Category Sci-Fi Book Reviews

Wild Seed by Octavia Butler

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It’s Black History Month, and so I have just started reading Mind of My Mind, the 2nd book in Octavia Butler’s Patternist series (4 books). But dipping back in after purchasing it on my Kindle (I had read the sample earlier, the publishers had made the smart choice of offering almost a quarter for the book for free, so I was re-reading at first) brought back the memories of the 1st book of the series, Wild Seed.

That book was unlike anything I’d read, truly unique and it introduced me to Butler’s singular voice. I’m not sure I’ve read Parable of the Sower, her more famous work, I’ll have to go back and check… but Wild Seed was intense and arresting.

How appropriate for Black History Month, because the premise of the story is about subjugation and is a speculative projection of what true enslavement would look like. What if your very mind could be enslaved? What if harm to those you love could trap you to a malevolent, sinister will?

The main villain, Doro, can consume the mind and take over the body of anyone. And the initial protagonist, also immortal in a way, can shift her body into any shape. What follows is an intensely dark, cruel, and disturbing unfolding of events, plumbing the depths of violence starting from the time of slave trading in Africa.

The epic, intergenerational story is relieved from time to time by human moments of tenderness and compassion in the face of horrific situations, but on the whole it’s a melancholy and utterly engrossing read. Truly a one of a kind achievement.

In this time of reflection, by negative and opposite example, it shows that in reality, enslavement never truly meant ownership of another person, because at the core, the person’s mind was free. When even that freedom is taken away, what could result is absolutely chilling.

5 Helmets out of 5

Forward The Foundation by Isaac Asimov

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Not great. This has somewhat interesting plot lines for the first 2 thirds of the book, concerning Raych, but it really really peters out at the end, in the manner of a tired, out of touch old man. I mean both Hari Seldon and Asimov himself. The last third dotes on uncomfortable descriptions of Hari’s blond, beautiful, attractive granddaughter who helps Hari tie up a few loose ends in a rote, boring way.

Tarnishes the series a bit for me honestly. He can really be pompous and arrogant, Asimov, in his ideas that smart people know better than everyone else and should be trusted with manipulative ability to “push” people with their mentalic powers. Interesting, I was just watching Gen V and one of the main characters also refers to her similar abilities as “pushing”. I wonder if Asimov used it first.

I’m about to donate this book so here’s the record that I read it. 2 Helmets out of 5.

The Godmakers by Frank Herbert

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I seem to have a soft spot for science fiction novels with the word “God” in the title. And Frank Herbert’s name has some resonance for me. Although I am not a huge Dune fan, I do admire the novel, and quote weird funny lines from the film every now and again, in conversation. So I gave this a try.

It’s just okay, I guess. There are some Big, Weighty Issues presented, but the way they are tackled is disjointed at times, with some chapters meant to be payoffs turning out to be flops after unwarranted build up. This feels like the sketch of a better book, highly episodic in nature.

Once thing I do like is the disgruntled snarkiness of the protagonist, Lewis Orne, and the combative relationship with his asshole boss, Stetson. Orne acts like a really sulky son-of-a-bitch when he’s first called out and criticized, and to be fair, Stetson really rips into him with ridiculously funny churlishness.

One of the phrases in the book is “Gods are made, not born.” This makes some sense, actually, in the way that religion fashions gods, and in the other way that true “creator of the universe”-type gods ought not to have an origin story. Oh, and in the third way that there are priests literally making gods out of thin air by sitting in a circle and chanting.

The casual sexism is amusing, as a capsule of its time. Our hero encounters not one, but two fiercely female-led societies, one open and the other secret. The first is an authoritarian witch-planet that nearly kills him, and the second is a vast conspiracy of wives bent on manipulating their husbands into positions of power. Cool.

All these episodes culminate in a ordeal, a trial for Orne. It’s sort of a vague cacophony of religious mumbo jumbo that strains to hang all the ideas together, but just treads water attempting to do so.  The final confrontation works pretty well, though, evoking some swelling sense of awe, before the whole thing ends quite perfunctorily.

I did like some of it. 

I give this book a rating of 2.5 Helmets out of 5.