Survivor

Octavia ejected Survivor from the canon of her work because of its racial essentialism, with the Kohn having strict social classes according to colour. Aside from this element, Octavia's exploration of space is utterly absorbing, whether humans believe they are graduating from the earth or are escaping it. Having only one chance once you drop on a new planet is a compelling and terrifying idea and the force of the book's title rings throughout. The relationship between Alanna and Diut is also one of her most believable, including taking into account the active non-consent at its initiation, reflecting the decisions Alanna has to make to survive her new world, if not echoing a large part of human history.

Its themes and setting remind me of Lilith's Brood (surviving, control and freedom, prejudice, humans and aliens interbreeding, what it means to be human). The latter is much better, both in terms of writing and plot, so I can see why Butler didn't want this book reprinted. (On that note, it was rather hard to obtain a copy of Survivor; I ended up checking it out from a university library, lol.) I don't think the book stands well on its own, but anyone who enjoyed the other Patternist books and Butler's work more generally will find Survivor interesting and worth reading.

This was not for me. It tried to converge or show a correlation between the events that took place in Mind of My Mind and Clay's Ark that has led to the events in Survivor. Basically, Survivor is the result of what took place in the previous two books. I found the story to be very slow and I don't want to say boring but it lulled me to sleep so many times.

I'm not rating this because Octavia E Butler didn't even want this published and yet it was against her own wishes and reasons for it. It felt like a good first draft that needed to be fleshed out.

Read this as part of the Octavia E Butler year long readalong. Hosts Bree Sharee Reads and Maya on YouTube