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Wild Seed
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Wild Seed Paperback - 2020

by Octavia E. Butler


About this book

Wild Seed is the first book chronologically in the Patternist series, although it is the fourth published. The story centers around the main characters of Doro and Anyanwu, two immortals living in Africa. Doro is a spirit who can inhabit other people's bodies but kills them recklessly. He is breeding a race of superhumans, along with his son Issac. Anyanwu is a shapeshifting healer and one of the only beings Doro can't sense when she changes into an animal. Doro is compelled and threatened by her power, but she becomes repulsed by his callous murders. If they can work together, they have the true power to change the world. Butler's novel explores eugenics, the ethics of controlled evolution, and the creation of a black superrace through the same means colonists and enslavers used to promote white supremacy. Butler also portrayed a strong black female protagonist when they were nearly nonexistent in American literature. 

From the publisher

In an "epic, game-changing, moving and brilliant" story of love and hate, two immortals chase each other across continents and centuries, binding their fates together -- and changing the destiny of the human race (Viola Davis). Doro knows no higher authority than himself. An ancient spirit with boundless powers, he possesses humans, killing without remorse as he jumps from body to body to sustain his own life. With a lonely eternity ahead of him, Doro breeds supernaturally gifted humans into empires that obey his every desire. He fears no one -- until he meets Anyanwu. Anyanwu is an entity like Doro and yet different. She can heal with a bite and transform her own body, mending injuries and reversing aging. She uses her powers to cure her neighbors and birth entire tribes, surrounding herself with kindred who both fear and respect her. No one poses a true threat to Anyanwu -- until she meets Doro. The moment Doro meets Anyanwu, he covets her; and from the villages of 17th-century Nigeria to 19th-century United States, their courtship becomes a power struggle that echoes through generations, irrevocably changing what it means to be human.

First Edition Identification

Doubleday published the first edition of Wild Seed in 1980. It has "Stated First Edition" on the copyright page and Code K23 on page 246. The original cover was designed by John Cayea, an artist for Doubleday best known for his iconic cover of Stephen King's The Stand. The illustration on the first edition of Wild Seed portrays Anyanwu, the novel's female shapeshifter protagonist, transforming from an infant into a young adult. 

Details

  • Title Wild Seed
  • Author Octavia E. Butler
  • Binding Paperback
  • Pages 320
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Grand Central Publishing
  • Date 2020-03-17
  • ISBN 9781538751480 / 1538751488
  • Weight 0.55 lbs (0.25 kg)
  • Dimensions 8 x 5.2 x 0.9 in (20.32 x 13.21 x 2.29 cm)
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 17th Century
    • Chronological Period: 18th Century
    • Chronological Period: 1800-1850
    • Ethnic Orientation: African American
  • Library of Congress subjects Science fiction, African American women
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

About the author

OCTAVIA E. BUTLERwas a renowned writer who received a MacArthur "Genius" Grant and PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award for her body of work. She was the author of several award-winning novels including Parable of the Sower, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and was acclaimed for her lean prose, strong protagonists, and social observations in stories that range from the distant past to the far future. Sales of her books have increased enormously since her death as the issues she addressed in her Afrofuturistic, feminist novels and short fiction have only become more relevant. She passed away on February 24, 2006.
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by Butler, Octavia E.

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Wild Seed (Patternist, 1)

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Wild Seed (Patternist, 1)

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