Octavia Butler's Patternist Series

 

When originally published in the late 1970s/early '80s, Octavia Butler's Patternest series consisted of five volumes:
1) Patternmaster (1976)
2) Mind of My Mind (1977)
3) Survivor (1978)
4) Wild Seed (1980)
and - 5) Clay's Ark (1984)

Having read the first two, I was faced with a dilemma. Butler would go on to disavow Survivor - calling it her worst novel and referring to it as "my Star Trek novel". She would not permit reprints of the novel. It is not available in any omnibus collection of the series.

Although out of print, Survivor is found in ebook format - Everything lives on in the Internet. My dilemma was, should I follow Butler's wishes and skip over book 3, or should I read Survivor in the order it was originally intended in 1978?

I began reading the book.

I immediately realized my decision was a mistake. The book most definitely does not belong. I could not get beyond the 25% mark.

I'm setting it aside and will continue on with Wild Seed.

Pattermaster by Olivia E. Butler

I first discovered Octavia Butler in 2022 when I read two of her remarkable stand -alone novels, a time travel novel, Kindred and her final novel, a so-called sci-fi vampire novel, Fledgling. I had written at the time that I had downloaded everything published by Butler and would read the collection "in the not too distant future". That was two years ago, and well things tend to get away from one. I've only just now finished Butler's first book, Patternmaster. Not only was this Butler's first novel, it was also the first in her Patternist series.

This first book depicts a distant future where the human race has been sharply divided into the dominant Patternists, their enemies the "diseased" and animalistic Clayarks, and the enslaved human mutes.

The Patternists, bred for intelligence and psychic abilities, are networked telepaths. They are ruled by the most powerful telepath, known as the Patternmaster. Although the first book to be published, Patternmaster is the last in the series' internal chronology. It is an amazing "debut novel" though, of course not flawless, by any means.

Never the less, I'm looking forward to completing the series.

Past Master by R.A.Lafferty

 

Being forever on the lookout for reading material, when a friend told me of his recent discovery of Sci-fi writer R. A. Lafferty, I immediately did a web search for the writer. After compiling a list of his Sci-fi books found at wikipedia, I went to my go-to page for free ebooks and downloaded 20 novels and short-story collections. The question now was, where do I begin? His first novel, Past Master was nominated for the 1968 Nebula Award and the 1969 Hugo Award, so that seemed as good a place as any as a place to start.

The story is set in the year 2535 on the utopian Earth colony, Astrobe. The leaders of Astrobe view life on the planet as less than perfect, and to bring their world in line with their utopian dreams, they send a man to Earth to travel back in time and bring Saint Thomas More into the future to rule over Astrobe. The leaders do this on the mistaken belief that More's book, Utopia was not satire, but a "how-to" manual.

Once on the planet, Thomas More travels about the world and experiences adventures of a very unusual nature. I would describe his wanderings as Don Quixote or Candide in Outer Space - with a bit of sixties psychedelia thrown in for good measure.

There were times when I found it difficult to keep up, but my review is positive, for the most part.

After reading Past Master, I downloaded a recent translation of More's Utopia, which will be the next book on my list.

The Ring Series by Koji Suzuki - Book Three - "Loop".

 

Having finished books 1 and 2 in Koji Suzuki's Ring series, rather than go immediately to book 3, I took a detour with Ken Grimwood's Replay. In my earlier post on the Ring series I said that there will be more to follow once I'd read the remaining books. That time has come.

The Ring series was originally conceived as a trilogy - with a collection of short stories coming in 1999 to put an end to the series. More than 20 years after the first book in the trilogy was written, 2 more novels were written in 2012 and 2013. I've read the 3rd book making up the original trilogy; the additional books will come later. If Suzuki could wait 20 years, I can put them off for a bit.

Loop begins very differently than the first two. Ring and Spiral have both been described as Japanese horror/mystery novels - and they are that - Loop however, fits more into the Sci -fi genre. No horror at all, as I see it. It is so different that I could not see how the stories could be related - at least until I was 30% into the book. Even when I couldn't find a connection, I was still enthralled; and when I finished reading the book, I was all the more impressed with Suzuki's talent as a writer and storyteller.

As usual, I'm not inclined to give spoilers; I will say that I can highly recommend this trilogy.

The Lost World - Arthur Conan Doyle

 

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, Kindle is my e-book reader of choice, although I've downloaded a different e-reader app to my phone to use when the Kindle isn't the optimum choice (like when there's a brownout and it's too dark to read the Kindle's screen). I have transferred e-books to my phone on occasion but I'm more likely to read one of the free public domain books included with the app.

I read one of these pubic domain books in April (A Journey to the Center of the Earth. by Jules Verne) Actually, I found this particular e-book disappointing. That being said, you'd think I'd steer clear of another public domain adventure novel, but I decided to take a chance on Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World.

Published in 1912, the book tells of an expedition to a plateau in the Amazon basin of South America where prehistoric animals were alleged to have survived. Two scientists (Professor Challenger - Professor Summerlee) a newspaper reporter (Edward Malone) and an "adventurer" (Lord John Roxton) make up the group.

Of course, we know there are no pterodactyls, dinosaurs or "ape men" in South America, but the story is better than you might imagine. I certainly enjoyed it more than Jules Verne's book.

Ok, it is hardly the greatest Sci-fi novel of all time, but it's entertaining in a lighthearted way.

Touch by Claire North

Catherine Webb is a prolific British author; she has published eight young adult novels under her own name, six fantasy novels for adults under the name Kate Griffin, and eight science-fiction novels as Claire North.

It was under her Claire North persona that I first discovered her time travel novel,The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August .

I've just finished reading her second novel under that pen name - Touch .

Touch is the story of ghosts who are able to enter the bodies of human hosts by use of the sense of touch. The ghosts must inhabit these bodies in order to survive, completely taking over the host's consciousness. The human host has no awareness of the possession, and when the ghost moves on, the former host has no memory of the time he/she was possessed.

Critics have described the book as electrifying and mesmerizing. I agree.

As usual, I have no spoilers.

All My Sins Remembered - Joe Haldeman

In March, while reading Sci-Fi novels pertaining to time travel, I read Joe Haldeman's The Accidental Time Machine. This was my first time reading anything written by the veteran science fiction writer, and in my blog post on the novel, I said that I had enjoyed the humor in the beginning, but I was disappointed at how the story had devolved into a "cautionary tale" involving a scientist/atheist time traveler who confronts a Christian theocracy. I found Haldeman's dig against religion unnecessary.

In spite of that, I enjoyed enough of  The Accidental Time Machine to read one of Haldeman's non-time travel Sci-Fi books.

For that, I choose Haldeman's 1977 military science fiction novel, All My Sins Remembered.

In many ways, I found the earlier work to be superior. With one exception, however. 30 years before The Accidental Time Machine, Haldeman had the need to find a way to have his anti-religion dig.

The book tells the story of Otto McGavin, a Prime Operator for the Confederacion who undergoes "immersion therapy & hypnotic personality overlay" when going undercover for the Confederacion's secret service, the TBII.

In many ways, it seems like the novel is a trilogy of short story adventures. I enjoyed the book, although I might have enjoyed it a bit more had Otto McGavin's third mission involved someone other than a wayward Catholic priest.

Bellwether by Connie Willis

Anyone familiar with this blog knows that I'm a big fan of Connie Willis. I choose her four part Oxford time travel series as my #1 favorite time travel book.(I had classified the four volumes as one "book").

For the first non-time travel book by Willis, I picked her 1996 novel, Bellwether.  Like her novel To Say Nothing of The Dog , this book is clever, witty and funny in the right places. I highly recommend it.

That being said, I am puzzled by one thing regarding this wonderful book. I don't really understand why it is classified as "Science Fiction". Sure, it's fiction and there are loads of scientists in the book, as well as lots talk of science in general. However, there's no time travel, nor aliens nor space travel as you'd usually associate with Sci-fi.

Still, I can't say enough how much I enjoyed this novel.

The Massacre of Mankind

Stephen Baxter's The Massacre of Mankind is the only sequel to H.G.Wells' The War of the Worlds authorized by the Wells estate. Baxter had previously written a sequel to The Time Machine - evidently the Wells estate is pleased with his work.

For what it's worth, so am I.

The sequel takes place 13 years after the events in Wells' novel. The narrator of this work, Julie Elphinstone is the sister-in-law of the narrator of the first novel - Walter Jenkins. Jenkins' name is not given in The War of the Worlds . I'm not sure how Baxter came to choose the name, but I suppose he had to have some name, after all.

Julie Elphinstone does make an appearance in the original novel, as do a number of other characters appearing in the sequel; her ex husband, Frank (brother to Walter), her younger sister-in-law, the "artillery man" Albert Cook and the widow of the astronomer Ogilvy to name a few. Also mentioned in the sequel are Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Winston Churchill and George Patton.

The novel is essentially an alternative history. The 1914 war between Germany and France takes place (with Germany the winner) although England and the U.S. do not enter the war. Julie Elphinstone travels from the U.S. to England aboard the RMS Lusitania which wasn't torpedoed by a German U-boat.

Baxter does a good job sticking to the view of the solar system as held by Percival Lowell and the "smart folk" of Wells' time. The descriptions of Mars, Venus and Jupiter are wrong by today's standards, but it suits perfectly to the feel of an H.G.Wells sequel.

You won't find any spoilers in this post. You can go elsewhere for that.

My only criticism of the sequel is the length. Baxter's sequel is nearly triple the number of pages in Wells' book......just a bit too long for my tastes, but overall a pretty good read.

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

In February, during my journey thru Sci-Fi Time Travel novels, I reread H.G.Wells' The Time Machine , soon followed by Stephen Baxter's sequel, The Time Ships . Now that I'm reading works by writers I had included in my recent time travel adventures and who are also writers of non-time travel novels, I knew I'd be rereading Wells' The War of the Worlds before going on to Baxter's sequel to that novel, The Massacre of Mankind .

Like The Time Machine , I had last read The War of the Worlds in 2017. Naturally, I'd wanted to refresh my memory before going on to The Massacre of Mankind . It's amazing what five years can do to an old man's recollection.

Of course, Wells got a lot of the science wrong in the novel. That's to be expected. I suppose Martian creatures didn't seem so far fetched in 1897. Never the less, the book is a nice read; just imagine while reading the book that you're living in the time when bicycles were more ubiquitous than automobiles, the Wright Brothers hadn't made their first flight, and the "smart" people believed there were actually canals on Mars. 

The nice thing about this novel is that Wells has humans behaving as humans. 

Wells had stated that the idea for the book came to him after a discussion he had had with his brother Frank, regarding the effects the invading British had on the aboriginal Tasmanians during the 19th Century.What would happen if Great Britain were invaded by a superior civilization? 

Thank goodness for earthly pathogens and microorganisms - the Martians were "slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth" and all's well that ends well.

Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler

At the first of this month, I concluded my  two month  adventure with time travel by choosing to head off in a different direction with my reading. I decided to look at some of the writers that I'd read in those time travel days, and read some of their novels which are not related to time travel. The writers include - but are not limited to - Tim Powers, Octavia Butler, Kurt Vonnegut and Audrey Niffenegger.

Having finished reading Powers' Declare I continued on to Octavia Butler's science fiction vampire novel, Fledgling. I enjoyed Butler's time travel novel, Kindred so there was no question but that I'd be reading more of Butler's novels. The majority of Butler's novels are parts of multiple series. Although I will one day get around to reading Butler's Patternist, Xenogenesis and Parable series, I wanted to read a "standalone" novel this month and the only other novel, besides Kindred, that fits that category is her final novel, Fledgling.

The wikidedia description of the plot of the novel is much better than I could write :

The novel tells the story of Shori, a 53-year-old member of the Ina species, who appears to be a ten-year-old African-American girl. The Ina are nocturnal, long-lived, and derive sustenance by drinking human blood. Though they are physically superior to humans, both in strength and ability to heal from injury, the Ina depend on humans to survive. Therefore, their relationships are symbiotic, with the Ina's venom providing significant boost to their humans' immune systems and extending their lives up to 200 years. However, withdrawal from this venom will also lead to the human's death.

Butler had a unique take on the idea of vampires......I can't recall reading anything quite like this. It's very different from the standard Dracula legend.

Of course, other than the plot description posted above, I've no intention of providing "spoilers". Needless to say, I'm a huge fan of Octavia Butler, and I highly recommend Fledgling to those who enjoy Sci-Fi and Fantasy fiction.

The March Reading List

April has arrived, and with it comes the list of books I read in March.

March is, of course 3 days longer than a normal February so naturally the list for March will include more books than the previous month.

Like February, the books I read In March were exclusively Sci-Fi Time Travel novels. Honestly, some were much better than others. Not only will this post contain the list of books read in March, but I'll also give my picks for the top five time travel books (read since my quest began in February).

First, the Top Five:
1) the "Oxford Time Travel series" by Connie Willis. This is actually a four book series, but for the purposes of my "top five" list, I'm counting the series as one book.
2) The Time Traveler's Wife   by Audrey Niffenegger.
3) Kindred   by Octavia Butler.
4) Slaughterhouse-Five    by Kurt Vonnegut.
5) The Time Machine   by H.G. Wells and it's sequel The Time Ships   by Stephen Baxter. Although these are two different books by two different writers, again for the purposes of my list, I'm counting these as one book.

Although some others were less than my favorite, there are two that deserve to be mentioned as the worst. The Thief of Time  by Terry Pratchett (which I couldn't bring myself to finish) and Time Enough For Love  by Robert Heinlein.

This month I'll be reading non- time travel books written by some of the writers in my time travel list. I've already put eight books in the queue. These will include books by Octavia Butler, Connie Willis, H.G. Wells and Stephen Baxter. More on that later.

So, here's the list for March.

The Time Traveler's Wife   by Audrey Niffenegger.
Tourmalin's Time Cheques  by F. Anstey.
The Langoliers  by Stephen King.
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August  by Claire North.
The End of Eternity  by Isaac Asimov.
The Chronoliths  by Robert Charles Wilson.
The Accidental Time Machine   by Joe Haldeman.
Tau Zero   by Poul Anderson.
Slaughterhouse-Five   by Kurt Vonnegut.
Kindred   by Octavia Butler.
All You Need Is Kill    by Hiroshi Sakurazaka.
The Masks of Time   by Robert Silverberg.

The Final Two Time Travel Books

 

Not long after I had finished reading Kindred by Octavia Butler, I decided that I had become nearly burned out on time travel novels and I would go on to some other genre when April arrived. When I made that decision, there was still enough time left in March to read two final time travel books. The two would be All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka and Robert Silverberg's The Masks of Time .

Sakurazaka's book had been listed on the 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books. Silverberg's book was not.

I had managed to read 21 time travel books since the first of February. Many of the books chosen had come from the above linked to list. Six of the books were not on the list.

All You Need Is Kill is pretty much a standard Sci-Fi novel. Aliens invading the Earth - a united Earth fighting the aliens. The "time travel" in the book is actually a "time-loop". Does that count? Lots of killing and violence, but few surprises. I enjoyed the book, but I don't think it qualifies as one of the 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books. The Masks of Time does, on the other hand.

I first read Silverberg's book more than 40 years ago. I can't get more specific than that. Even after all that time, I could remember more than I thought possible. The time traveler, Vornan-19 arrives in Rome, Italy on Christmas Day, 1998 to much fanfare. He soon becomes a world wide celebrity. As the world of 1998 is looking with dread upon the up coming millennium, many see the time traveler as a sign of hope.....a sign that the world continues beyond the year 2000 AD.

The book was written in 1968 - a long way from the craziness of Y2K. Of course, Silverberg did not predict the insanity of the Y2K scare, but I was reminded of that time with Silverberg's description of the apocalyptic cult of 1998.

Like many Sci-Fi writers of the mid to late 1960's, Silverberg was expecting that we'd have colonized the Moon by the end of the century. He foresaw the prevalence of computers in our time, although he expected the computers to be like the 1960 era computers - giant sized.

Unlike several of the time travel books I'd read during the past 2 months, The Masks of Time fits within the genre. Of the 21 time travel books, this one may not make the top five, but it does belong in the top ten.

Slaughterhouse-Five

Of the books listed in the 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut is one of the only three books I'd read prior to coming upon the list. It's been more than 50 years since I first read the book and most of the details I remember from that early reading are probably actually memories from the 1972 film.

When I read the novel as a teenager, Vonnegut was my favorite writer - he's no longer that, but I've come upon quite a few more great writers since my teen years so that change of opinion is to be expected. Still, Slaughterhouse-Five rates very high in my view of the time travel books I've read recently.

Of the 18 time travel books I've read since the first of February, there are three which are in a very close tie for first place - To Say Nothing of The Dog ,The Time Traveler's Wife and now Slaughterhouse-Five . My only objection to Slaughterhouse-Five is Vonnegut's over-use of the phrase "So it goes" when a death is mentioned in the novel.Otherwise, it's certainly worth a read (or reread).

Tau Zero

Another Sci-Fi novel to make the list of the 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books is Poul Anderson's Tau Zero . Like far too many books on the list, calling Tau Zero a time travel book is to play fast and loose with the genre.

The story follows the crew of 25 men and 25 women of the starship Leonora Christine who are on their way to colonize a planet in orbit around the star Beta Virginis, in the constellation Virgo.

The starship is not capable of faster-than-light travel, but due to relativity and time dilation, the crew expects to spend 5 years on board the starship while 33 years will pass by on Earth. However, the ship passes through a small nebula which damages the "deceleration field generators". The ship cannot slow down......it actually continues to accelerate rapidly. Because of the radiation produced by the engines, the crew cannot repair the damage. The starship is unable to stop and is doomed to travel endlessly through time and space.

The speed increases to the point that billions of years pass by on Earth. So, I suppose technically we can say the crew advances to the future, although relatively little time passes for them.

Tau Zero is classified as a "hard science fiction novel" - the plot is grounded in real physics. Not exactly my favorite type of Sci-Fi. I don't mind a bit of real science, but for that I'd rather read Simon Singh or Stephen Hawking. Too much description of the hard science takes away from the story line.

The situation looks bleak throughout 95% of the story, with a happily-ever-after ending coming in the final chapter. With Sci-Fi, you can always manage a happy ending if you want one.

The Accidental Time Machine

Unlike far too many of the books found on the list of the 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books, Joe Haldeman's The Accidental Time Machine is actually about time travel.

The beginning of The Accidental Time Machine is pretty funny. I thought that if Haldeman could maintain the level of humor throughout the entire book, this one might be my favorite time travel book so far. Unfortunately, Haldeman pretty much abandons the humor and makes the book a "cautionary" tale. When the protagonist, Matt Fuller, arrives in AD 2252, he finds a theocracy controlled by "Jesus". I suppose quite a few Sci-Fi fans see Haldeman's having a scientist/atheist time traveler confront a Christian theocracy as an act of bravery on Haldeman's part. I, on the other hand, found that part of the novel a bit ho-hum. Maybe a little better than the traditional "time traveler meets world ruled by artificial intelligence", but Haldeman goes there later as well.

Sadly, The Accidental Time Machine starts with a bang and ends with a whimper.

The End of Eternity

The next work in my time travel adventures is Isaac Asimov's 1955 Sci-Fi novel, The End of Eternity . The story revolves around an organization which uses time travel for the purpose of social engineering various time periods for the betterment of humanity.

Naturally, things don't work out as planned.

I find myself judging this novel from two different criteria. First, as a Sci-Fi novel written in the 1950s, and secondly, on how well it holds up in the overall Sci-Fi world.

The book was highly acclaimed by the critics of the day. In that respect, the novel is well worth the read. It's great, by the standards of the 50s and 60s.

However, when compared to later Sci-Fi works, The End of Eternity doesn't deserve to be included in the 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books. Perhaps I'm being unfair.

I thought that the time frames involved within the story to be so vast as to be approaching the realm of absurdity. The speculating on the 150,000th century was enough to make my eyes roll to the back of my head.

On the plus side, the ending came as a bit of a surprise to me and it made up for some of the negatives. It may not be my favorite time travel book of all times, it still beats out  The Thief of Time or Time Enough For Love .

The February Reading List

The reading list for February is made up of nine time travel Sci-fi novels. I had begun my list my starting with the so-called, 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books. I quickly jumped off the list. Two books that made that list - Time Enough For Love and The Thief of Time should never made any "best" list.

I went thru the list and removed two. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe was removed because it rightly belongs to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series and should be read alongside those books.
I also culled Time and Again by Jack Finney because it's an illustrated novel and doesn't hold up well on my Kindle.

So, here are the "time travel" books I read in February.

The Anubis Gates                  Tim Powers
To Say Nothing of the Dog    Connie Willis
The Doomsday Book             Connie Willis
Blackout                                Connie Willis
All Clear                                Connie Willis
Time Enough For Love             Robert Heinlein
The Time Machine                    H.G.Wells
The Time Ships                         Stephen Baxter
There Will Be Time                   Poul Anderson

There Will Be Time

The final book in the time travel series for February is Poul Anderson's There will Be Time . This book did not make the 23 Best Time Travel Sci-fi book list that I've been using, off and on. 23 seemed like a very strange number, so I added a few to my own list. I had chosen There will Be Time because another of Anderson's time travel books did make the list - Tau Zero .

One of the more unusual twists in the novel is that the protagonist, Jack Havig is able to travel through time, not by use of a machine or device, but due to his having a genetic mutation that allows him to move through time.

As a time travel novel, the book is about average.....not especially good, nor especially bad. I'd rate it on a par with The Anubis Gates ; not the best I've ever read, although it is much better than either The Thief of Time or Time Enough For Love .

Jack Havig travels thru the past, present and future. However, after 70% of the story, he leaves Earth, never to return and the story continues with the non-time traveling Maurai Foundation. I really couldn't get into this last 30%. I found the whole Maurai Foundation story boring. I would have preferred that Anderson left the Maurai out of this novel altogether. 

My time travel series for March will begin with Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife . This story also deals with a man who travels through time due to a genetic disorder. My next post will feature the entire list for February.

The Thief of Time

Continuing along the time travel route, I've come to Terry Pratchett's The Thief of Time. As usual, I looked for a copy of the book's cover to go along with the blog post for the novel. I know that one can't always judge a book by the cover, but I should have known by this cover that this book was not for me.

I really could not get into this book. The story rambled on and on and on.....but going nowhere. It all seemed so very pointless to me. I couldn't make it through 30% of the ebook before I put it down to go on to something different. I've too many books on my list to drudge on through a book I can't enjoy.

I'm giving this one a rating of 0 out of 5 stars.....even lower than Time Enough For Love ,which I hated.