Reading the book got me thinking about mind of my mind, by octavia butler. It always bothered me that Mary kills Doro and regards Anyanwu’s suicide as not even regretable. It’s totally in character, well written, and entirely consistent. I would have felt very similar had Doro succeeded in doing Mary in. I just think that Mary had the possibility of keeping Doro’s experience around, and on a leash, and it’s just such a colossal waste (seeing what being on the other end of the daddy stick did to Doro would have been interesting, but I’m not sure such reversals are really consistent with the themes I’ve read Butler exploring). It is unsurprising, given this arrogance, that in the later patternist novels, there is extreme technological reversion (if it ain’t psychic, it ain’t worth the time). Just random musings
Also, I know I’ve asked this before, but who (that has read both the Oankali and Patternist novels) thinks that it is clear whether the two series take place in the same universe? I would claim it’s not clear. The Clay’s Ark virus reminds me a great deal of the Oankali, and the Oankali said they left stuff like that lying around on planets where merging was not appropriate. But at the same time, the holocaust deal (nuke based, iirc), and the very human (non psychic, non-ark) nature of Lilith and others makes it all seem quite unlikely.
I don’t think they’re the same universe at all. I’m reasonably sure that they overlap in time, for one thing – look at Lilith Iyapo’s culture and the cause of death of her human husband, and at the events in both Wild Seed and Clay’s Ark. (I’m also certain that they’re not in the same universe as the Earthseed novels – again, there’s a time overlap, and Earthseed is set more definitely in time as well.)
Earthseed? Is that parable of the * series? That is like the only stuff she’s published that I haven’t read.
yes.
“Parable of the Sower” is actually my favorite of her books, I think.