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    Wild Seed
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    Wild Seed
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    Wild Seed
    Ebook444 pages7 hours

    Wild Seed

    By Octavia E. Butler

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    As the acclaimed Patternist science fiction series begins, two immortals meet in the long-ago past—and mankind’s destiny is changed forever.
    For a thousand years, Doro has cultivated a small African village, carefully breeding its people in search of seemingly unattainable perfection. He survives through the centuries by stealing the bodies of others, a technique he has so thoroughly mastered that nothing on Earth can kill him. But when a gang of New World slavers destroys his village, ruining his grand experiment, Doro is forced to go west and begin anew. He meets Anyanwu, a centuries-old woman whose means of immortality are as kind as his are cruel. She is a shapeshifter, capable of healing with a kiss, and she recognizes Doro as a tyrant. Though many humans have tried to kill them, these two demi-gods have never before met a rival. Now they begin a struggle that will last centuries and permanently alter the nature of humanity.

    Hugo and Nebula award–winning author Octavia E. Butler’s sweeping cross-century epic places her “among the best of contemporary SF writers” (Houston Chronicle). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateJul 24, 2012
    ISBN9781453263631
    Author

    Octavia E. Butler

    Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) was a renowned African American author of several award-winning novels, including Parable of the Sower, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 1993, and Parable of the Talents, winner of the Nebula Award for the best science fiction novel in 1995. She received a MacArthur Genius Grant and PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award for her body of work and was acclaimed for her lean prose, strong protagonists, and social observations in stories that range from the distant past to the far future.

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    Reviews for Wild Seed

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      My second Butler, and I am loving her work. The combination of historical fiction with sci-fi elements, plus brilliant writing and excellent narration, made this book very hard to stop listening to. I loved some of these characters, and loathed some others, but was completely invested.
    • 5/5
      A unique fantasy novel that centers around supernatural/superhuman characters from Africa. The story begins in the time of slavery, when slaves were captured and brought to America. I found it to be a very unique and refreshing premise, compared to the common tropes of fantasy, be they paranormal or Tolkeinian.The two central characters (and antagonists) were interesting personalities. One seems to represent the Earth Mother--the power of healing and nature and animals. The other seems to represent Patriarchy and masculinity and control. And although they both have great power in many ways, the male force is dominant and relatively unstoppable. Doro, the male, can't be killed, and he can kill anyone at will by taking over his or her body, and then abandoing that body to move into a new one. He essentially takes over their brain and then leaves it empty when he's done. Anyanwu can heal almost any injury, sickness or disease in her own body and can transform it into an animal once she observes that animal closely. She has near total control of her body and can even disguise herself to appear as any human shape she chooses. She also does not age and like Doro may never die unless her body is physically destroyed.Wild Seed is a story of power, of slavery, of social control and of gender issues. It's also a story filled with powerful emotions, the pain of loss and the struggle to develop empathy. It's also a story of compromises, and the choices that are made by those with less power in order to survive.The following spoiler relates to what does NOT happen in the book, not what DOES happen. But if you are looking to avoid any tip-off, then please avoid it. In the hands of a lesser writter, Anyanwu would have figured out a clever way to kill Doro. She would have "won" by somehow defeating him with trickery or battle. That's what you'd read in a mainstream fantasy book or movie. The issue is faced more honestly and with complexity here. Patriarchy can't be defeated in battle or with trickery. It's a social force that requires significant social upheaval over long periods of team. We have not won this battle, as exemplified by the throw-back to cro-magnon-times President we have in place today.Wonderfully told with profound and meaningful themes invoked without facile answers. This is great storytelling. Would appeal to anyone looking for an unusual refreshing take on the fantasy genre with socially powerful meaning.
    • 5/5
      The first chronological story within the "Patternist Series," Octavia Butler's "Wild Seed" is one of the best science fiction novels within the past 30 years. It is an excellent read that explores two immortals: Doro, a "male" who has the power to steal bodies, and Anyanwu, a "female" shapeshifter with the power to assume any form she so pleases. After Doro convinces Anyanwu to leave her home continent Africa, they embark on a journey to the North American continent. The former seeks to find the "perfect" seed (an allegory on eugenics) while the latter wants children who cannot die (as she outlasts her offspring). Neither of the two can die by conventional means, thus making them uniquely tormented beings in their own right. Octavia Butler, as usual, explores social hierarchies such as race and gender through a science fiction lens. Doro is the embodiment of masculinity: powerful, controlling, abusive, and charming. Anywanu is the embodiment of femininity: strong, maternal, and empathetic. She also explores world building through slavery, as Doro seeks to create the "perfect breed" of mutated humans with paranormal abilities (not unlike X-Men in Marvel comics fame). However, he attempts to create the "perfect" being through manipulating, abusing, and murdering his offspring. He also lashes out against Anywanu, who tries to endure and escape his abuse on multiple occasions throughout the book. Ultimately, the ending will probably not leave the reader satisfied, but the story is not meant to do such a thing. There is no resolution that sees "good triumph over evil" so often that we see in popular fiction. Instead, it is a harrowing tale of what happens when people (human or superhuman) are enslaved, either as chattel or through personal relationships (particularly abusive ones). "Wild Seed" Definitely a must read if you're familiar with the Patternist Series or Octavia Butler's other work in general.
    • 4/5
      The story of two immortals and their attempts to find others with the same abilities. Anyanwu is a woman who lives in a small African village in the year 1690. She has lived for hundred of years. She is able to heal herself and others. She can change her appearance and change genders and species by completely altering her DNA. Doro finds her one day in her garden. Doro, once a human boy, is a spirit being who takes over human bodies. He kills indiscriminately. He collects people with special abilities into colonies around the world. He breeds them like animals in order to create beings with better powers and possibly other immortals. Doro has come to believe that he is a God, and his people believe it too. He lures Anyanwu to New York with promises that she will be his wife and bear him many special children. He then marries her to one of his sons, Isaac, and breeds her with them both. Doro is never able to "tame" Anyanwu or get her to revere him the way the others do. Isaac tells Anyanwu that she is the only one - because of their shared longevity- who can reach the remaining human part of Doro before it is extinguished forever. When Isaac dies Anyanwu runs away from Doro, and certain death, by becoming a dolphin. Doro eventually finds her living as a human with a new family. He immediately starts his breeding program with her new people. Disgusted by him, and her own inability to reach him, Anyanwu makes a drastic decision. With this act she is finally able to reach the small fragment of humanity inside Doro.This was a slow read, and the subject matter could be emotionally draining at times. But, I just kept going back to the book to see how it would all turn out. I'm ambivalent about the ending. However; Butler is one of my favorite SciFi authors and this one is up there with her best. Recommended.
    • 3/5
      Creative, but I can't say I found reading about abuse after abuse enjoyable.
    • 5/5
      This science fiction classic is about two immortals: Doro and Anyanwu. Doro was born during the time of the Egyptians pharaohs and has sustained his life by transferring his soul into another's body, an act which eventually kills the host. Doro also collects other humans, through persuasion or slave trade, to create seed villages in the New World and using eugenics to produce super humans with paranormal powers. Anyanwu is a healer and a shapeshifter with the ability to transform into any human or animal. When Doro meets Anyanwu and is impressed with her abilities, he persuades her to go with him with a promise not to her any of her children. Over the decades, the relationship between the two deteriorate and Anyanwu runs away. When she is in animal form, Doro can't not discern her presence. However, Doro is very patient -- after all he has lived over four thousand years.This classic was groundbreaking since it was the first in the science fiction genre using an African protagonist. As I read the novel, I realized that the relationship between Doro and Anyanwu was allegorical for the slave trade and plantation life in early America. This was the first Octavia Butler I have read but it won't be the last. It was well-written and thought-provoking.
    • 5/5
      This book doesn't fit in any genre that I know of. Butler is a master story teller, and world builder and she'll get you sucked from the very first sentence.
    • 5/5
      It's been too long since I immersed myself in one of Octavia E. Butler's magical-biological-genealogical-alien-witchcraft-historical-futuristic-mind-blowing series. I always forget, until I'm deep into one, how much I love them, love her way with language, with imagery, with storytelling, with poetry, with imagination.

      Wild Seed begins a series I've long had my eye on but had long avoided because my local public library didn't have all of it: the Patternmaster series, a late entry in which (Survivor) I accidentally picked up there many years ago. I have since learned that it is not specifically sequential, and that I could have enjoyed the books in any order, but now that I have them all in one convenient e-book file, my serial compulsion can be satisfied and I can submerge myself without anxiety.

      Which is to say that I'm going to be picking up where I left off and starting the "next" Patternmaster book, Mind of My Mind, immediately after finishing this blog post.

      Wild Seed concerns a sort of battle of body and mind between two all but supernatural beings in the colonial era, when black slaves were Africa's greatest export and white settlements in the New World depended on them utterly, north and south of a certain arbitrary boundary that would be drawn in a hundred years or so. Living and ruling several settlements in America (and elsewhere) is one Doro, thousands of years old, a being who takes over the bodies of others (sadly killing the original occupants in the process) and who has been breeding pockets of humanity in semi-captivity to produce individuals with unique abilities like telepathy and telekinesis -- with the attendant responsibility to protect them from the rest of humanity who would regard his human livestock as witches and torture and burn them as such. And in Africa, living quietly but treated with reverence as an oracle is Anyanwu, an immortal shape-changer, a woman with such minute control over her body that she can analyze and overcome any pathogen or poison, can alter her very DNA to become any creature she has "analyzed" (by eating), and who has thereby lived for a good 300 years. Anyanwu turns out to be a "wild seed" -- the descendant of some lost or escaped members of one of Doro's earlier captive populations, whose talents are beyond Doro's wildest dreams. He Must Have Her and breed her with his other stock, whether she is willing or not.

      If you're guessing that Butler has found in this science fictional/magic realistic story a way to comment on gender, slavery, race, free will, coercion and class, you're guessing right, but if you're guessing that she ever beats the reader over the head with these heavy notions, you're not. As Doro and Anyanwu struggle for control, these ideas and problems naturally occur, but only subtly. Butler is too deft a hand to preach at the reader. While she is often regarded as Zora Neale Hurston in genre fictional disguise (and Butler does have some of that lyrical quality for which Hurston is praised), Butler never feels like she is writing polemics or parables, even when some of her novels have "parable" in the title.

      That being said, there is often a slightly creepy quality to Butler's work. I trace it to its explicit physicality, its minute focus on biology and how biology can be manipulated. Thus the Oankali of Lilith's Brood/Xenogenesis trilogy fame are some of the most fascinating and frightening aliens I've ever encountered, and here in this book we find that Anyanwu herself is one of the most compelling heroines, very nearly omnipotent, but cowed by Doro's threat to round up and all but enslave* her descendants (two of whom were caught in the same net she herself was, and whom Doro promptly bred to one another over her objections that this was incest; Doro forces his populations to breed incestuously all the time and just kills off any babies born with too many undesirable traits). Her power just makes her subjugation all the more desirable, and Doro is just the being to try to keep her in check -- and to keep her from realizing that she alone in all the world could actually oppose him if she dared.

      Despite it all, though, this pair has a kind of love, and Octavia E. Butler is one of the very best novelists in the world when it comes to writing about love -- agape, filia or eros, it doesn't matter which. Reading one of her novels is like gorging oneself at a feast, but without the bellyache afterwards. She leaves me wanting more.

      Good thing there still is some. But I probably should hoard those works of hers I haven't read yet and ration them out like EssJay and I do with Philip K. Dick. That's what I should do.

      But, you know, I'm weak, and silly, and don't always do what I should.

      *Doro's people do not live like slaves, happily dwelling in rich and prosperous towns and villages here and there, thriving and free to exercise their weird talents within those carefully controlled and defended enclaves, but their apparent freedom is that of pampered zoo animals, who don't even really get to choose their mates.
    • 3/5

      A curious book about power and abuse of power. I think.

    • 4/5
      An evocative story that blends the harshness of slavery and racism with virtues like respect, trust, and connection. The small way in which Anyanwu slightly (very slightly) humanizes Doro is wrought with tears, terror, and pain, yet her perseverance is one of the very hallmarks of her nature. Butler's clear-eyed, yet sympathetic portryals are refreshing and well done.
    • 3/5
      Although this book is a sci-fi classic that effectively explores genetics, race, and gender roles, I didn't quite connect with it on the level that I think I was meant to. The core of the story is the dynamic between two near-immortals who are constantly shifting from lovers to adversaries. But Doro, the antagonist, clearly has all the power in the relationship, and forces Anyanwu to obey his commands and tolerate his own heartless behavior so he can achieve his dream of breeding the perfect colony of super-humans. Anyanwu's only power over him is basically that her abilities would allow her to run away and stay hidden from him, if she chose to do so, which would leave him to live out his long life alone.

      I guess I was upset that although the characters haven't changed many of their beliefs or behaviors even after all those years, the ending is mostly happy and redemptive for them, without any suggestion that maybe Doro deserves to be alone after all the shitty things that he did, or that Anyanwu is smart enough to recognize that he probably won't be able to change his behavior, since it's all based on attitudes that he's never questioned or shown remorse for. I wouldn't have such a problem with that if it was depicted as the next stage of an ultimately negative cycle, or if they decided that being with a person they couldn't get along with was better than being alone, but instead it felt like I'm supposed to be happy that Anyanwu was finally able to change Doro and now they can be happy together.

      But I don't think I'm giving the good parts of the story enough credit by staying focused on this one aspect I didn't like, so I'd probably still recommend this as an engaging sci-fi story with an otherwise-strong protagonist and some (dated, but) interesting observations about race and gender.
    • 4/5
      This book wasn't as good a match for my mood as N.K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, but it didn't suffer for being read immediately after it. It's an interesting concept: a being that might as well be a god, moving from body to body, amoral and utterly self-serving, trying to breed others like him so he won't be alone, and a being who is also immortal, or close to it, nurturing families so she won't be alone. The two of them are entirely different: Anwanyu loves the people she finds and treats them well, no matter what, and she has children and cares for them not as means to an end, but as ends in themselves. Doro is merciless, regarding people only as long as they serve his purpose. We're clearly meant to sympathise with Anwanyu, as she's the closest to what we can understand, but Doro has his moments too, at least for me. His loneliness is something I can understand.

      The different abilities, and the difficulty in producing them, in people surviving them, and how many ways they can go wrong, rings true to me. It's discomforting to read about people being bred like cattle, without real dignity, but sometimes you kind of share in Doro's frustration that it isn't turning out the way it should.

      Because of the immortal nature of the two characters, they're the only ones that exist throughout the novel, but there are one or two others worth sympathising with, mostly (for me) Isaac and Thomas, despite how short-lived Thomas is.

      The style of the writing is deceptively simple, but there's a lot to think about. It isn't mindless brain candy, despite being easy to read.

      The most unsatisfying thing about it is the ending. I'm aware this is the first book in its timeline, not the only book, but the end is an uncomfortable compromise that leaves Anwanyu still not quite doing what she feels is right, which is a disappointment.
    • 4/5
      3.5 stars...this one reads like an extended prologue, so i'm very glad to have the anthology edition that contains 'Mind of my Mind.' i love how Butler's prose always starts out so deceptively simplistic - small words, small sentences with concise, single, uncomplicated ideas. partway through, as the main character knows more and has her illusions broken constantly, and is forced to become more canny and wise, you start to notice the prose has become more complex and multi-layered as well. as the main character becomes more complex, she becomes more intriguing, so the latter half of the book reads much quicker than the first, and has me rushing headlong right into the next book of the series.
    • 4/5
      Yet another book review that GoodReads ate...

      Two immortals with wildly different manifestations of immortality are entwined in a centuries (well, millenia) long relationship/battle which very heavily deals with slavery, freedom, healing, and destruction.

      It's very much Butler's beautiful voice, giving strength to these conflicts and dualities while also creating beautifully complex and deep characters

      (apologies for the lack of a stellar review, I remember the book, but I can't remember the more detailed review I wrote about it when I read it)
    • 4/5
      This is the second Octavia Butler I have read, the first was Kindred. I am really impressed with the deceptive simplicity of her style. It seems very straightforward but there's a big sting in the tail. I end up thinking for a long time afterward about the stories she tells.
    • 5/5
      A copy of this digital galley was given to me, free in exchange for my honest opinion. Where do I start? I have been a huge Butler reader since the first time I read Kindred for a college English Class. She revolutionized my opinion of science fiction much the same way she revolutionized the genre, I have come to expect a world that may take me a while to get acquainted with, but once I have it becomes almost like a second home to my imagination. I expect characters that walk, talk and act as if they are living and breathing real people. And a story that is just a story for those who only want to tangle with the surface, but for those who wishe to go deeper there's layers upon layers to go through. I got exactly what I expected plus more with Wild Seed.I cannot even begin to imagine what life was like for Doro or Anyanwu, to live so long without end and always believing that you are the only one that carries the weight of supernatural abilities. Doro has accepted his lot by seeking out and creating others that are similar (but nowhere near as powerful) to him. He has little colonies of people that he breeds with each other and with others that he finds in the hopes of making someone that would one day be a companion to him. He has made himself out to be a god to his people and he creates his own rules and ways of living. The only law that his people have is to not disobey Doro. The punishment is death. Anyanwu's choice is to live her life as unnoticable as she can make it. She has accepted that she is the only of her kind and she does what she can to make her area better for it.Both are abnormally strong and there are times when their differences compliment one another. But, there are also times when their strengths push them into dangerous areas, possibly pushing them to the limits of their self control. Anyanwu goes with Doro, the first and only man who has enough strength and unchallenged power to make her submit, in the hopes of sparing her children the heartache of becoming one of Doro's possessions. I don't want to give too much away, because like most of Butler's work, Wild Seed, is more than a book it is an experience. I was hooked from the beginning, and I allowed myself to trek through the wild and the colonies to see the world that Doro and Anyanwu were imprinted on.Matters of faith, gender issues, racism, incest and slavery all find their place within these pages. Even the cruelest find sympathy when I thought that I couldn't muster up any for him. Once again, I have found another reason to follow Butler's work. Though I am sad that she is not around to create more worlds and tell more stories, what she has left us with will be read over and over again.Recommendation: Wild Seed is the first book in the Patternist series, and is a great place to start if unfamiliar with her work. I recommend this if you are looking for amazing science fiction, if you are looking for stories with substance that are captivating.What's Next? Mind of My Mind5 Stars *****Always Shine,Starr K
    • 4/5
      I really don't know where to start with this review. Wild Seed is unlike anything I have ever read before but yet it was still very accessible and easy to read. I would say this book is a combination of urban fantasy, horror, historical fiction and fantasy. Butler addresses slavery, gender roles, racial issues, sexuality, and class issues so subtlety you can miss the commentary if you want to and she does this all through the lens of a fantasy world involving supernatural beings that are seemingly immortal and have various abilities from shape shifting, body snatching, mind reading, and telekinesis. Personally, I don't want to miss the commentary and I enjoy the unique view. I tend to like my urban fantasy and fantasy stories with a slice of heaviness on the side and Octavia Butler seems to be able to deliver that every time. This is the third book by Octavia Butler that I have read. I have come to expect that in reading her books I will have an escape from reality and a complete immersion into the characters that she writes. She writes characters that seem to breathe and live somewhere off the pages of her books, they are real and three dimensional. But such tangible characters come with a price, there is pain and anguish in her books and as a reader, I felt these emotions. Wild Seed was no exception. The characters witness some painful and sad events. This is not urban fantasy lite.Wild Seed is a sweeping historical story that begins in Africa with ancient powerful beings. These beings get caught up in the slave trade and arrive in the now United States. These characters seem to have limitless power. One being prefers to use her power morally and compassionately. Another being, no longer sees himself as human and is not governed by any morality. And of course they clash, both romantically and otherwise. The book is surprisingly sexual in parts and raises some really interesting questions. A shapeshifter that can take on any shape -- animal and human -- and gender -- how do you feel about it taking on the opposite gender and engaging in sexual relationships? What about while it is in animal form? The sex scenes are not explicit but they are referenced. Octavia Butler is not shy about putting her toe across the border of most people's comfort zones. I plan to continue on with the series and am excited that Butler's books are being published in e-book and audio book format.
    • 5/5
      This is one of the most incredible books I've ever read. Octavia's prose is sparse, yet at the same rich and vibrant. Her characters leap off the page. I've read Wild Seed at least five times -- and plan to again.
    • 5/5
      You can tell the quality difference in writers by how well they handle potentially lecture-y subjects such as slavery, women's rights, gender equality, racial equality and power inequity. Butler tells a story here that includes all these subjects, explores them, makes us frustrated with them, and yet never makes us feel like we're attending some sort of educational retreat, or listening to a sermon.The story is good versus evil, nature versus nurture, male versus female... it's engaging and worrying and you just want to grab Anyanwu and Doro and smack their heads together... I had wondered, as the end drew close, how Butler was going to be able to wrap up a story that involved immortals - and I think she did an excellent job of doing so - the conclusion was logical.I'm not saying the story didn't slow down a bit in the middle while Butler tried to emphasize Doro's "evilness" - but it was only a short blip before the story carried on. I've not read any other books from this "series" but plan to do so now.
    • 5/5
      Wild Seed is a very well constructed novel. It tells the tail of two immortals, one with a hideous power that kills and one with a beautiful power that heals. It is about good and evil, but on a deeper level, that questions our assumptions about both. Wild Seed incorporates many elements of African culture as well, and does so in a way that seems perfectly natural. This isn't a science fiction book centered around African culture. It's science fiction first, that happens to take place in Africa and antebellum America. The characterization is Butler at her best. This was the book's greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Because the book takes place over decades, the plot is somewhat lacking. It's hard to have a real cohesive story over that period. Instead, the plot is the relationship between these two characters and how each change over time. Normally, I would not care for a book with no central story, but Butler's writing makes each of these characters as interesting as a fast-paced plot. The book did start to drag toward the end, and the ending, while satisfying, didn't really explain much about how these characters came to be as they are. I was really hoping for a revelation about Duro. Butler did a wonderful job though, and this book will not disappoint.
    • 4/5
      Technically book 4 in the Patternist series, it's actually the first in terms of time within the novels. We meet the two major characters, the immortal (male) Doro and the immortal (female) Anayawu. They form a very complex bond, made of love/hate, commonality, and need. They are opposites inmany ways, with Doro being more consistently the 'heavy' (by which I mean he is controlling, murderous if need be, and a user. Anayawu is a healer who can change her shape and and is a mother, showing her nurturing tendencies often (but don't be fooled - she can get pretty pissed off herself). It's an intriguing look at emotional and physical slavery, gender roles, and race.
    • 5/5
      The first of many Octavia Butler books I will be reading she is genius
    • 5/5
      This novel features the most interesting character I have ever read about. Anyanwu is a native African woman who has lived 300 years when the novel opens. She still appears to be in her early 20's which is where she apparently stopped aging. However, she can take any shape she likes-panther, dog, male, old woman, white man. She is ageless, timeless and a healer of immense and unbelievable skill. She can literally kill-or heal-with a kiss. In the novel she meets a probable ancestor of hers-Doro-a monster who is somewhat like a vampire. Doro does not kill by drinking blood, he kills by stealing bodies-which he later discards-dead-like so much trash. Anyanwu joins Doro in America in hopes of having children she will not have watch grow old and die. Then as she realizes the horror of him she flees-and hides. She lives for years as a dolphin and even bears dolphin children. She lives as a white man in the old salve owning South and fathers daughters on a wife......
    • 5/5
      A truly painful book.
    • 3/5
      I'm reading these out of order deliberately this time (so as to save my favorite, "Mind of My Mind", for last), and it's been several years since I've read this one, maybe as many as ten years. On a second, very fresh reading, it's quite beautiful -- the story of a man who's immortal because he can't help but kill, and a woman who's immortal because she heals herself and others. Though they're rivals and lovers and enemies, sometimes all at once, sometimes one at a time, they're each other's only peers, and that creates a bond that's written so well I can barely scratch the surface in a short review. It's companionship and frustration and love and commitment and anger and fear and rage, and so real that it outshines any love story I've ever read, even though sometimes you have so little sympathy for one of the characters that it's hard to believe you could ever forgive them. It's a great, great book.
    • 5/5
      This is the first novel by Octavia Butler that I have read, and going by this work, I have been missing out on something special. This is an outstanding book, a true science fiction classic, and certainly one of the best books I've read in many many months.Ms. Butler deftly weaves mythology with modern characterization in this tale of two people born with special powers that make them immortal. How both of them put these powers to use, and their attempts to influence each other provide the sparks to their love/hate relationship.There is plenty of food for thought here, wisdom, emotional insight and dramatic tension, all woven together by some beautiful prose.
    • 4/5
      I read these books out of order but they're still really good, with -Mind of My Mind- being the weakest in my opinion (although I haven't read -Survivor- yet). As far as I know, (internal) chronologically this is the first book.Great characters, dialogue and writing, and as another reviewer mentioned not Star Treky at all. I like the setting a lot (colonial America) and major idea (breeding humans with psychic talents to create a more powerful race of humans). The only bad thing I could say is that the love/hate relationship between Doro and Anyanwu gets a bit repetitive.
    • 5/5
      absolute beautiful, stunning writing. powerful, strong characters. elements of mythology, religion and so on. just excellent work
    • 5/5
      This is book is too good for a proper review. It's epic in scope, complex, and deeply absorbing. I've never seen witchcraft conceptualized quite like this. I loved every minute of it including, and perhaps especially, hating Doro.
    • 4/5
      I have no idea how to rate this-- it feels oddly formless. I did love the side note that when Anyanwu makes herself a male body, she can get women pregnant but only with female children (because she can only contribute X chromosomes). Attention to detail for the win.

      Returning to this review several days later, and having read the rest of the Seed to Harvest set, the beauty of the writing and the depth of the ideas really strikes me.