Although it will require the International Astronomical Union to make it official, the brilliant people at NASA have named/dedicated Perseverance‘s landing site to Sci-Fi author Octavia Butler. It’s a shame she didn’t live to receive this, she passed away in 2006.
I need to get off my behind and read more of her material, William Gibson is a big fan of her work which is a huge recommendation. All I’ve read is Kindred, an amazing time-travel novel examining the complicated relationships between Black and White Americans through the years. My friend Helen gave it to me as a gift and I couldn’t put it down. It’s finally getting made into a series. I forget who is producing, etc. They better make it a miniseries, not an ongoing, spread out the material until the only thing they share is the title series. For example, The Man in the High Castle. In that show’s defense, the Nazis winning WWII is an old premise just wrapped around an old Phillip K. Dick novel.
Anyway, if you haven’t heard of Octavia, it’s sadly no surprise. She was the first Black American woman to win the Hugo and Nebula awards for her Sci-Fi writing. The community was quick to reward Octavia’s talent but we need to better to promote her works since the genre remains pretty dominated by White men. Not very Utopian of us.
Here’s what I will do in her honor and I suggest you all give it a try. I’m going to re-read Kindred, it was that damned good! You all start from it, tell me what you think. I will move on to a couple other works of hers. The Guardian mentioned her scary predictions in Parable of Sowers (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998) will be my likely choices. Meanwhile, if you hate Kindred, I will pay you a refund.