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Seed To Harvest
The ''Patternist'' series (also known as the ''Patternmaster'' series or ''Seed to Harvest'') is a group of science fiction novels by Octavia E. Butler that detail a secret history continuing from the Ancient Egyptian period to the far future history, future that involves telepathic Brainwashing, mind control and an Extraterrestrial life in popular culture, extraterrestrial plague. A profile of Butler in ''Black Women in America'' notes that the themes of the series include "racial and gender-based animosity, the ethical implications of biological engineering, the question of what it means to be human, ethical and unethical uses of power, and how the assumption of power changes people." Butler's Debut novel, first published novel, 1976's ''Patternmaster'', was the first book in this series to be released. From 1977 until 1984, she published four more ''Patternist'' novels: ''Mind of My Mind'' (1977), ''Survivor (Octavia Butler novel), Survivor'' (1978), ''Wild Seed (novel), Wild Se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clay's Ark
''Clay's Ark'' (1984) is a novel by American science fiction author Octavia E. Butler. The last published of her '' Patternist'' series, the novel serves as a prequel that accounts for the arrival of the Clay Ark disease that leads to the evolution of clayarks, the mutants that threaten human survival in the series debut novel, 1976's ''Patternmaster'', and 1978's ''Survivor'', which Butler later disavowed. Plot The novel is set in a near-future dystopia in which most people must live in gated communities or in armed nomadic groups called "car families". The novel traces the experiences of Blake Maslin, a physician living in Southern California, and his sixteen-year-old twin daughters, Rane and Keira. Traveling across the Mojave desert, the three are kidnapped by Eli Doyle, the only survivor of Clay's Ark, a spaceship that made an emergency crash landing in the desert on its return from the first human mission to another planet. Eli is infected with an alien microorganism that g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secret Histories
Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret. Secrecy is often controversial, depending on the content or nature of the secret, the group or people keeping the secret, and the motivation for secrecy. Secrecy by government entities is often decried as excessive or in promotion of poor operation; excessive revelation of information on individuals can conflict with virtues of privacy and confidentiality. It is often contrasted with social transparency. Secrecy can exist in a number of different ways: encoding or encryption (where mathematical and technical strategies are used to hide messages), true secrecy (where restrictions are put upon those who take part of the message, such as through government security classification) and obfuscation, where secrets are hidden in plain sight behind complex idiosyncrat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coming-of-age Story
In genre studies, a coming-of-age story is a genre of literature, theatre, film, and video game that focuses on the growth of a protagonist from childhood to adulthood, or "coming of age". Coming-of-age stories tend to emphasize dialogue or internal monologue over action and are often set in the past. The subjects of coming-of-age stories are typically teenagers. The ''Bildungsroman'' is a specific subgenre of coming-of-age story. The plot points of coming-of-age stories are usually emotional changes within the character(s) in question. Literature ''Bildungsroman'' In literary criticism, coming-of-age novels and ''Bildungsroman'' are sometimes interchangeable, but the former is usually a wider genre. The ''Bildungsroman'' (from the German words ''Bildung'', "education", alternatively "forming" and ''Roman'', "novel") is further characterized by a number of formal, topical, and thematic features. It focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patternmaster
''Patternmaster'' (1976) is a science fiction novel by American author Octavia E. Butler. ''Patternmaster'', the first book to be published but the last in the series' internal chronology, depicts a distant future where the human race has been sharply divided into the dominant Patternists, their enemies the "diseased" and animalistic Clayarks, and the enslaved human mutes. The Patternists, bred for intelligence and psychic abilities, are networked telepaths. They are ruled by the most powerful telepath, known as the Patternmaster. ''Patternmaster'' tells the coming-of-age story of Teray, a young Patternist who learns he is a son of the Patternmaster. Teray fights for position within Patternist society and eventually for the role of Patternmaster. Plot The novel begins with the Patternmaster, Rayal, in bed with Jansee, his lead wife and sister. For a year, there have been no major attacks from the "Clayarks", mutated humans the Patternists have been in constant battle against. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unexpected Stories
''Unexpected Stories'' is a collection of two short speculative fiction works by Octavia Butler that was posthumously published in 2014. The collection includes ''A Necessary Being'' and ''Childfinder''. Plot ''A Necessary Being'' Tahneh of the Rohkhon people is a Hao, a type of humanoid creature with blue skin and tall stature. Hao are considered to be natural leaders in the caste system of the story. Tahneh is the only Hao in her tribe; she has been unable to produce a Hao heir. She receives a report that a young male Hao is traveling through Rohkhon territory. Her advisors encourage her to capture the boy and forcibly assimilate him, grooming him to be their next leader. Tahneh has reservations about the traditional methods of kidnapping Hao youth; she reminisces about her own father, a Hao man who was kidnapped and hobbled so he could never return to his birth tribe. Diut, the young Hao, is captured by the Rohkhon. He escapes, fleeing through the Rokhon city and taking ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Selective Breeding
Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant males and females will sexually reproduce and have offspring together. Domesticated animals are known as breeds, normally bred by a professional breeder, while domesticated plants are known as varieties, cultigens, cultivars, or breeds. Two purebred animals of different breeds produce a crossbreed, and crossbred plants are called hybrids. Flowers, vegetables and fruit-trees may be bred by amateurs and commercial or non-commercial professionals: major crops are usually the provenance of the professionals. In animal breeding artificial selection is often combined with techniques such as inbreeding, linebreeding, and outcrossing. In plant breeding, similar methods are used. Charles Darwin discussed how selective breeding had been succ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shapeshifting
In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shapeshifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through unnatural means. The idea of shapeshifting is found in the oldest forms of totemism and shamanism, as well as the oldest existent literature and Epic poetry, epic poems such as the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' and the ''Iliad''. The concept remains a common literary device in modern fantasy, children's literature and popular culture. Examples of shapeshifters are vampires and werewolves. Folklore and mythology Popular shapeshifting creatures in folklore are werewolf, werewolves and vampires (mostly of European, Canadian, and Native American/early American origin), ichchhadhari naag (shape-shifting cobra) of India, shapeshifting fox spirits of East Asia such as the huli jing of China, the obake of Japan, the Navajo skin-walkers, and gods, goddesses and demons and demonesses such as the Norse mythology, Norse Loki or the Greek mythology, Greek Proteus. Shapeshifting to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tor Books
Tor Books is the primary imprint of Tor Publishing Group (previously Tom Doherty Associates), a publishing company based in New York City. It primarily publishes science fiction and fantasy titles. History Tor was founded by Tom Doherty, Harriet McDougal, and Jim Baen in 1980. (Baen founded his own imprint three years later.) They were soon joined by Barbara Doherty and Katherine Pendill, who then composed the original startup team. '' Tor'' is a word meaning a rocky pinnacle, as depicted in Tor's logo. Tor Books was sold to St. Martin's Press in 1987. Along with St. Martin's Press; Henry Holt; and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, it became part of the Holtzbrinck group, now part of Macmillan in the US. In June 2019, Tor and other Macmillan imprints moved from the Flatiron Building, to larger offices in the Equitable Building. Imprints Tor is the primary imprint of Tor Publishing Group. The Forge imprint publishes an array of fictional titles, including historical no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lilith's Brood
''Lilith's Brood'', previously known as the ''Xenogenesis Trilogy'', is a collection of three science fiction works by Octavia E. Butler: ''Dawn'', '' Adulthood Rites'', and ''Imago''. The books were previously collected in the now out-of-print omnibus edition ''Xenogenesis''. The collection was republished under the current title of ''Lilith's Brood'' in 2000. A 2025 collection of the books published by the Library of America combines the series names as ''Lilith's Brood: The Xenogenesis Trilogy''. Synopsis ''Dawn'' (1987) The first novel in the trilogy, ''Dawn'', begins with Lilith Iyapo, a Black human woman, alone in what appears to be a prison cell. She has memories of this happening before, with an enigmatic voice that asks strange questions. She has no idea who this is or what they want. She remembers a nuclear war and an earlier traffic accident in which her husband and child had been killed. The truth emerges in stages. The same questions are asked. She is then vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wild Seed (novel)
''Wild Seed'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Octavia E. Butler. Although published in 1980 as the fourth book of the '' Patternist'' series, it is the earliest book in the chronology of the Patternist world. The other books in the series are, in order within the Patternist chronology: '' Mind of My Mind'' (1977), ''Clay's Ark'' (1984), ''Survivor'' (1978), and ''Patternmaster'' (1976). Plot ''Wild Seed'' is the story of two immortal Africans named Doro and Anyanwu. Doro is a spirit who can inhabit other people's bodies, killing anyone and anything in his path, while Anyanwu is a woman with healing powers who can transform herself into any human or animal. When they meet, Doro senses Anyanwu's abilities and wants to add her to one of his seed villages in the New World, where he breeds super humans. Doro convinces Anyanwu to travel with him to America by telling her he will give her children she will never have to watch die. Although Doro plans to impregnate her h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space exploration, time travel, Parallel universes in fiction, parallel universes, and extraterrestrials in fiction, extraterrestrial life. The genre often explores human responses to the consequences of projected or imagined scientific advances. Science fiction is related to fantasy (together abbreviated wikt:SF&F, SF&F), Horror fiction, horror, and superhero fiction, and it contains many #Subgenres, subgenres. The genre's precise Definitions of science fiction, definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Major subgenres include hard science fiction, ''hard'' science fiction, which emphasizes scientific accuracy, and soft science fiction, ''soft'' science fiction, which focuses on social sciences. Other no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
