Octavia Butler changed speculative fiction with her path-breaking novels, including the best-selling novel Kindred, which has been adapted for television and as a graphic novel. She was born on June 22, 1947, and would be 77 today if she were still with us.
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Throughout her career, Butler won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards, taught regularly at the Clarion Writers Workshop, received a MacArthur Fellowship, and even has an asteroid named after her.
While I can’t tell you when I first learned of Octavia Butler, I first read one of her books in the 2010s. I was on a mission to read classic science fiction. After working my way through some Asimov, Heinlein, and Bradbury, I found a digital audio copy of Fledgling through my library.
I’ve consumed a lot of vampire stories in my life, both written and visual, but Fledgling remains one of my absolute favorites. Rather than being evil villains, Butler’s vampires live symbiotically with humans. I love the way she reimagines vampire mythology and humanizes these creatures we normally see as monsters.
Kindred, Butler’s only other standalone novel, is her most well-known book. It is a haunting portrayal of what people will do to survive and an ode to the resilience of Black Americans. I rarely feel that a book should be required reading for everyone. But Kindred is one of the few that I strongly believe every adult in America should read at least once.
I still have a lot of Octavia Butler to read. My next novel will be Parable of the Sower, the first book in the duology pictured above. I picked up the box set from 7 Stories Press back in January, and today is the perfect day to start reading it.
Interested in picking up one of Octavia Butler’s novels? I’ve put together a list of her novels:
If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy Three Speculative Novels by Queer Authors for Pride Month. Do you have a favorite Octavia Butler novel? Let me know on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky!