss this one.
Published on July 8 2003 by Pamela
4.0 out of 5 stars
Elegant, insightful
A character-driven power struggle between a shapechanging woman and an immortal man who transfers from body to body. Read more
Published on Jun 3 2003 by Peter Tupper
5.0 out of 5 stars
Butler's Storytelling is Second to None
Very few African Americans write science fiction. Fewer still are African American women. Octavia Butler knows how to write great science fiction, but more importantly, she knows... Read more
Published on May 2 2003 by A. Wolverton
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