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Patternist #2
Mind of My Mind
For 4,000 years, an immortal has spread the seeds of a master race, using the downtrodden as his private breeding stock. But now a young ghetto telepath has found a way to awaken -- and rule -- her superhuman kind, igniting a psychic battle as she challenges her creator for her right to free her people.
226 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
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14.9k people want to read
About the author
Octavia E. Butler
99Ìýbooks20.7kÌýfollowersOctavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. She won both Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant.
After her father died, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. Extremely shy as a child, Octavia found an outlet at the library reading fantasy, and in writing. She began writing science fiction as a teenager. She attended community college during the Black Power movement, and while participating in a local writer's workshop was encouraged to attend the Clarion Workshop, which focused on science fiction.
She soon sold her first stories and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author that she was able to pursue writing full-time. Her books and short stories drew the favorable attention of the public and awards judges. She also taught writer's workshops, and eventually relocated to Washington state. Butler died of a stroke at the age of 58. Her papers are held in the research collection of the Huntington Library.
After her father died, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. Extremely shy as a child, Octavia found an outlet at the library reading fantasy, and in writing. She began writing science fiction as a teenager. She attended community college during the Black Power movement, and while participating in a local writer's workshop was encouraged to attend the Clarion Workshop, which focused on science fiction.
She soon sold her first stories and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author that she was able to pursue writing full-time. Her books and short stories drew the favorable attention of the public and awards judges. She also taught writer's workshops, and eventually relocated to Washington state. Butler died of a stroke at the age of 58. Her papers are held in the research collection of the Huntington Library.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,139 reviews
December 29, 2023
4/5 stars
One of the best sci-fi sequels I have ever read.
Quick reminder: There are two ways to read Octavia E. Butler's Patternist series: the order in which it was published--Patternmaster (1976), Mind of My Mind (1977), Survivor (1978, disowned and never put back into publication), Wild Seed (1980), and Clay's Ark (1984); or the chronological order of the in-universe story--Wild Seed (set in the 1600s and 1700s), Mind of My Mind (set in the 70s, contemporary for when Butler wrote it), Clay's Ark (set in a futuristic dystopia....of 2021), Survivor (set in space and on another planet), and Patternmaster (very far future where humanity is divided). I have chosen to read it in the chronological order at the advice of a friend and because I prefer to read it that way.
Doro and Anyanwu, now called Emma, from are still alive in 1970s California. Doro is still building his "empire" of his super-powered descendants, switching bodies, and siring children through his own daughters and granddaughters. Emma is still shifting her body and seems, to my great dismay, to have accepted Doro's plans. But now, something is changing among their super-powered children and grandchildren. Mary, a biracial daughter (and technically granddaughter. BLECH!) of Doro, has gone through the transition and acquired her telepathic powers and she's the most powerful telepath Doro has seen in centuries. So powerful, that after she reaches out her mind to some of Doro's other descendants, she forms a psionic link with them all. She is able to exchange strength with them, and them with her. She can learn their other non-psychic abilities inherited from Emma's line.
However, Doro notices how powerful Mary is getting. He remembers the last time one of his descendants became powerful and how disastrous the result was. Mary is aware of her power and influence as well, but she doesn't want to be like Doro. She can't be. Mary must protect her Patternists from Doro and herself, but Doro knows all and sees all.
Perhaps this is just because of the order I've been reading this series in, but Mind of My Mind was one of the best sequels I've read. It's not perfect, and I'll get into those errors in a bit, but the way Butler is expanding this world and the overarching messages she wishes to convey is phenomenal.
Mary was an interesting protagonist to follow. From the youthful and riotous age of nineteen to her early twenties, we see how she grows in both maturity and understanding her world along with growing in her powers. The constant struggle she ahs with herself, and Doro, is that she is not like Doro. She builds his empire and uses her powers to connect with people and to control others and becomes just as strong and intelligent as him. But is she really like him? In the beginning, Mary is as forceful and self-centered as Doro is, though not as heartless or sadistic. She has to put people in their place and make them obey her. Sometimes she turns a blind eye to the cruel things other's do, such as her husband Karl mentally controlling a young woman into staying with him and making her have sex with him and Doro. Yeah...Mary may be no Doro, but she's not a completely flawless person. And perhaps that is Butler's point with people, regardless of who they are, who have the power to control others' lives.
I do appreciate that, when Mary started to pull away from Doro's ideals, Butler did not go the gender essentialist route. Mary doesn't become a parasite like Doro predicted for her and is himself. Mary has a symbiotic relationships with her Patternsits and they with her and each other. Butler does not chalk this up to Mary being a woman and Doro being a man; as we do see Mary being parasitic in the beginning and Doro has been in women's bodies before and has still continued his plans. Anyone and everyone can be a parasite or a symbiote.
Although Mary and her fellows Patternists take the center stage, we do see more of Doro and Emma/Anyanwu here; mostly Doro. As I said before, Emma has decided to help with Doro in his eugenic empire, which, despite knowing the ending of Wild Seed was disheartening. She still shows great concern for Mary's growing power and the expansion of the Patternists along with the telepaths starting to control non-psychic people, or mutes as they're called. In fact, Emma even likens this controlling of mutes to the controlling of Black people albeit mutes of all races are psychically "enslaved" in the book. Doro of course doesn't really care about that, only about how the Patternists are growing. Here, he prefers to his original methods: siring children rather than pushing latent psychics through transitioning. Transiting is still as dangerous as it was in Wild Seed. And to boot, some of Doro and Emma's lines have ended up in weak and unstable latents whom Doro prefers killing off or letting them die by their own hands. It pure eugenics reconstructed in an interesting but very messed-up way.
Control is the main theme of this book. We are reminded that Doro was from ancient Nubia, but we get more of his backstory here. His people were under the oppressive rule of the Egyptians and he was a sickly boy who first transferred unknowingly and unwillingly into his mother's body then his father's. Some parts of his memory are missing, but he switched into many bodies under the Egyptians' rule and travelled throughout North Africa. All Doro has ever known is controlling other people's lives. Butler, however, thankfully does not dispense any sympathy for Doro because of this. He is cold and calculating as ever, caring very little for life. Mary and Doro's control of the other members of their family and the mutes is normalized in their eyes--though Mary becomes somewhat resistant to it--and thus becomes normalized to the readers. Butler still shows how disturbing this is, but also shows how those who control are unbothered by it. It is interesting that the primal antagonist is Doro, a Black man. Well, he was born a Black man but has switched bodies with men and women of all races throughout his life. Was Butler trying to say that power can corrupt anyone? Is it a criticism against Black men who become patriarchal like White men who already control much of the world? The book does not shy away from racism, as Jan, one of Mary's Patternists, is shown to be quite racist in the beginning of the book. But, in another interesting twist, Doro does not seem concerned with race or considers himself apart of any race. In a flashback with a much younger Mary, Doro states this, but Mary counters since he was born Black, that he is Black. Is this a warning about color blindness and/or assimilation? I'm not sure, but it is thought provoking.
So, despite loving this book, I could not give a complete 5 stars. I think this is one of those books that could've benefitted to be a little bit longer to flesh out some other issues. The pacing is quick, not a problem itself, so it's a quick read but some things were left underdeveloped. Some of the other members of Mary's Patternists First Family--Seth, Ada, Jesse, Rachael, Jan--were left without proper development or complete character arcs. As mentioned, I said that in the beginning Jan was racist, though towards the end of the book she seems to lighten up and accept her place among the family. Why would Mary be okay with such a racist in her Pattern? How did Jan get over her racism? Did she and Mary talk behind the scenes? It's just a quick sudden change. Seth could've been the most interesting, especially after Mary helps his latent brother Clay--and given the next book is entitled , there might be a connection--but he just goes on pursing Ada off page. Rachael was the one from whom Mary eventually learned her healing abilities, and she was probably the most developed of the others, learning to find her place among the Patternists, but after that is done she just becomes so minor of a character. Ada and Jesse have some interesting stories showing how the Pattern controls mutes, but they don't go anywhere with their development much.
The ending of the book is my favorite kind: bittersweet. I won't say what exactly happens, but comeuppances are made but not without sacrifice. One pivotal and beloved character decides to end their life at the end. Mary keeps her Patternists close to her, but not without realizing how she has faltered in her ideals to get there. People are safe at the end, but it feels like things are about to change and that the future will be uncertain.
I can't wait to continue this series.
One of the best sci-fi sequels I have ever read.
Quick reminder: There are two ways to read Octavia E. Butler's Patternist series: the order in which it was published--Patternmaster (1976), Mind of My Mind (1977), Survivor (1978, disowned and never put back into publication), Wild Seed (1980), and Clay's Ark (1984); or the chronological order of the in-universe story--Wild Seed (set in the 1600s and 1700s), Mind of My Mind (set in the 70s, contemporary for when Butler wrote it), Clay's Ark (set in a futuristic dystopia....of 2021), Survivor (set in space and on another planet), and Patternmaster (very far future where humanity is divided). I have chosen to read it in the chronological order at the advice of a friend and because I prefer to read it that way.
Doro and Anyanwu, now called Emma, from are still alive in 1970s California. Doro is still building his "empire" of his super-powered descendants, switching bodies, and siring children through his own daughters and granddaughters. Emma is still shifting her body and seems, to my great dismay, to have accepted Doro's plans. But now, something is changing among their super-powered children and grandchildren. Mary, a biracial daughter (and technically granddaughter. BLECH!) of Doro, has gone through the transition and acquired her telepathic powers and she's the most powerful telepath Doro has seen in centuries. So powerful, that after she reaches out her mind to some of Doro's other descendants, she forms a psionic link with them all. She is able to exchange strength with them, and them with her. She can learn their other non-psychic abilities inherited from Emma's line.
However, Doro notices how powerful Mary is getting. He remembers the last time one of his descendants became powerful and how disastrous the result was. Mary is aware of her power and influence as well, but she doesn't want to be like Doro. She can't be. Mary must protect her Patternists from Doro and herself, but Doro knows all and sees all.
Perhaps this is just because of the order I've been reading this series in, but Mind of My Mind was one of the best sequels I've read. It's not perfect, and I'll get into those errors in a bit, but the way Butler is expanding this world and the overarching messages she wishes to convey is phenomenal.
Mary was an interesting protagonist to follow. From the youthful and riotous age of nineteen to her early twenties, we see how she grows in both maturity and understanding her world along with growing in her powers. The constant struggle she ahs with herself, and Doro, is that she is not like Doro. She builds his empire and uses her powers to connect with people and to control others and becomes just as strong and intelligent as him. But is she really like him? In the beginning, Mary is as forceful and self-centered as Doro is, though not as heartless or sadistic. She has to put people in their place and make them obey her. Sometimes she turns a blind eye to the cruel things other's do, such as her husband Karl mentally controlling a young woman into staying with him and making her have sex with him and Doro. Yeah...Mary may be no Doro, but she's not a completely flawless person. And perhaps that is Butler's point with people, regardless of who they are, who have the power to control others' lives.
I do appreciate that, when Mary started to pull away from Doro's ideals, Butler did not go the gender essentialist route. Mary doesn't become a parasite like Doro predicted for her and is himself. Mary has a symbiotic relationships with her Patternsits and they with her and each other. Butler does not chalk this up to Mary being a woman and Doro being a man; as we do see Mary being parasitic in the beginning and Doro has been in women's bodies before and has still continued his plans. Anyone and everyone can be a parasite or a symbiote.
Although Mary and her fellows Patternists take the center stage, we do see more of Doro and Emma/Anyanwu here; mostly Doro. As I said before, Emma has decided to help with Doro in his eugenic empire, which, despite knowing the ending of Wild Seed was disheartening. She still shows great concern for Mary's growing power and the expansion of the Patternists along with the telepaths starting to control non-psychic people, or mutes as they're called. In fact, Emma even likens this controlling of mutes to the controlling of Black people albeit mutes of all races are psychically "enslaved" in the book. Doro of course doesn't really care about that, only about how the Patternists are growing. Here, he prefers to his original methods: siring children rather than pushing latent psychics through transitioning. Transiting is still as dangerous as it was in Wild Seed. And to boot, some of Doro and Emma's lines have ended up in weak and unstable latents whom Doro prefers killing off or letting them die by their own hands. It pure eugenics reconstructed in an interesting but very messed-up way.
Control is the main theme of this book. We are reminded that Doro was from ancient Nubia, but we get more of his backstory here. His people were under the oppressive rule of the Egyptians and he was a sickly boy who first transferred unknowingly and unwillingly into his mother's body then his father's. Some parts of his memory are missing, but he switched into many bodies under the Egyptians' rule and travelled throughout North Africa. All Doro has ever known is controlling other people's lives. Butler, however, thankfully does not dispense any sympathy for Doro because of this. He is cold and calculating as ever, caring very little for life. Mary and Doro's control of the other members of their family and the mutes is normalized in their eyes--though Mary becomes somewhat resistant to it--and thus becomes normalized to the readers. Butler still shows how disturbing this is, but also shows how those who control are unbothered by it. It is interesting that the primal antagonist is Doro, a Black man. Well, he was born a Black man but has switched bodies with men and women of all races throughout his life. Was Butler trying to say that power can corrupt anyone? Is it a criticism against Black men who become patriarchal like White men who already control much of the world? The book does not shy away from racism, as Jan, one of Mary's Patternists, is shown to be quite racist in the beginning of the book. But, in another interesting twist, Doro does not seem concerned with race or considers himself apart of any race. In a flashback with a much younger Mary, Doro states this, but Mary counters since he was born Black, that he is Black. Is this a warning about color blindness and/or assimilation? I'm not sure, but it is thought provoking.
So, despite loving this book, I could not give a complete 5 stars. I think this is one of those books that could've benefitted to be a little bit longer to flesh out some other issues. The pacing is quick, not a problem itself, so it's a quick read but some things were left underdeveloped. Some of the other members of Mary's Patternists First Family--Seth, Ada, Jesse, Rachael, Jan--were left without proper development or complete character arcs. As mentioned, I said that in the beginning Jan was racist, though towards the end of the book she seems to lighten up and accept her place among the family. Why would Mary be okay with such a racist in her Pattern? How did Jan get over her racism? Did she and Mary talk behind the scenes? It's just a quick sudden change. Seth could've been the most interesting, especially after Mary helps his latent brother Clay--and given the next book is entitled , there might be a connection--but he just goes on pursing Ada off page. Rachael was the one from whom Mary eventually learned her healing abilities, and she was probably the most developed of the others, learning to find her place among the Patternists, but after that is done she just becomes so minor of a character. Ada and Jesse have some interesting stories showing how the Pattern controls mutes, but they don't go anywhere with their development much.
The ending of the book is my favorite kind: bittersweet. I won't say what exactly happens, but comeuppances are made but not without sacrifice. One pivotal and beloved character decides to end their life at the end. Mary keeps her Patternists close to her, but not without realizing how she has faltered in her ideals to get there. People are safe at the end, but it feels like things are about to change and that the future will be uncertain.
I can't wait to continue this series.
May 2, 2017
“Doro wanted an empire. He didn’t call it that, but that was what he meant. Maybe I was just one more tool he was using to get it. He needed tools, because an empire of ordinary people wasn’t quite what he had in mind. That, to him, would be like an ordinary person making himself emperor over a lot of cattle.�
I am reading the omnibus edition of Octavia Butler’s Patternist series, published as . Mind of My Mind is volume 2 of the series but actually written and published before volume 1, the excellent Wild Seed. This is another excellent Butler book but I wish I had read it before Wild Seed because, to my mind, reading in publication order is always better§, I would have read it as a prequel to Mind of My Mind and appreciate both books more (even though I already appreciate both very much).
Mind of My Mind begins with body hopping super-mutant Doro* visiting Anyanwu—who now calls herself Emma—the protagonist of the previous volume. He persuades and coerces Emma to take charge of Mary, a latent telepath who will soon transition� into a functional telepath, able to wield psionic powers. Doro has a life mission to build a race of powerful telepaths by breeding and crossbreeding people with psi abilities like cattle. Mary is expected to transition into a powerful telepath with unusual powers. This turns out to be the case, but the result is more spectacular than anybody expected. It turns out that post-transition Mary has the ability to permanently link herself to other telepaths and form an almost hive mind-like psionic group called “the pattern� of seemingly unlimited size. This seems like the ultimate goal of at Doro’s life mission, but things are happening too fast for his liking and a power struggle becomes unavoidable.
Mind of My Mind belongs to the “psychic power� sub-genre of sci-fi, the best known examples of this that I can think of is Alfred Bester’s , Theodore Sturgeon’s classic , and the lesser known but excellent by Robert Silverberg. Now I can add this book to my list of favorite psi sci-fi. Interestingly Wild Seed does not belong in this subgenre because it focuses more on shape changing. The idea of “the pattern� is similar to Sturgeon’s “homo gestalt� where separate individuals can act in tandem as if they are parts of one body.
This book is relentlessly entertaining and very fast-paced, I was gripped from beginning to end. It does, however, lack the nuances and elegance of Wild Seed, written later in Butler’s career. I am also mildly disappointed that the wonderful Anyanwu from Wild Seed is barely featured in this book and does not keep her beautifully exotic name. There is a vague theme of slavery and resistance to tyranny through a united effort, but I think this book is mostly a sci-fi thriller, and as such, it works very well. If you like the other psi books I mentioned above, or if you are a fan of movies like Cronenberg’s head exploding and Brian De Palma's you are likely to have a great time with this book. I think it is tremendous, and short too! (224 pages).
Notes:
* Doro is the main antagonist in Wild Seed. He is able transfer his personality (or soul) from one body to another, a sort of hostile takeover that also leaves the previous body dead. He also needs to make these transfers from time to time as he feeds off the soul of the original owner of the body that he is evicting.
� Transition is a sudden development process like caterpillar to pupa to butterfly, which a latent needs to go through and survive, in order to usefully manifest their powers.
§ If you are undecided about the reading order of this series, read the , it should help.
� Yes, the series is more science fantasy than science fiction.
___________________
Quotes:
“She’s part of my latest attempt to bring my active telepaths together. I’m going to try to mate her with another telepath without killing either of them myself. And I’m hoping that she and the boy I have in mind are stable enough to stay together without killing each other. That will be a beginning.�
“B°ù±ð±ð»å didn’t sound like the kind of word that should be applied to people. The minute he said it, though, I realized it was the right word for what he was doing.â€�
“Before the Pattern, active telepaths had not been able to survive together in groups. They could not tolerate each other, could not accept the mental blending that occurred automatically without the control of the Pattern.�
I am reading the omnibus edition of Octavia Butler’s Patternist series, published as . Mind of My Mind is volume 2 of the series but actually written and published before volume 1, the excellent Wild Seed. This is another excellent Butler book but I wish I had read it before Wild Seed because, to my mind, reading in publication order is always better§, I would have read it as a prequel to Mind of My Mind and appreciate both books more (even though I already appreciate both very much).
Mind of My Mind begins with body hopping super-mutant Doro* visiting Anyanwu—who now calls herself Emma—the protagonist of the previous volume. He persuades and coerces Emma to take charge of Mary, a latent telepath who will soon transition� into a functional telepath, able to wield psionic powers. Doro has a life mission to build a race of powerful telepaths by breeding and crossbreeding people with psi abilities like cattle. Mary is expected to transition into a powerful telepath with unusual powers. This turns out to be the case, but the result is more spectacular than anybody expected. It turns out that post-transition Mary has the ability to permanently link herself to other telepaths and form an almost hive mind-like psionic group called “the pattern� of seemingly unlimited size. This seems like the ultimate goal of at Doro’s life mission, but things are happening too fast for his liking and a power struggle becomes unavoidable.
Mind of My Mind belongs to the “psychic power� sub-genre of sci-fi, the best known examples of this that I can think of is Alfred Bester’s , Theodore Sturgeon’s classic , and the lesser known but excellent by Robert Silverberg. Now I can add this book to my list of favorite psi sci-fi. Interestingly Wild Seed does not belong in this subgenre because it focuses more on shape changing. The idea of “the pattern� is similar to Sturgeon’s “homo gestalt� where separate individuals can act in tandem as if they are parts of one body.
This book is relentlessly entertaining and very fast-paced, I was gripped from beginning to end. It does, however, lack the nuances and elegance of Wild Seed, written later in Butler’s career. I am also mildly disappointed that the wonderful Anyanwu from Wild Seed is barely featured in this book and does not keep her beautifully exotic name. There is a vague theme of slavery and resistance to tyranny through a united effort, but I think this book is mostly a sci-fi thriller, and as such, it works very well. If you like the other psi books I mentioned above, or if you are a fan of movies like Cronenberg’s head exploding and Brian De Palma's you are likely to have a great time with this book. I think it is tremendous, and short too! (224 pages).
Notes:
* Doro is the main antagonist in Wild Seed. He is able transfer his personality (or soul) from one body to another, a sort of hostile takeover that also leaves the previous body dead. He also needs to make these transfers from time to time as he feeds off the soul of the original owner of the body that he is evicting.
� Transition is a sudden development process like caterpillar to pupa to butterfly, which a latent needs to go through and survive, in order to usefully manifest their powers.
§ If you are undecided about the reading order of this series, read the , it should help.
� Yes, the series is more science fantasy than science fiction.
___________________
Quotes:
“She’s part of my latest attempt to bring my active telepaths together. I’m going to try to mate her with another telepath without killing either of them myself. And I’m hoping that she and the boy I have in mind are stable enough to stay together without killing each other. That will be a beginning.�
“B°ù±ð±ð»å didn’t sound like the kind of word that should be applied to people. The minute he said it, though, I realized it was the right word for what he was doing.â€�
“Before the Pattern, active telepaths had not been able to survive together in groups. They could not tolerate each other, could not accept the mental blending that occurred automatically without the control of the Pattern.�
August 5, 2008
In spite of myself, I've ended up discussing and recommending this book to a few people. There are really fascinating ideas here - Octavia Butler is a champ at slightly extrapolating and skewering present reality and transforming it into a plausible, not so removed future. Here she invents a world of intuits, psychics, telekenetics (?). She attributes much of the chaos and violence in the world to the inability of some psychics to hone their latent abilities. Sometimes this means these psychics have unmediated raw connections to the pain and suffering of the world around them - a painful maddening static in their heads. Sometimes, unaware of their 'gifts', they experience only misunderstanding and alienation from others - which in turn, breeds violence, especially towards those they are most like.
As in Parable of the Sower, Butler has a young girl emerge to lead a new hopeful world. This girl, like Olamina, moves with the certainty, selflessness, and faith of someone who - well - must save the world. Butler's young women aren't so heavily burdened by their capabilities and responsibilities - at least, this kind of comic-book hero drama is seriously downplayed. The main drama seems to be how these women do their work in the world. They take the cards they are dealt in life and move. I love that these books are about the work they've been charged to do - as opposed to the messianic agonizing that usually takes up these kind of stories. The work itself is the difficult part. The internal battle to start it, belongs to another, more self-indulgent, more egotistical, more pampered type of hero. One who usually have the luxury of time and excessive self-reflection. Those who are usually wealthy young white men.
But temporality is the stength and the weakness of the book. The book moves swiftly, skipping years at one point, and glossing over essential developments in the numerous characters. Sometimes it seems like an extended metaphor - a good idea that was too quickly spun into a book.
There are many hazy underdeveloped aspects that beg for more pages. The protagonist is somewhat detached from her reality. Early on, she kills or severly debilitates a drunk, who has barged into her home, looking for her mother, who then tries to rape her. The drama and significance are subdued. This seems partially intentional - a way of demonstrating the premature strength and self-assurance of a young girl who is accostomed to and unmoved by violence. It also seems like a minor device to move the story and larger drama along. You get a bare sense of her in the episode and its aftermath. The book moves with an impatient speed - that forces the reader, like the main character, to learn quickly and move on. Not much later in the book, in an act of consolation, she ends up making love with her body-shifting, all-powerful, imortal father. are drawn, redrawn, and questioned. Sometimes I kept pace. Sometimes I felt rushed.
I was also wary of how this book made the female hero the instinctively nurturing, loving, proactive, motherly figure who draws her strength from developing others. This in contrast to her egotistical, self-serving, singular, and short-sighted male villain/ father-figure. I like female heroes but get bored when it is their 'natural' female life-procuring qualities that save the day (This is nonsense, Saul Williams, Vandana Shiva, etc etc pro-feminist sexism). These gender conventions are tired.
I would gladly read Octavia Butler's scribbled notes on cocktail napkins - I'm an eager forgiving fan. I'm glad she put the work out there she has. She is one of my models for exploring race, gender, class, ability, and power more effectively, in more accessible, transportable ways than most people who attempt it. That said -this book seemed to be a testing grounds for Octavia Butler to develop some concepts. I didn't love this book but am happy to have read it.
As in Parable of the Sower, Butler has a young girl emerge to lead a new hopeful world. This girl, like Olamina, moves with the certainty, selflessness, and faith of someone who - well - must save the world. Butler's young women aren't so heavily burdened by their capabilities and responsibilities - at least, this kind of comic-book hero drama is seriously downplayed. The main drama seems to be how these women do their work in the world. They take the cards they are dealt in life and move. I love that these books are about the work they've been charged to do - as opposed to the messianic agonizing that usually takes up these kind of stories. The work itself is the difficult part. The internal battle to start it, belongs to another, more self-indulgent, more egotistical, more pampered type of hero. One who usually have the luxury of time and excessive self-reflection. Those who are usually wealthy young white men.
But temporality is the stength and the weakness of the book. The book moves swiftly, skipping years at one point, and glossing over essential developments in the numerous characters. Sometimes it seems like an extended metaphor - a good idea that was too quickly spun into a book.
There are many hazy underdeveloped aspects that beg for more pages. The protagonist is somewhat detached from her reality. Early on, she kills or severly debilitates a drunk, who has barged into her home, looking for her mother, who then tries to rape her. The drama and significance are subdued. This seems partially intentional - a way of demonstrating the premature strength and self-assurance of a young girl who is accostomed to and unmoved by violence. It also seems like a minor device to move the story and larger drama along. You get a bare sense of her in the episode and its aftermath. The book moves with an impatient speed - that forces the reader, like the main character, to learn quickly and move on. Not much later in the book, in an act of consolation, she ends up making love with her body-shifting, all-powerful, imortal father. are drawn, redrawn, and questioned. Sometimes I kept pace. Sometimes I felt rushed.
I was also wary of how this book made the female hero the instinctively nurturing, loving, proactive, motherly figure who draws her strength from developing others. This in contrast to her egotistical, self-serving, singular, and short-sighted male villain/ father-figure. I like female heroes but get bored when it is their 'natural' female life-procuring qualities that save the day (This is nonsense, Saul Williams, Vandana Shiva, etc etc pro-feminist sexism). These gender conventions are tired.
I would gladly read Octavia Butler's scribbled notes on cocktail napkins - I'm an eager forgiving fan. I'm glad she put the work out there she has. She is one of my models for exploring race, gender, class, ability, and power more effectively, in more accessible, transportable ways than most people who attempt it. That said -this book seemed to be a testing grounds for Octavia Butler to develop some concepts. I didn't love this book but am happy to have read it.
April 2, 2015
I think I became too invested in the characters of Anyanwu (Emma) and Doro in Wild Seed to fully appreciate this book. Perhaps if I had read this first, in its order of publication, I would have enjoyed the book more. As it was, I found the constantly rotating narratives from such a wide variety of people (who weren't terribly distinct, all being Patternists) distracting and not at all sympathetic. Which is strange. If anything, I should sympathize with Mary, but I had come to know Doro so well. I stuck with the book just to see what happens to Emma and Doro, and while I'm slightly curious to see the direction the rest of the series takes, I suspect I might not ever be too eager to read through them all.
Did Butler intend for this reaction? She wrote the complicated relationship between Anyanwu and Doro so well in Wild Seed, but nearly all the Patternist characters--including Mary--felt so flat. Nothing about their telepathy intrigued me, but I awed at Emma's and Doro's ability. I am so very confused!
Did Butler intend for this reaction? She wrote the complicated relationship between Anyanwu and Doro so well in Wild Seed, but nearly all the Patternist characters--including Mary--felt so flat. Nothing about their telepathy intrigued me, but I awed at Emma's and Doro's ability. I am so very confused!
June 8, 2024
Octavia Butler is a tricky writer. Her prose is straightforward—there’s never any doubt about what’s happening. But what it means? How the reader is supposed to make sense of it—if we’re supposed to make sense of it.
How seductively Butler writes power; how bearable pain. And then—unbearable. A hard shove out of a story you were getting a little too comfortable in.
Try as I might, I can’t figure out if Butler is trying to say something with this novel. I want to pull from it a moral—as if the novel itself is asking me, begging me to find meaning in it, and then turning its back and pretending it hasn't made that demand at all. It is a story about power. About choice. About will, and that peculiar way of exercising our will that is called acceptance. About terror. About slavery—it is a novel about slavery, explicitly so. But to what end?
How seductively Butler writes power; how bearable pain. And then—unbearable. A hard shove out of a story you were getting a little too comfortable in.
Try as I might, I can’t figure out if Butler is trying to say something with this novel. I want to pull from it a moral—as if the novel itself is asking me, begging me to find meaning in it, and then turning its back and pretending it hasn't made that demand at all. It is a story about power. About choice. About will, and that peculiar way of exercising our will that is called acceptance. About terror. About slavery—it is a novel about slavery, explicitly so. But to what end?
March 8, 2021
“Could a creature who had to look upon ordinary people literally as food and shelter ever understand how strongly those people valued life?�
Octavia Butler's Mind of My Mind (Patternist #2) is a compelling follow up to Wild Seed (even if it was published years earlier). I really enjoyed how Wild Seed followed the shifting relationship between two immortals, Doro and Anyanwu, with distinctly different views on how to live in the world. In Mind of My Mind, 100 years later in California, the focus shifts away from them to Doro's breeding program, and specifically to a telepath named Mary who Doro has cultivated. Having such powers is disturbing and, unlike superhero narratives, is shown to be akin to losing one's humanity. This is a different book and the development is more uneven than in Wild Seed, but it still leaves me wanting to read more. 4.25 stars
Octavia Butler's Mind of My Mind (Patternist #2) is a compelling follow up to Wild Seed (even if it was published years earlier). I really enjoyed how Wild Seed followed the shifting relationship between two immortals, Doro and Anyanwu, with distinctly different views on how to live in the world. In Mind of My Mind, 100 years later in California, the focus shifts away from them to Doro's breeding program, and specifically to a telepath named Mary who Doro has cultivated. Having such powers is disturbing and, unlike superhero narratives, is shown to be akin to losing one's humanity. This is a different book and the development is more uneven than in Wild Seed, but it still leaves me wanting to read more. 4.25 stars
March 5, 2016
Mind of My Mind: The rise of the first Pattermaster
Originally published at
Mind of My Mind (1977) was written second in Octavia Butler’s 4-book PATTERNIST series, and comes second in chronology. However, I think it is less polished than Wild Seed (1980), which comes earlier in chronology but was written later after she had more fully developed her ideas about psionic powers, power/control, and telepaths vs. mutes. It’s tough to decide whether readers should approach this series in the order it was written, in order to see Butler’s development as a writer, or by internal chronology, to follow the PATTERNIST story at the expense of uneven writing style/quality.
Mind of My Mind takes place about a century after the events of Wild Seed. Doro, the immortal being from the first book, has continued to cultivate a huge number of active telepaths throughout the US. Anyanwu, the centuries-old shape-shifting healer, now goes by Emma and occupies a much smaller role in this book. Instead, the story is centered on a young teenaged girl named Mary. Doro recognizes great potential in her, and though she has a troubled upbringing like many other latent telepaths, he brings her through the difficult transition to active psionic abilities.
At this point Doro and Mary realize that she has a unique ability to link together other telepaths under her control in a Pattern of psychic bonds. The story follows a number of psychics who find themselves drawn to Forsyth, California, not understanding why. When they are gathered under one roof with Mary, it is revealed that Doro wants them to submit to Mary’s control in the hopes of forming a telepathic bond among them. They are extremely resistant to this proposal, and consider trying to kill Mary to avoid this outcome. However, Doro is an ever-present threat, and they are afraid to cross him. However, when they do link their minds, it is Doro who questions whether this outcome is truly the goal of his psychic breeding program over millennia, or whether Mary and the others in her Pattern represent a greater threat to him than anyone before.
All the books in the PATTERNIST series are short and told in a concise, somewhat clinical tone that is at odds with the themes of emotional bonds, struggles for control, manipulation, and internal conflict. The development of latents into actives is always a painful process, one that frequently results in death or injury, and does not always make that person happier. Unlike other writers, Butler does not assume that psychic powers gives a person a free ticket to do as they wish, controlling normals and bending them to their will. Instead, we see latents constantly battling internally with their powers, most often because they do not realize what the problem is, and frequently lashing out violently at the people around them, including family members. In fact, this struggle is posited as the reason behind a lot of mental illness cases, frequently in poverty-stricken or troubled homes. In fact, most of the latents that Mary eventually identifies and brings into the Pattern are suffering beforehand, so allowing them to joint a psychic family provides much-needed support and understanding. This eventually leads to a climactic confrontation between Doro and Mary, which will have lasting repercussions for centuries afterward.
In the end, it would be hard to say that Mind of My Mind is an easy or enjoyable read. Butler excels at depicting mental and physical hardship and torment. The characters are almost universally unhappy for much of the time, often because of their powers, and it is only the Pattern that eases this somewhat. Though there are many secondary characters in the story, they are not particularly memorable, so the focus is on Doro and Mary. Doro we know well from Wild Seed, and while he is a complex and powerful being, he is not likeable. Mary is more of a compassionate figure than Doro, but she is not averse to the power gained from controlling other psychics, similar to Doro, except she does not need to kill and feed on people to survive. The book does not make either character appealing � we are left to choose whom to sympathize with.
It’s fairly clear that Butler was still perfecting her craft and ideas about psychic powers, so Mind of My Mind feels more rushed and less polished than Wild Seed. At the same time, knowing that the next books Clay’s Ark and Patternmaster move further into the future, it makes sense to follow the internal chronology rather than the publication order. But I can’t help thinking that Butler would have wanted to brush up this book, and that’s probably why later books like Parable of the Sower have garnered more acclaim than her earlier works. Still, as a fascinating and unsettling look at what the development of a telepathic group-mind might actually feel like, Mind of My Mind is a very worthy effort.
Mind of My Mind is narrated by Christie Clarke, and she does a solid job. I imagine a woman narrator was chosen because Mary is the main character of the story, though it’s debatable whether the narrator and main character need to be matched gender-wise. Wild Seed was narrated by Dion Graham and Kindred was narrated by Kim Staunton, and I feel like they were more powerful voice actors (they certainly have impressive credentials), but I always hesitate to pass final judgment on a narrator because the book itself has such a huge role in forming our impressions, and I thought those books were superior to Mind of My Mind.
Originally published at
Mind of My Mind (1977) was written second in Octavia Butler’s 4-book PATTERNIST series, and comes second in chronology. However, I think it is less polished than Wild Seed (1980), which comes earlier in chronology but was written later after she had more fully developed her ideas about psionic powers, power/control, and telepaths vs. mutes. It’s tough to decide whether readers should approach this series in the order it was written, in order to see Butler’s development as a writer, or by internal chronology, to follow the PATTERNIST story at the expense of uneven writing style/quality.
Mind of My Mind takes place about a century after the events of Wild Seed. Doro, the immortal being from the first book, has continued to cultivate a huge number of active telepaths throughout the US. Anyanwu, the centuries-old shape-shifting healer, now goes by Emma and occupies a much smaller role in this book. Instead, the story is centered on a young teenaged girl named Mary. Doro recognizes great potential in her, and though she has a troubled upbringing like many other latent telepaths, he brings her through the difficult transition to active psionic abilities.
At this point Doro and Mary realize that she has a unique ability to link together other telepaths under her control in a Pattern of psychic bonds. The story follows a number of psychics who find themselves drawn to Forsyth, California, not understanding why. When they are gathered under one roof with Mary, it is revealed that Doro wants them to submit to Mary’s control in the hopes of forming a telepathic bond among them. They are extremely resistant to this proposal, and consider trying to kill Mary to avoid this outcome. However, Doro is an ever-present threat, and they are afraid to cross him. However, when they do link their minds, it is Doro who questions whether this outcome is truly the goal of his psychic breeding program over millennia, or whether Mary and the others in her Pattern represent a greater threat to him than anyone before.
All the books in the PATTERNIST series are short and told in a concise, somewhat clinical tone that is at odds with the themes of emotional bonds, struggles for control, manipulation, and internal conflict. The development of latents into actives is always a painful process, one that frequently results in death or injury, and does not always make that person happier. Unlike other writers, Butler does not assume that psychic powers gives a person a free ticket to do as they wish, controlling normals and bending them to their will. Instead, we see latents constantly battling internally with their powers, most often because they do not realize what the problem is, and frequently lashing out violently at the people around them, including family members. In fact, this struggle is posited as the reason behind a lot of mental illness cases, frequently in poverty-stricken or troubled homes. In fact, most of the latents that Mary eventually identifies and brings into the Pattern are suffering beforehand, so allowing them to joint a psychic family provides much-needed support and understanding. This eventually leads to a climactic confrontation between Doro and Mary, which will have lasting repercussions for centuries afterward.
In the end, it would be hard to say that Mind of My Mind is an easy or enjoyable read. Butler excels at depicting mental and physical hardship and torment. The characters are almost universally unhappy for much of the time, often because of their powers, and it is only the Pattern that eases this somewhat. Though there are many secondary characters in the story, they are not particularly memorable, so the focus is on Doro and Mary. Doro we know well from Wild Seed, and while he is a complex and powerful being, he is not likeable. Mary is more of a compassionate figure than Doro, but she is not averse to the power gained from controlling other psychics, similar to Doro, except she does not need to kill and feed on people to survive. The book does not make either character appealing � we are left to choose whom to sympathize with.
It’s fairly clear that Butler was still perfecting her craft and ideas about psychic powers, so Mind of My Mind feels more rushed and less polished than Wild Seed. At the same time, knowing that the next books Clay’s Ark and Patternmaster move further into the future, it makes sense to follow the internal chronology rather than the publication order. But I can’t help thinking that Butler would have wanted to brush up this book, and that’s probably why later books like Parable of the Sower have garnered more acclaim than her earlier works. Still, as a fascinating and unsettling look at what the development of a telepathic group-mind might actually feel like, Mind of My Mind is a very worthy effort.
Mind of My Mind is narrated by Christie Clarke, and she does a solid job. I imagine a woman narrator was chosen because Mary is the main character of the story, though it’s debatable whether the narrator and main character need to be matched gender-wise. Wild Seed was narrated by Dion Graham and Kindred was narrated by Kim Staunton, and I feel like they were more powerful voice actors (they certainly have impressive credentials), but I always hesitate to pass final judgment on a narrator because the book itself has such a huge role in forming our impressions, and I thought those books were superior to Mind of My Mind.
April 27, 2011
Wild Seed, the first book in the Patternist series, was a phenomenal book that made me infatuated with Octavia Butler’s ability to tell a story. Mind of My Mind, the second book in the series, made me realize that she is probably going to be one of my favorite authors ever.
Mind of My Mind picks up about a hundred or so years after the end of Wild Seed. Over the years Doro has created quite the extensive network of telepaths, many of them living in or around Forsyth, California. This story centers on one in particular named Mary, who after going through her transition, turns out to have a wholly unique ability never before seen in the history of Doro’s breeding program. This new ability attracts several other telepaths that come from around the country to Forsyth without knowing why. Soon a new society of telepaths is being created, and no one, even Doro, is sure what to make of it. Doro’s plans have gone almost too well, and now the question facing him is, “What do I do with this race of special abilities that I have spent thousands of years creating?�
Mary’s ability is a game-changer in terms of the series. It raises all-new philosophical and ethical questions that play out through the story. Butler continues her mastery of the morally ambiguous tale, forcing her characters to make tough decisions, and other times forcing them to accept deplorable circumstances. At every turn, someone is giving up freedom for power, and it’s fascinating to watch this paradox play out. The society created by these telepaths also creates new bonds between them, and identities of sexuality and authority are constantly in flux. As usual, Butler never settles for the easy answer, but thankfully she does go for the most interesting route.
One of the most interesting aspects of Doro’s character from Wild Seed is the way everyone loves him. His sons submit to him, and his daughters fall in love with him and have children by him. He has an infinite capacity for cruelty in order to accomplish his plans, yet people still fall over themselves to gain his acceptance. This aspect of Doro also is dealt with superbly in this book.
Can’t wait to read the next in the series. The ending of this book changes the series in a big way, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the next installment.
Mind of My Mind picks up about a hundred or so years after the end of Wild Seed. Over the years Doro has created quite the extensive network of telepaths, many of them living in or around Forsyth, California. This story centers on one in particular named Mary, who after going through her transition, turns out to have a wholly unique ability never before seen in the history of Doro’s breeding program. This new ability attracts several other telepaths that come from around the country to Forsyth without knowing why. Soon a new society of telepaths is being created, and no one, even Doro, is sure what to make of it. Doro’s plans have gone almost too well, and now the question facing him is, “What do I do with this race of special abilities that I have spent thousands of years creating?�
Mary’s ability is a game-changer in terms of the series. It raises all-new philosophical and ethical questions that play out through the story. Butler continues her mastery of the morally ambiguous tale, forcing her characters to make tough decisions, and other times forcing them to accept deplorable circumstances. At every turn, someone is giving up freedom for power, and it’s fascinating to watch this paradox play out. The society created by these telepaths also creates new bonds between them, and identities of sexuality and authority are constantly in flux. As usual, Butler never settles for the easy answer, but thankfully she does go for the most interesting route.
One of the most interesting aspects of Doro’s character from Wild Seed is the way everyone loves him. His sons submit to him, and his daughters fall in love with him and have children by him. He has an infinite capacity for cruelty in order to accomplish his plans, yet people still fall over themselves to gain his acceptance. This aspect of Doro also is dealt with superbly in this book.
Can’t wait to read the next in the series. The ending of this book changes the series in a big way, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the next installment.
February 7, 2020
This is very different from Wild Seed, which I preferred. The story is more contained and reading it feels like watching a debate. Sometimes things went faster than I could digest. Nothing wrong with those, it's just that I miss the emotions, the wrenching gut feeling I felt when reading the first book. Probably because I don't find any character in this book to be likable especially the main characters. Emma or Anyanwu was pretty much nonexistent despite her very memorable journey in the first book. I did appreciate all the mental, psychological explorations. The speculative fiction aspect in building a community of telepaths and all that jazz. I liked that Butler here kept pulling me out from my comfort zone with all the horrible events happening - mind control is not pretty. But, I could not find myself sympathizing with any of the MCs and finally read until the end just so I know what happened.
June 17, 2022
Actual Rating: 3.75/5
In a Southern Californian town bustling with what you would call normal human beings, a girl called Mary, who is pretty much anything but normal, is being raised. She is one of the thousands of results of a breeding experiment being undertaken by an immortal man named Doro, who, thanks to a rare mutation in his genes, was able to tap into psychic powers that allows him to transfer his consciousness from one body to the next, which has given him an unlimited lifespan. For thousands of years, Doro has been wandering this earth, firstly trying to mentally consume regular humans around him to satisfy his unending hunger, but at some point in his life, he began to develop a vision of forming his very own society, a society of people blessed with this psychic ability, his very own large "family" he would be the head of. In order to do so, Doro had to cherry pick people who have inklings of these psychic powers and have them mate in order to reproduce and bring about more and more children who would eventually grow up and mate with other people of their kind, hence creating a highly concentrated genetic pool of people with powerful psychic abilities they can use to bend humanity to their will, while also ultimately submitting to Doro's authority.
Following a snippet of Mary's journey in this book allows us to further delve into the central theme Butler seems to be exploring in the Patternmaster series, the value of free will and what it means, and how human beings can react when that free will is forcibly taken away from them. Mary is by far the most successful "experiment" Doro was able to breed, since she not only has very similar psychic powers to Doro, but she's also proficient in telepathy, being able to mentally connect with other psychics and bind them to her, irreversibly placing them under her mental mercy. Whatever she wills, the people bound to her must do, and if they resist her, she can easily kill them just by releasing that thought. Not only that, but once Mary discovers these powers, she begins developing an insatiable hunger for expanding her influence, wanting to bring more and more people into this mental "pattern" she's building. In this book, we explore how Mary's victims react to her psychic intrusions, and the struggles they deal with accepting that Mary will always have dominance over their free will, and the only two things they can do is to either give in, or die. As for Doro, he finds himself increasingly alienated from the empire he himself began building, since he doesn't have the power of telepathy and is ultimately shut out from the mental pattern Mary keeps creating with thousands of people. He expects Mary to be in a constant state of subservience towards him, but how long will Mary manage to not get drunk from her own power?
Octavia Butler's writing style is very heavy in theme exploration, and the plot and characterization are secondary components that help drive the central theme forward. In this book, we go a few thousand years back from the first book that was published in the series. Here, human beings still ruled the world, but the Patternmasters, who would inevitably become the ultimate rulers and enslave regular human beings and reduce them to mere servants, have begun establishing their dominions within human society, thanks to Mary's psychic expansion. I'm still glad I chose to read this series in publication order as opposed to chronological order, since it's interesting to see how the seeds to that desolate world we read about in are beginning to be planted here, thanks to Mary. Octavia Butler's authorial voice is a bit distant and remote, which adds a bleak atmosphere to the narrative and a sharp cruel edge to the unpleasant events that happen, those little moments where people know that their freedom has been snatched away, and that the only thing they can do to avoid death is to bend their heads down and accept ultimate submission and the loss of autonomy, and learn to like it. This theme closely parallels the same phenomena that takes place in our human societies, where the norm is for people to bow down to a power they feel like they can never win against. The hierarchical nature of human society is given spotlight, and there is no egalitarianism here. Through Mary, we get to see the same person experience both sides of the coin. She is in control of thousands of people who learn to follow her like sheep, yet she also finds herself forced to submit to Doro's authority.
An interesting novel that serves as a prequel to the first novel published in the series. I'm curious to see how the next one in this series will be, and I recommend this to fans of Sci-fi who are into theme heavy explorations, and not necessarily an extraordinary plot or character work.
“Could a creature who had to look upon ordinary people literally as food and shelter ever understand how strongly those people valued life?�
----------------------------------
You can also read my thoughts on:
#1. Patternmaster (Patternmaster, #4) by Octavia E. Butler.
----------------------------------
In a Southern Californian town bustling with what you would call normal human beings, a girl called Mary, who is pretty much anything but normal, is being raised. She is one of the thousands of results of a breeding experiment being undertaken by an immortal man named Doro, who, thanks to a rare mutation in his genes, was able to tap into psychic powers that allows him to transfer his consciousness from one body to the next, which has given him an unlimited lifespan. For thousands of years, Doro has been wandering this earth, firstly trying to mentally consume regular humans around him to satisfy his unending hunger, but at some point in his life, he began to develop a vision of forming his very own society, a society of people blessed with this psychic ability, his very own large "family" he would be the head of. In order to do so, Doro had to cherry pick people who have inklings of these psychic powers and have them mate in order to reproduce and bring about more and more children who would eventually grow up and mate with other people of their kind, hence creating a highly concentrated genetic pool of people with powerful psychic abilities they can use to bend humanity to their will, while also ultimately submitting to Doro's authority.
Following a snippet of Mary's journey in this book allows us to further delve into the central theme Butler seems to be exploring in the Patternmaster series, the value of free will and what it means, and how human beings can react when that free will is forcibly taken away from them. Mary is by far the most successful "experiment" Doro was able to breed, since she not only has very similar psychic powers to Doro, but she's also proficient in telepathy, being able to mentally connect with other psychics and bind them to her, irreversibly placing them under her mental mercy. Whatever she wills, the people bound to her must do, and if they resist her, she can easily kill them just by releasing that thought. Not only that, but once Mary discovers these powers, she begins developing an insatiable hunger for expanding her influence, wanting to bring more and more people into this mental "pattern" she's building. In this book, we explore how Mary's victims react to her psychic intrusions, and the struggles they deal with accepting that Mary will always have dominance over their free will, and the only two things they can do is to either give in, or die. As for Doro, he finds himself increasingly alienated from the empire he himself began building, since he doesn't have the power of telepathy and is ultimately shut out from the mental pattern Mary keeps creating with thousands of people. He expects Mary to be in a constant state of subservience towards him, but how long will Mary manage to not get drunk from her own power?
Octavia Butler's writing style is very heavy in theme exploration, and the plot and characterization are secondary components that help drive the central theme forward. In this book, we go a few thousand years back from the first book that was published in the series. Here, human beings still ruled the world, but the Patternmasters, who would inevitably become the ultimate rulers and enslave regular human beings and reduce them to mere servants, have begun establishing their dominions within human society, thanks to Mary's psychic expansion. I'm still glad I chose to read this series in publication order as opposed to chronological order, since it's interesting to see how the seeds to that desolate world we read about in are beginning to be planted here, thanks to Mary. Octavia Butler's authorial voice is a bit distant and remote, which adds a bleak atmosphere to the narrative and a sharp cruel edge to the unpleasant events that happen, those little moments where people know that their freedom has been snatched away, and that the only thing they can do to avoid death is to bend their heads down and accept ultimate submission and the loss of autonomy, and learn to like it. This theme closely parallels the same phenomena that takes place in our human societies, where the norm is for people to bow down to a power they feel like they can never win against. The hierarchical nature of human society is given spotlight, and there is no egalitarianism here. Through Mary, we get to see the same person experience both sides of the coin. She is in control of thousands of people who learn to follow her like sheep, yet she also finds herself forced to submit to Doro's authority.
An interesting novel that serves as a prequel to the first novel published in the series. I'm curious to see how the next one in this series will be, and I recommend this to fans of Sci-fi who are into theme heavy explorations, and not necessarily an extraordinary plot or character work.
“Could a creature who had to look upon ordinary people literally as food and shelter ever understand how strongly those people valued life?�
----------------------------------
You can also read my thoughts on:
#1. Patternmaster (Patternmaster, #4) by Octavia E. Butler.
----------------------------------
January 13, 2025
Weird but riveting with a very satisfying conclusion that makes me want to pick up the next book. The way this series explores power, playing god, and symbiotic relationships is fascinating.
October 8, 2012
Mind of My Mind is set roughly in the present (that is, the present of 1977 when it was first published) and is the story of Mary, the greatest success of Doro's program of breeding humans with psionic abilities. Through Mary, some of Doro's people gain unprecedented power.
What prevented me from finding Mind of My Mind actually fun -- the coldly unsympathetic nature of all of its characters -- is also something that makes it excellent speculative fiction.
Mind of My Mind is told entirely from the perspective of Mary, some other psychic people who are close to her, and Doro. None of the characters are people without psionic ability. Doro (whom I described in my review of ) is an immortal mass murderer with no conscience. The other viewpoint characters are all psychic -- they can read other people's minds, project their thoughts, and manipulate other people with their psychic power. All of them have grown up using those powers to get what they want and need. Some are nicer than others, but all of them are manipulative and have preyed on people who are defenseless against them.
Butler designed these people -- the Patternists, as they come to call themselves -- so that it would be almost impossible for them to exist without abusing ordinary humans. In particular, most Patternists find it intolerable to be around children (Patternists don't gain control over their powers until adolescence or adulthood). So as the Patternists organize themselves, in order to protect their children and their own sanity, they foster the children with non-psychic families. And to make sure the children are raised lovingly, they brainwash the foster parents. At least in Mind of My Mind, the Patternists don't believe that it's possible for them to survive without doing such things, but they also go beyond the necessary, programming the minds of people who will pass laws they want, give them money and property, and even work as loyal servants in the Patternists' houses. A few characters protest, saying that they don't want to enslave people, but yield when told that enslaving "mutes" (the Patternists' name for humans without psychic powers) is the only alternative to the miserable lives that most psychic people had endured before the Pattern.
For the most part this is revealed in a very matter-of-fact way, because it's very easy for the Patternists to think of themselves as better. It's so easy for them to use and manipulate "mutes" that most of them stopped questioning the ethics of it long ago. The only moral imperative for them is (now that the Pattern allows them more control over themselves) to treat the "mutes" kindly when using them.
Anyanwu (the other immortal protagonist of Wild Seed, whose psi abilities are for healing and have nothing to do with the mind) is still around in Mind of My Mind, and she thinks that what Doro and the Patternists are doing is terrible, but she has absolutely no power to stop them. And for the most part she's described from Mary's perspective. Even though Anyanwu took care of Mary when she was a child, Mary comes to utterly dismiss her.
In other words, Butler has arranged Mind of My Mind in such a way that if anyone is going to seriously criticize the Patternists, it has to be the reader. If the reader doesn't get to the bottom of the paragraph and say "That's completely evil," then no one will. Silence.
I've read many other books in which characters do and think horrible things without being checked in any way; some in which everyone in the story seems to conspire to give me the creeps. In some of these cases I know it's because the author him- or herself is creepy or careless; in some I watch very carefully for the author to give some reassuring narrative sign that he or she knows what I've spotted and has a good reason for it.
I had neither of these reactions to Mind of My Mind. I think Butler very deliberately assigned this task of judgment to the reader. Maybe it's a test. And maybe it's also a commentary on some of those other books, the ones that leave a few readers vainly protesting while the author blithely receives accolades for his or her accurate portrayal of human nature.
What prevented me from finding Mind of My Mind actually fun -- the coldly unsympathetic nature of all of its characters -- is also something that makes it excellent speculative fiction.
Mind of My Mind is told entirely from the perspective of Mary, some other psychic people who are close to her, and Doro. None of the characters are people without psionic ability. Doro (whom I described in my review of ) is an immortal mass murderer with no conscience. The other viewpoint characters are all psychic -- they can read other people's minds, project their thoughts, and manipulate other people with their psychic power. All of them have grown up using those powers to get what they want and need. Some are nicer than others, but all of them are manipulative and have preyed on people who are defenseless against them.
Butler designed these people -- the Patternists, as they come to call themselves -- so that it would be almost impossible for them to exist without abusing ordinary humans. In particular, most Patternists find it intolerable to be around children (Patternists don't gain control over their powers until adolescence or adulthood). So as the Patternists organize themselves, in order to protect their children and their own sanity, they foster the children with non-psychic families. And to make sure the children are raised lovingly, they brainwash the foster parents. At least in Mind of My Mind, the Patternists don't believe that it's possible for them to survive without doing such things, but they also go beyond the necessary, programming the minds of people who will pass laws they want, give them money and property, and even work as loyal servants in the Patternists' houses. A few characters protest, saying that they don't want to enslave people, but yield when told that enslaving "mutes" (the Patternists' name for humans without psychic powers) is the only alternative to the miserable lives that most psychic people had endured before the Pattern.
For the most part this is revealed in a very matter-of-fact way, because it's very easy for the Patternists to think of themselves as better. It's so easy for them to use and manipulate "mutes" that most of them stopped questioning the ethics of it long ago. The only moral imperative for them is (now that the Pattern allows them more control over themselves) to treat the "mutes" kindly when using them.
Anyanwu (the other immortal protagonist of Wild Seed, whose psi abilities are for healing and have nothing to do with the mind) is still around in Mind of My Mind, and she thinks that what Doro and the Patternists are doing is terrible, but she has absolutely no power to stop them. And for the most part she's described from Mary's perspective. Even though Anyanwu took care of Mary when she was a child, Mary comes to utterly dismiss her.
In other words, Butler has arranged Mind of My Mind in such a way that if anyone is going to seriously criticize the Patternists, it has to be the reader. If the reader doesn't get to the bottom of the paragraph and say "That's completely evil," then no one will. Silence.
I've read many other books in which characters do and think horrible things without being checked in any way; some in which everyone in the story seems to conspire to give me the creeps. In some of these cases I know it's because the author him- or herself is creepy or careless; in some I watch very carefully for the author to give some reassuring narrative sign that he or she knows what I've spotted and has a good reason for it.
I had neither of these reactions to Mind of My Mind. I think Butler very deliberately assigned this task of judgment to the reader. Maybe it's a test. And maybe it's also a commentary on some of those other books, the ones that leave a few readers vainly protesting while the author blithely receives accolades for his or her accurate portrayal of human nature.
March 1, 2025
It's almost impossible for me to write a review right after I finish an Octavia E. Butler book. They're always just so intense and my brain and my heart always try to make sense of them, even if they're never simple to parse out. That's part of the fun!
Anyway, as a pre-review: this has all the things I love about Butler's works - fucked up main characters, fucked up power dynamics, a twisty take on systems in the real world and how people interact with them. I really loved it, though the ending felt a little bit abrupt. I hope we hear a bit more from the aftermath of this. I imagine we will!
Also, reading from Abolish the Family right after this and about freed slaves during the reconstruction era and how they kept kinship relationships and different networks, perhaps 'patterns' of connection between them in very non-nuclear family ways truly hits at the right time when thinking about Butler's work and this book in particular.
Anyway, as a pre-review: this has all the things I love about Butler's works - fucked up main characters, fucked up power dynamics, a twisty take on systems in the real world and how people interact with them. I really loved it, though the ending felt a little bit abrupt. I hope we hear a bit more from the aftermath of this. I imagine we will!
Also, reading from Abolish the Family right after this and about freed slaves during the reconstruction era and how they kept kinship relationships and different networks, perhaps 'patterns' of connection between them in very non-nuclear family ways truly hits at the right time when thinking about Butler's work and this book in particular.
April 18, 2009
My favorite author ever. She died just a couple years ago. I'm heartbroken because i wanted to meet her, shake her hand, tell her how much I identify with her work, how much she infuses me with a desire to write. i want to recollect all of her work and read it sequencially, I keep loaning it out. i didn't realize when I read it, that i was reading about polyamory. i didn't know the word yet. she writes about xenophobia and alternative morals amoung other things, the bleak future, warnign us to change it, inherit goodness and evil of humanity, and the power of single people to unite small groups to create great change, evolution, hope.
May 21, 2021
2021 Reread review:
I can truly see the growth between this novel and Patternmaster.
Still my 2nd favorite novel in this series.
Previous Reread review:
The Patternmaster series is interesting because the books were written out of order. After Wild Seed this is my favorite book in this series.
I can relate to Mary in many real ways though our lives are nothing alike.
I remember stumbling into Butler in my late teens. This was probably the 5th book I read by her.
I can truly see the growth between this novel and Patternmaster.
Still my 2nd favorite novel in this series.
Previous Reread review:
The Patternmaster series is interesting because the books were written out of order. After Wild Seed this is my favorite book in this series.
I can relate to Mary in many real ways though our lives are nothing alike.
I remember stumbling into Butler in my late teens. This was probably the 5th book I read by her.
March 27, 2023
The circuit of power.
This was a phenomenal sequel to Wild Seed which continues the story but in a different time period but some of the same characters. I don't want to get to spoilie with this but this book was really, really excellent. Aside from the assessible prose, the characters and dialogue just jump off the page. There is a lot of brutality and violence in this book and it's all mixed up with power struggles and also a reframing of mental illness. I loved the dynamic between Doro and Mary and how their relationship absolutely transforms into something very, very different. The themes of power and domination are salient here. A lot of the plot points and developments happened as disembodied people, which I don't always love, but Butler got it to work really well. I will definitely be continuing this series.
This was a phenomenal sequel to Wild Seed which continues the story but in a different time period but some of the same characters. I don't want to get to spoilie with this but this book was really, really excellent. Aside from the assessible prose, the characters and dialogue just jump off the page. There is a lot of brutality and violence in this book and it's all mixed up with power struggles and also a reframing of mental illness. I loved the dynamic between Doro and Mary and how their relationship absolutely transforms into something very, very different. The themes of power and domination are salient here. A lot of the plot points and developments happened as disembodied people, which I don't always love, but Butler got it to work really well. I will definitely be continuing this series.
September 3, 2016
Speculative fiction concerning an alien's breeding program for telepathy in humans. Some of the same characters as (100 years later) but mostly new ones. I love Ms. Butler's bold ideas about genetics and heredity.
October 13, 2011
This was a surprisingly short read, which I picked up as part of the Seed to Harvest series, but have read before Wild Seed.
I'm not sure what I ultimately expected, but what was there was a bit of a let down. There were many themes and issues raised, but none truly pursued. Most notably so was the issue of race. For the most part, characters physical appearances were only vaguely described. Most times, when we came to know someone was Black, it was because Mary was making a comparison or wishing/pleased someone was so (ie wanting to know why Doro had chosen a White husband for her, or being pleased that Doro appeared to her in a Black body). Rachel's race is introduced as a non sequitur that serves no further purpose but to add to Jan's "Oh god, niggers," comment later (we learn earlier that Jan is racist when a Black boy happens past her and therefore we assume she is White, as there does not seem to be any other option but Black or White).
Later, Emma angrily raises the issue of non-telepaths being referred to as "mutes," which she compares to "niggers." Beyond her brief tirade, this is not addressed again beyond the obvious comparison of mutes being used as slaves to the Patternists (though here, the mutes are all very content and mistreatment by Patternists is punished). Emma's tirade is particularly hypocritical since she is as much a slave to Doro as all the rest of Doro's children whom he keeps in line with violence and threats of death.
Overall, this was a very disturbing theme. The notion that one man is working to breed people with super human powers, particularly telepathy. Those who are failed experiments are left to die, while the successes eventually come together thanks to Mary, who is Doro's ultimate success and thereby becomes his ultimate rival. Between the two of them, there are thousands of people running around the country with the ability to control minds, or inflicting horrible violence against others because they can't control their own minds. Apparently, domestic violence is caused by this lack of control in active and latent telepaths.
There is an attempt to offer a mother/father juxtaposition, where Doro is the cruel male figure whom his children love, though they know he cares nothing for them and would quickly kill them. Mary is the mother figure whom we assume is the representation of nurturing, but in fact, while she displays much greater conscience than Doro, she's most certainly not a Mother Theresa figure.
One thing I did appreciate was the fact that there was no good vs. evil. Doro might have been considered an evil worthy of destruction, but how much of Mary could truly be considered "good?"
I'm not sure what I ultimately expected, but what was there was a bit of a let down. There were many themes and issues raised, but none truly pursued. Most notably so was the issue of race. For the most part, characters physical appearances were only vaguely described. Most times, when we came to know someone was Black, it was because Mary was making a comparison or wishing/pleased someone was so (ie wanting to know why Doro had chosen a White husband for her, or being pleased that Doro appeared to her in a Black body). Rachel's race is introduced as a non sequitur that serves no further purpose but to add to Jan's "Oh god, niggers," comment later (we learn earlier that Jan is racist when a Black boy happens past her and therefore we assume she is White, as there does not seem to be any other option but Black or White).
Later, Emma angrily raises the issue of non-telepaths being referred to as "mutes," which she compares to "niggers." Beyond her brief tirade, this is not addressed again beyond the obvious comparison of mutes being used as slaves to the Patternists (though here, the mutes are all very content and mistreatment by Patternists is punished). Emma's tirade is particularly hypocritical since she is as much a slave to Doro as all the rest of Doro's children whom he keeps in line with violence and threats of death.
Overall, this was a very disturbing theme. The notion that one man is working to breed people with super human powers, particularly telepathy. Those who are failed experiments are left to die, while the successes eventually come together thanks to Mary, who is Doro's ultimate success and thereby becomes his ultimate rival. Between the two of them, there are thousands of people running around the country with the ability to control minds, or inflicting horrible violence against others because they can't control their own minds. Apparently, domestic violence is caused by this lack of control in active and latent telepaths.
There is an attempt to offer a mother/father juxtaposition, where Doro is the cruel male figure whom his children love, though they know he cares nothing for them and would quickly kill them. Mary is the mother figure whom we assume is the representation of nurturing, but in fact, while she displays much greater conscience than Doro, she's most certainly not a Mother Theresa figure.
One thing I did appreciate was the fact that there was no good vs. evil. Doro might have been considered an evil worthy of destruction, but how much of Mary could truly be considered "good?"
December 26, 2021
second read � 23 December 2021 - ****. Mind of My Mind is book #2 in Octavia E. Butler’s Patternist series, published from 1976 through 1984. I have previously read it in a stand-alone fashion, and that was probably a mistake. I’m now reading the full series, because it’s covered in Lecture 19, “Octavia Butler and Utopian Hybridity�, from . The books were not written in the order of story chronology, and there is some fan controversy as to whether they should be read in publication order or chronology order. The author’s legacy site () gives a third option, and I am following that. It is:
Book #1: , chronology #1, published 1980.
Book #2: Mind of My Mind, chronology #2, published 1977.
Book #3: , chronology #3, published 1984.
Book #4: , chronology #5, published 1976.
Book #5, out of print: , chronology #4, published 1978.
Doro is a mutated human, whose psionic powers include the ability to seize, move to, and inhabit the body of whatever other human is physically closest to him. By successively taking new bodies he has managed to live almost 4000 years since his birth in East Africa. As told in Wild Seed, he encountered and finally settled into a power relationship with Anyanwu, a centuries-old shapeshifter known as Emma after her immigration to the New World, and eventually California. Mind of My Mind is set in more or less contemporary times (1970s), where Doro’s breeding program has finally produced a telepath that he hopes will be stable enough to survive � Mary. This then, is the story of Mary’s developing talents, her ability to nurture other latent telepaths, and form a secret new race within the human race. Unfortunately for him, while this has been Doro’s goal all along, he himself is not a telepath, and a new power struggle is inevitable between Mary and him. Butler uses this device to explore the power relationships of slavery and sex, often intertwining the two. The telepaths systematically command non-telepath mutes, modifying their thoughts so as to make them happy with their subjugation to the inherently superior new race of Patternists. Breeding with mutes is accomplished by the same way, and there is a hierarchy among the Patternists according to their powers, by which further inbreeding is accomplished. The startling thing to me, is that even when knowing they have no freedom to choose, the inferior Patternists learn to accept and even love their superiors. Butler is telling us that sexuality is a device of interpersonal power, and fictionally elevates it to the level of slavery. Whew!
I’m not sure in what way this concept relates to utopia or dystopia for purposes of the aforementioned literature course that I am reading. But it is possible that in bringing a conclusion to the conflict which inevitably rises out of Doro’s ambitions, the story arc will now transition to another theme in the later two books. We will see�
first read - 21 February 2013 - ***. This is the second book in Octavia Butler's Patternist series. The titles of all four volumes are Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, and Patternmaster. I have previously read Wild Seed a few years ago, so this was in the correct order for me.
The consequences of Butler's speculative concepts were quite logically worked out. I believe that involuntary telepathy and the need for power over others as described here, would lead to the brutal behaviors that come to be accepted by otherwise good and ethical people - but that makes it really hard to identify with them. Mary is not as bad as Doro, who made her what she is, but still she's pretty evil for a main character. I just don't get how the other characters come to accept and even love her dominance. I'm sure that Butler intended this to reflect on the history of slavery in the world, as that was very explicit in the first book. In the end, I found the book entertaining, but not as great as Butler's Parable of the Sower or Kindred.
Book #1: , chronology #1, published 1980.
Book #2: Mind of My Mind, chronology #2, published 1977.
Book #3: , chronology #3, published 1984.
Book #4: , chronology #5, published 1976.
Book #5, out of print: , chronology #4, published 1978.
Doro is a mutated human, whose psionic powers include the ability to seize, move to, and inhabit the body of whatever other human is physically closest to him. By successively taking new bodies he has managed to live almost 4000 years since his birth in East Africa. As told in Wild Seed, he encountered and finally settled into a power relationship with Anyanwu, a centuries-old shapeshifter known as Emma after her immigration to the New World, and eventually California. Mind of My Mind is set in more or less contemporary times (1970s), where Doro’s breeding program has finally produced a telepath that he hopes will be stable enough to survive � Mary. This then, is the story of Mary’s developing talents, her ability to nurture other latent telepaths, and form a secret new race within the human race. Unfortunately for him, while this has been Doro’s goal all along, he himself is not a telepath, and a new power struggle is inevitable between Mary and him. Butler uses this device to explore the power relationships of slavery and sex, often intertwining the two. The telepaths systematically command non-telepath mutes, modifying their thoughts so as to make them happy with their subjugation to the inherently superior new race of Patternists. Breeding with mutes is accomplished by the same way, and there is a hierarchy among the Patternists according to their powers, by which further inbreeding is accomplished. The startling thing to me, is that even when knowing they have no freedom to choose, the inferior Patternists learn to accept and even love their superiors. Butler is telling us that sexuality is a device of interpersonal power, and fictionally elevates it to the level of slavery. Whew!
I’m not sure in what way this concept relates to utopia or dystopia for purposes of the aforementioned literature course that I am reading. But it is possible that in bringing a conclusion to the conflict which inevitably rises out of Doro’s ambitions, the story arc will now transition to another theme in the later two books. We will see�
first read - 21 February 2013 - ***. This is the second book in Octavia Butler's Patternist series. The titles of all four volumes are Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, and Patternmaster. I have previously read Wild Seed a few years ago, so this was in the correct order for me.
The consequences of Butler's speculative concepts were quite logically worked out. I believe that involuntary telepathy and the need for power over others as described here, would lead to the brutal behaviors that come to be accepted by otherwise good and ethical people - but that makes it really hard to identify with them. Mary is not as bad as Doro, who made her what she is, but still she's pretty evil for a main character. I just don't get how the other characters come to accept and even love her dominance. I'm sure that Butler intended this to reflect on the history of slavery in the world, as that was very explicit in the first book. In the end, I found the book entertaining, but not as great as Butler's Parable of the Sower or Kindred.
August 23, 2019
A great cerebral thriller in more ways than one, Octavia Butler adds a solid entry to the Patternist series with .
While this volume occurs sequentially after , yet was published several years earlier, I struggled with how to go about reading them. On the one hand, the writing for Wild Seed is objectively better (Butler only improved with time) so this earlier entry felt underdeveloped in comparison. However, by reading them in order of the Patternist timeline, I felt Mind of My Mind’s ending was more shocking and satisfying—rarely am I surprised by anything but Butler always keeps me on my toes. This is probably how I will continue to read the series, but I digress...
“B°ù±ð±ð»å didn’t sound like the kind of word that should be applied to people. The minute he said it, though, I realized it was the right word for what he was doing.â€�
This novel opens with the 4,000-year-old Doro continuing to build his empire, one experimental child at a time. At the novel’s start we are introduced to Doro’s daughter Mary, a young biracial woman and potentially powerful telepath. She does not seem altogether different from Doro’s earlier telepaths, though everything changes when she transitions from her latent to active state. Cue further explorations of the push and pull between free will and shifting mental power dynamics with the birth of the pattern.
All in all, I should mention that this is a flawed novel, especially given how Emma (aka: Anyanwu) is sidelined and how prominent a role the uncomfortable Karl plays as events unfold. That said, I see this book as one of Butler’s earliest explorations of telepathic interconnected themes she would later explore, albeit in more refined manner, with her Xenogensis series (aka: Lilith’s Brood) and . So, a great deal of my enjoyment for this book came from experiencing Butler’s thought process, more than anything else.
Overall, I really enjoyed this novel and am excited to continue on with the Patternist series.
While this volume occurs sequentially after , yet was published several years earlier, I struggled with how to go about reading them. On the one hand, the writing for Wild Seed is objectively better (Butler only improved with time) so this earlier entry felt underdeveloped in comparison. However, by reading them in order of the Patternist timeline, I felt Mind of My Mind’s ending was more shocking and satisfying—rarely am I surprised by anything but Butler always keeps me on my toes. This is probably how I will continue to read the series, but I digress...
“B°ù±ð±ð»å didn’t sound like the kind of word that should be applied to people. The minute he said it, though, I realized it was the right word for what he was doing.â€�
This novel opens with the 4,000-year-old Doro continuing to build his empire, one experimental child at a time. At the novel’s start we are introduced to Doro’s daughter Mary, a young biracial woman and potentially powerful telepath. She does not seem altogether different from Doro’s earlier telepaths, though everything changes when she transitions from her latent to active state. Cue further explorations of the push and pull between free will and shifting mental power dynamics with the birth of the pattern.
All in all, I should mention that this is a flawed novel, especially given how Emma (aka: Anyanwu) is sidelined and how prominent a role the uncomfortable Karl plays as events unfold. That said, I see this book as one of Butler’s earliest explorations of telepathic interconnected themes she would later explore, albeit in more refined manner, with her Xenogensis series (aka: Lilith’s Brood) and . So, a great deal of my enjoyment for this book came from experiencing Butler’s thought process, more than anything else.
Overall, I really enjoyed this novel and am excited to continue on with the Patternist series.
February 18, 2025
4.25 Stars rounded up
The found family in this didn't really work for me, mostly due to the way it formed. There weren't any characters I felt connect to, but ooooh my goodness, the ending! I did not expect that. I just think Octavia E. Butler's writing is just so good, even though I didn't care for the characters or themes I was hooked on this one too. I also like how this series is evolving.
The found family in this didn't really work for me, mostly due to the way it formed. There weren't any characters I felt connect to, but ooooh my goodness, the ending! I did not expect that. I just think Octavia E. Butler's writing is just so good, even though I didn't care for the characters or themes I was hooked on this one too. I also like how this series is evolving.
April 9, 2023
I've generally appreciated Butler's minimalism when it comes to language and narrative, but this is the first time her style feels simply uncertain and inconsistent. The novel alternates between the points of view of various characters, with Mary's (the main character) narrative using the first person and the others' using the third. Mary's protagonism and also her particular super-abilities may explain this choice, but in fact the switch simply feels awkward and unmotivated. This is, I believe, one of those cases in which the author is simply too much in love with their protagonist to craft a narrative that is, for lack of a better description, put-together, self-collected in a way that invites a serious engagement on the part of the reader.
I do appreciate Butler's efforts to offer up for scrutiny themes and situations that are openly problematic, ambiguous, and controversial, but due to her evident admiration and support of her main character, it seems that the novel has already decided for you what's wrong and what's right, and this decidedly diminishes the philosophical (and also aesthetic, frankly) interest of the novel. Plus (but this is just a personal judgement that doesn't really go into my assessment of the book as such) I find the social and moral system that Mary is beginning to put in place in this book (and which, again, the book appears to be actively advocating for, which is quite unappealing and boring for me as a reader) somewhat revolting. But again, that's just my personal view and neither here nor there when it comes to assessing the book.
I do appreciate Butler's efforts to offer up for scrutiny themes and situations that are openly problematic, ambiguous, and controversial, but due to her evident admiration and support of her main character, it seems that the novel has already decided for you what's wrong and what's right, and this decidedly diminishes the philosophical (and also aesthetic, frankly) interest of the novel. Plus (but this is just a personal judgement that doesn't really go into my assessment of the book as such) I find the social and moral system that Mary is beginning to put in place in this book (and which, again, the book appears to be actively advocating for, which is quite unappealing and boring for me as a reader) somewhat revolting. But again, that's just my personal view and neither here nor there when it comes to assessing the book.
February 13, 2017
4.5 Stars
As always Octavia Butler is phenomenal. This book was interesting (and makes more sense now that I know that the internal chronological order that I am reading these in, are not the published order), because Doro is not the most powerful thing in the universe anymore. This strangely saddened me. Even though he is a inhuman body-stealing monster, you spend several books wondering what his end game is (and kind of hoping that he'll achieve it because then you'll KNOW)
During the final battle between Mary and Doro, I found myself torn over who to root for. Doro is not at all a good guy, Mary's not either, but definitely seems to be the lesser of two evils. But anyone can see that she has the Potential to become a thousand times more powerful than Doro ever was, and therefore a thousand times more dangerous.
Plus, I kept remembering the scene in where Isaac tells Anywanyu that she could help Doro regain his humanity. Honestly, I think she succeeds in this, and that is why Mary ultimately wins. And I can't help thinking that in the long run Mary will be much more harmful to humanity.
As always Octavia Butler is phenomenal. This book was interesting (and makes more sense now that I know that the internal chronological order that I am reading these in, are not the published order), because Doro is not the most powerful thing in the universe anymore. This strangely saddened me. Even though he is a inhuman body-stealing monster, you spend several books wondering what his end game is (and kind of hoping that he'll achieve it because then you'll KNOW)
During the final battle between Mary and Doro, I found myself torn over who to root for. Doro is not at all a good guy, Mary's not either, but definitely seems to be the lesser of two evils. But anyone can see that she has the Potential to become a thousand times more powerful than Doro ever was, and therefore a thousand times more dangerous.
Plus, I kept remembering the scene in where Isaac tells Anywanyu that she could help Doro regain his humanity. Honestly, I think she succeeds in this, and that is why Mary ultimately wins. And I can't help thinking that in the long run Mary will be much more harmful to humanity.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 8, 2019
The second book (both in publishing as in chronological order) was my favourite of the Patternmaster series. The creation of a new society based on humans with paranormal abilities reminded me of Theodore Sturgeon's mindblowing "More Than Human", which I dearly love.
This book explains how one half of the society in "Patternmaster" (the 4th book of the series) did develop. It was fascinating to read with the knowledge of the end in mind. Like a somewhat hazy image getting more focus.
This book is cruel, pragmatic, inhuman and utterly logical in its consequence. I guess at a certain point I hated every character therein. Only Butler can make me feel that way, that stomach churning feeling of helplessness. She has no mercy with her protagonists (or with the reader at that), her writing is soulbaring and completely possessive. As so often with her books I was repelled and fascinated at the same time and couldn't lay the book down.
This book explains how one half of the society in "Patternmaster" (the 4th book of the series) did develop. It was fascinating to read with the knowledge of the end in mind. Like a somewhat hazy image getting more focus.
This book is cruel, pragmatic, inhuman and utterly logical in its consequence. I guess at a certain point I hated every character therein. Only Butler can make me feel that way, that stomach churning feeling of helplessness. She has no mercy with her protagonists (or with the reader at that), her writing is soulbaring and completely possessive. As so often with her books I was repelled and fascinated at the same time and couldn't lay the book down.
September 18, 2021
Suck it Doro, you shithead. (There are many other eloquent reviews of this very excellent book, but to be honest that's my main thought).
September 10, 2024
Arguably too brisk, but idc it’s a banger!
June 22, 2021
I now understand the meaning behind this series name! I will say its weird reading a second book in a series that was published before the first book. It was not a horrible experience but I can tell Doro and Anyanwu were more fleshed out in the first book and I felt like Emma (Anyanwu) didn't quite match who we followed in the first book. But since the focus is not on her in this sci-fi origin/creationist mythos this book that was a flaw I could forgive. I really found Mary's powers fascinating and loved watching this community grow and evolve. I am really curious to see where things go. This is again a book that is a complete thought but very much a part of a whole.
February 11, 2022
Octavia Butler's work blows my mind every damn time. SO GOOD!
March 31, 2023
I so love Octavia Butler that I'm going through her books slowly so that I'll have a new one to look forward to for quite a while. This one was my reward for DNF'ing 3 books in a row (always a bummer). It always amazes me how much story and character Butler packs into her slim books, yet they are never dense. She doesn't flesh out many of the characters here, yet I always felt that I knew what I needed to about each of them. The only exception for me was Mary, who was odd and prickly in a way that I couldn't quite wrap my head around. But then, I'm a "mute" and can't be expected to understand the leader of the Patternists. I'll have to test this with a re-read one of these days. I was a little disappointed that Emma (called Anwanyu in Wild Seed) didn't play a larger role in this book. She was such a powerful character it was strange to see how submissive she was to Doro.
July 9, 2021
Well, this is the third book that I've read by Octavia E. Butler. I am so excited to be able to read from OEB. This book was very hard to read and had every type of violence that you can think of. I loved how this book was more centered on Doro and another female protagonist because I was exhausted with Anyanwu and Doro's narrative at the end of Wild Seed. I wish I could talk about this book more but I am afraid that if I write more it would be some spoilers.Ìý
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