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3.0 out of 5 stars
Not Butler's Best, Nov 18 2003
I was so enthralled by "Dawn" and the subsequent books in that trilogy that I set out to read everything I could by Butler. Overall I find her novels to be exceptional sci-fi with some very thought provoking anthropology and history thrown into the mix. I was disappointed in Clay's Ark, and I think it was primarily because, compared to Butler's other novels, it was the leanest. While she comments on the bleak direction the future of the U.S. is headed in, this tale did not stay with me or terrify me the way the "Parable" books did. I didn't feel as attached to these characters as I did to their parallel counterparts in the Patternmaster. It's an interesting story, but not Butler at her best. If you're as obsesseive as I am about my favorite authors, read it anyway! If you're new to Butler, start with Parable of the Sower or Dawn.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
A great book, unless compared with Butler's others, Jun 6 2003
Compared to most other SF novels, Clay's Ark could be considered a great book. However, compared to other books by Butler, it falls short. Not because of craft. The book's pacing and plotting are near perfect; there are no wasted words. But while, it is extremely readable, the book suffers in it's characterisations. Here is where my initial remark comes into play. Compared to most SF, characters like Blake are extremely interesting, but compared to the characters Butler creates in her other Patternist novels 'Wild Seed' and 'Mind of my mind'. The moral dilemmas facing the main characters are not as balanced as in Butler's other work. The survival instinct of the alien virus is so strong, that the characters are partially excused for their actions. In addition, the story builds magnificently, but wraps up abruptly. Bottom line -- if you have never read an Octavia Butler novel start with 'Wild Seed' or 'Kindred', but if you are already a fan, there is enough in this book to make it enjoyable.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Change happens, Aug 21 2002
The last novel in her Patternist series to be published, it shares a lot more in common with her Xenogenesis trilogy in tone and subject material. Of the Patternist novels that I have read, that group seems more oriented towards questions of power and dominance--basically, who is stronger, and what are the responsibilities of that role. The series actually begins with Wild Seed, which explains the character of Doro, who then sees a success in his human breeding program in Mind of My Mind. Clay's Ark is next in the timeline, but it only refers obliquely to the existence of a psionic pattern (late in the novel, it explains the macguffin for the faster than light drive used by the spaceship that returns to Earth), but it mainly concerns the alien organism that creates the Clayarks. The next book, Patternmaster, shows these two groups--the Patternists and the Clayarks--millennia later, both almost unrecognizable as human.It is this evolution away from humanity that becomes the main theme of Xenogenesis, but it is in the forefront of Clay's Ark. The difference, however, is that this evolution is almost entirely negative here, whereas in Xenogenesis there's an ambiguity to it that makes it much more complex than just a good/bad issue. Change happens (to quote Butler's more recent work). Why is it negative here in Clay's Ark? Because of the mindlessness of the extraterrestrial interaction. As humans, thinking and feeling humans, we see ourselves as ratiocentric--that is, we value the power of logic and rational thought and discount the so-called "animal" urges of instinct and biological compulsion. This dichotomy makes up the conflict between the two groups in Patternmaster: the Patternists are pure thought, ruled by the power of the mind, whereas the Clayarks are all biological urges, roaming free, living life in the here and now. The human race has bifurcated, and although a "mute" semblance remains, humans are portrayed as beings where both mind and body are weak and dull. In Xenogenesis, Butler changes this, and the organism that is entirely mutable is portrayed as the strongest. Because it contains a lot of adventure--there's kidnapping and close escapes and gunfire and more violence than a Fox Saturday night-- Clay's Ark hides a lot of this underlying thought. Only the struggle that Eli continues to endure breaks this action-orientation; the rest of the characters are driven either by the disease or their human nature to respond to the events. While not as hopeful or thoughtful as her later work, I liked this one tremendously.
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