Posted by Jim at March 1st, 2006

Octavia Butler is dead. Unlike Steven Barnes, I didn’t know her personally, but I did read her stuff and enjoyed it.

Who was she? She was one of the relatively few black science fiction writers–though that’s not the source of her importance. I’m not saying that race was unimportant in her writing (far from it), but rather that she was one of the better writers out there in science fiction of any race.

She seemed to specialize in cataclysms–the destruction of civilisation occurs in at least a couple series by her–but she made it entertaining. She put her characters through hell and made the reader care about them.

One of the things I liked about her books is the way they examined our own social problems from another angle and altogether without preaching. It was obvious she had a perspective, of course, but the story came first.

Run out. Buy her books.

Listen to her on NPR:
Octavia Butler remembered
Talks about race
On Science Friday with David Brin