- Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
- Publish Date: First Edition (January 5, 2007)
- Length: 784 pages
- ISBN-10: 0446698903
- ISBN-13: 978-0446698900
- Author: Octavia E. Butler
Seed To Harvest by Octavia E.Butler is the compilation of all four of Butler’s “Patternist” novels: Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay’s Ark and Patternmaster. I previously reviewed Mind of my Mind separately, having read it before I realized it was part of a series. I have now finished the other three in the series, and enjoyed all of them. The Patternist series begins with Doro, a 4,000 year-old being who survives by jumping from body to body, killing the host whenever he inhabits their being. Doro is attempting to breed humans with various special psychic abilities to both create a new race, and to provide especially satisfying host bodies.
Wild Seed and Mind of my Mind fit together well as a single large history. Wild Seed picks up about 350-400 years ago in Africa where Doro comes across a woman who has lived for about 300 years. This is a new sort of ‘seed’ he would like to use to breed his flock of special humans. Their interaction over the next century or so is the heart of this book. Wild Seed jumps us forward to approximately ‘present day’ where Doro has a new woman, Mary, to deal with. I reviewed that a few weeks back.
Clay’s Ark by itself has little to do with Doro or his line of enhanced humans. It is set in the indeterminate future where a ship that returning from an interstellar voyage crashes in the desert. The one surviving member of the crew is infected with a extraterrestrial disease. This disease causes mutations in humans, giving them some superhuman physical abilities, but may be making them something other than human.
Patternmaster is set in the far future where there are two main competing species on the planet: the descendants of Doro’s breeding lines (the patternists) and the descendants of survivors of the ClayArk plague (clayarks). Humans without special abilities (mutes) are kept as slaves by the Patternists. The clayarks are an intelligent species, but are presented as little other than predators in the wild to avoid or destroy. The main story is about the struggle for power and freedom between two Patternists and the occasional conflicts with the clayarks.
The universe that Butler creates in this series is interesting and rich. I liked visiting it in the novels, but it is not a place I would like to live. Throughout the series, you have characters that are not very likable. We have people breeding people. We have people owning people. We have people willing to kill hundreds of other intelligent ‘people’. It is a harsh world where power is more important than compassion. Perhaps it is a good metaphor for a world where a few powerful people can mold the world to suit themselves and to view others as just something to exploit for their personal gain, for their personal glory, for their personal pleasure. Let’s hope our future is not as inevitable as this one.
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