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Wild Seed

Wild Seed

List Price: $6.99
Your Price: $6.29
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the most disturbing, yet compelling S/F books ever.
Review: Octavia Butler not only makes you think about concepts that other science fiction writers ignore, she makes you feel deeply about them as well. At some level, all the aliens and mutants that inhabit her books are parts of each of us, either parts that frighten us so much that we ignore them, or parts that are so far in the future of our development that we can't yet quite understand them. Readers who know and love Ursula LeGuinn should move on to Butler, who continues the journey LeGuinn began for science fiction, and like all great S/F writers, has a voice unmistakebly her own.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A book of strugle between immortals, without swordsplay!
Review: The main characters of this book are two immortals. This first is a man who was a part of a ancient tribe of telepathic humans. He has the ability to travel out of his body and into the person closest to him. This kills his old body, and destroys the mind of the body he travels into. The second is a woman born with complete control of her body at a cellular level. They meet and become rivals as he tries to breed humanity back to the level of his long dead people. The story starts several hundred years ago in Africa, and ends in the US around 1900

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: the sheer power of imagination
Review: This is the first Octavia Butler book I read, recommended by a friend who is a fan of hers. I was not disappointed. Her "speculative fiction" contains ideas which are only a few degrees removed from our current reality. At the rate humanity is evolving, there may come a time in the future when psychic gifts, immortality, supernatural healing abilities and astral travel are innate characteristics, as opposed to legend or the rare, often disputed examples that exist today.

In this story, Doro and Anyanwu, two powerful beings, cross paths. The core story of Wildseed is the developing and deepening relationship between these two beings, and their relationships to lesser evolved, but still powerful, beings like them. Doro "farms" these poweful beings with rare gifts; he engineers them. Anyanwu just is; she is "wildseed," and occasionally out of Doro's control. Although Anyanwu is female and Doro male, their power, sensitivity, passion, and determination transcend; they are portraits of the most powerful, the most full, that a human spirit can be. Seen as metaphors for human spiritual development, Anyanwu and Doro are the fantasies many of us carry in ourselves, the fantasy of ultimate power, a power of Creation that borders on the divine.

Butler's writing is strong, supple and gorgeous. She's the type of writer than can turn a phrase so beautifully, that you'll read it over several times, letting her insight and creativity sink in. Butler's imagination is wide open. Only a mind totally open could dream up characters such as these.

Although I haven't read any other Butler books, I did buy "Earthseed" to read next. Butler's writing is a gift, a magnificent talent that cuts to the heart of the matter.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Love and Hatred Immortal
Review: Here we have an enthralling epic of the supernatural, built around concepts from African mythology. Two immortals, one the quintessential female and the other the quintessential male, are engaged in a centuries-long struggle of love and hatred as they each try to build their own idea of a perfect world among their mortal relations. The goddess figure, Anyanwu, is a stunning character and is Butler's greatest creation - an incredibly complex personage with a highly complicated relationship with her counterpart, the violent and stubborn god figure Doro. Across centuries and continents, from slave-hunting days in Africa to the plantations of the Civil War-era South and beyond, Doro tries ceaselessly to bring Anyanwu's powers under his control in order to perfect his planned race of superbeings, but finds that he has finally met his match. Anyanwu first loves then loathes this immortal counterpart as he tries to use her, but as the only two immortals on Earth, they must be together for eternity. This outstandingly structured tale by Butler is highly recommended for all who wish to expand their horizons. [~doomsdayer520~]

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: This nover first came to my attention via a book by Orson Scott Card on how to write fiction. Mr. Card drew a handful of worthy examples of style from this book, and rightly so. Although the first chapter is by far the best on many levels, the rest of the story is fascinating and gripping. A work of speculative fiction, "Wild Seed" contains elements of history, anthropology, biology and geography combined with the genres of fantasy and science fiction. A century from now this book should be well enshrined asa classic of North American literature.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This book is awesome
Review: I was recommended to this book by orson scott card and it is beutiful. It is one of my favorite works of science fiction

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Different ways to be a mutant
Review: 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.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Now a O. Butler fan
Review: 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.

Rating: 5 stars
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.


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