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Patternist Series
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 that involves telepathic mind control and an 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 first published novel, 1976's ''Patternmaster'', was the first book in this series to appear. From 1977 until 1984, she published four more ''Patternist'' novels: ''Mind of My Mind'' (1977), '' Survivor'' (1978), '' Wild Seed'' (1980) and ''Clay's Ark'' (1984). Until Butler began publishing the '' Xenogenesis'' trilogy in 1987, all but one of her published b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wild Seed (novel)
''Wild Seed'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Octavia 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 hims ... [...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 idiosyncrati ... [...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. ''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 childhood to adulthood ... [...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. Ra ... [...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, techniques such as inbreeding, linebreeding, and outcrossing are utilized. In plant breeding, similar methods are used. Charles Darwin discussed how selective breeding had been successful in producing change over time in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shapeshifting
In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shape-shifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through an inherently superhuman ability, divine intervention, demonic manipulation, Magic (paranormal), sorcery, Incantation, spells or having inherited the ability. The idea of shape-shifting is 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. Folklore and mythology Popular shape-shifting creatures in folklore are werewolf, werewolves and vampires (mostly of European, Canadians, Canadian, and Native Americans in the United States, Native American/early American origin), Ichchadhari naag and naagin (shape-shifting cobra), ichchadhari naag and ichchadhari naagin (shape-shifting cobras) of India, the huli jing of East Asia (including the ... [...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, and is the largest publisher of Chinese science fiction novels in North America. History Tor was founded by Tom Doherty, Harriet McDougal, and Jim Baen in 1980 (Baen would found 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. There ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lilith's Brood
''Lilith's Brood'' is a collection of three works by Octavia E. Butler. The three volumes of this science fiction series (''Dawn'', ''Adulthood Rites'', and ''Imago'') were previously collected in the now out-of-print volume ''Xenogenesis''. The collection was first published under the current title of ''Lilith's Brood'' in 2000. Synopsis ''Dawn'' (1987) The first novel in the trilogy, ''Dawn'', begins with Lilith Iyapo, a black human woman, alone in what seems like 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 by stages. The same questions are asked. She is then visited by humanoid beings whose appearance terrifies her, even though they behave well. She learns that the nuclear war had left the Earth uninhabitable. Humans are all but ex ... [...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, 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 (Octavia Butler novel), 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. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Survivor (Octavia Butler Novel)
''Survivor'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Octavia Butler, Octavia E. Butler. First published in 1978 as part of Butler's "Patternist series", ''Survivor'' is the only one of Butler's early novels not to be reprinted after its initial editions. Butler expressed dislike for the work, referring to it as "my Star Trek novel." Plot introduction ''Survivor'' follows the early contact between the Missionaries, a group of human colonists fleeing a plague on Earth, and the Kohn, intelligent natives of the planet on which the Missionaries have arrived. In particular, the novel focuses on Alanna, the adopted daughter of the Missionaries' leader, as she attempts to prevent the Missionaries' destruction or assimilation at the hands of a dominant local culture. During the course of the novel, Alanna's experiences assimilating and negotiating with the Kohn draw upon her earlier, similar experience joining the Missionaries themselves, and Alanna's ability to interact with th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, extraterrestrial life, sentient artificial intelligence, cybernetics, certain forms of immortality (like mind uploading), and the singularity. Science fiction predicted several existing inventions, such as the atomic bomb, robots, and borazon, whose names entirely match their fictional predecessors. In addition, science fiction might serve as an outlet to facilitate future scientific and technological innovations. Science fiction can trace its roots to ancient mythology. It is also related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres. Its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Science fiction, in literature, film, television, and other media, has beco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
