Wild Seed Mass market paperbound - 1999

Name: Wild Seed (Patternist, 1)
Price: 14.79 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Butler, Octavia E
ISBN: 9780446606721

by Octavia E. Butler

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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

Doro is an entity who changes bodies like clothes, killing his hosts by reflex -- or design. He fears no one -- until he meets Anyanwu. Anyanwu has also died many times. She can absorb bullets and make medicine with a kiss, give birth to tribes, nurture and heal...and savage anyone who threatens those she loves. She fears no one -- until she meets Doro. From African jungles to the colonies of America, Doro and Anyanwu weave together a pattern of destiny that not even immortals can imagine.

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 Mass Market Paperbound
Edition Later Printing
Pages 288
Volumes 1
Language ENG
Publisher Aspect, New York:
Date 1999-02
ISBN 9780446606721 / 0446606723
Weight 0.31 lbs (0.14 kg)
Dimensions 6.75 x 4.25 x 1 in (17.15 x 10.80 x 2.54 cm)
Library of Congress subjects Science fiction
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.