Rating: 
Summary: Fantasy at its best...
Review: It is always a delight, when reading science fiction, to come across a writer who can actually WRITE. As soon as you begin Wild Seed, you know that you are in the hands of someone who knows what she is doing. I was turned onto Octavia Butler by reading Orson Scott Card - who cites her in his book on Writing Science Fiction. The book is, in the best sense, literary. The story reads like a version of the X-Men set in the past. Imagine Dr. X forced to marry Magneto. Doro and Anyanwu are both immortals. Anyanwu can die, but she goes on living indefinitely. Doro dies quite frequently - merely inhabiting a new body the moment he does. Therefore Doro cannot die. He finds the shape-shifting woman Anyanwu in Africa in the seventeenth century and brings her to one of his "seed villages" in America. There, he has gathered other mutants with special abilities for the purposes of breeding them in the hope that he may, one day, produce another mortal like himself. Butler avoids many of the clichés which science fiction and fantasy are prone to. The resultant novel is a thoroughly enjoyable read with memorable characters. Things are not resolved by a tidy little shoot-out at the end. My problem with the mass-market paperback is that, in several places, there are glaring errors: lines are repeated, etc. Wild Seed deserves a better edition.
Rating:
Summary: ...wow.
Review: 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. That wonderful type of writing that disappears as you read it and leaves nothing but the picture inside the words. The two main characters -- Doro and Anyanwu -- were fully realized and unbelievably sympathetic. I really cared about them. Few authors can manage it to the extent Butler has. This was the first book I've ever read by her, but it won't be the last. If she had only written this one book, I could easily call her one of my favorite writers.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written, but still something lacking
Review: This is a book that I really wanted to like. The premise is interesting and the characters have real depth. I blasted through the book in two days, with most of the reading on the second day, so I have to admit that the book was captivating. I found the ending, however, unsatisfying. The final resolution between the main characters seemed forced and abrupt to me. In spite of my misgivings, I think this book is worth reading because it is well written and I think others would probably enjoy it more than I did, particularly if character driven stories are more to your liking.
Rating:
Summary: Loved it!
Review: 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. If your looking for something fresh and original, then you could do far worse then this book.
Rating:
Summary: OB at her best!!!
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Elegant, insightful
Review: A character-driven power struggle between a shapechanging woman and an immortal man who transfers from body to body. Most SF writers would have taken this premise and concluded it with Anyanwu defeating Doro. However, Butler's stories are about living when you aren't master of your own fate. Instead of good triumphing over evil, there is a compromise between two conflicting principles. As strange as Doro and Anyanwu are, they're both essentially human, and feel the need for human companionship. Anyanwu could live out her life with the chimps or the dolphins, but she chooses to remain in human form and start a family, knowing that Doro will find her eventually. Doro wants to create a family too, but his immortality is frustrating this, and slowly turning him into a psychopath. Just how their relationship ultimately settles is the main point of this book, and Butler lays out their interaction with spare, elegant prose.
Rating:
Summary: Humbled
Review: If you want to be humbled by writing talent, buy this book. Octavia Butler manages to be succinct and brilliant. She is a master at exposition--it's so subtle, so interwoven, that you barely realize its there. I loved the story and gobbled it all up in one sitting on an airplane. Truly impressed.
Rating:
Summary: A must have
Review: I read, and enjoyed, the _Lilith's Brood_ series by Butler. However, I found it rather depressing and oppressive. _Wild Seed_ is refreshing in comparison. She maintains her trademark for startling and unique storylines as well as characters that can often be difficult to like (a trait I admire), but this time we are lead to a comforting level of acceptance as opposed to a bleak one. Butler creates an alien world within our own, with real moral complexities that make this read extremely satisfying. This book ought to be on every thinking persons reading list.
Rating:
Summary: Great book until the end
Review: Ingenious book really well written and gripping, but the ending is disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: What a great novel. Butler not only tells an interesting story. But she also explores human relationships. In my opinion, the core of the novel is about the conflict between male and female, the difference between the two, and in the end shows how the two must learn to live together. Beyond that, slavery, cloning, and a myriad of other ideals are touched on in this novel. I wholeheartidly reccomend this novel to anyone who enjoys reading. I am not a science fiction fan myself, but I really enjoyed this novel. It really isn't science fiction in the true sense of the word.
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