User:Iwachiw2001g/sandbox

= Books by Octavia Butler =

Summary
Bloodchild is a fiction story about inter species relations, a story building on typical power relationships in human existence. The parent child dynamic, the King and subjects, the pet owner dynamic the master slave dynamic and many more examples of dependence and power relationships, some symbiotic as in this story. The Terrans ,Humans, and the Tlic, Aliens ,or should I say the original species of that planet, act out the universally human like dynamic relationship. Like the pet owner providing food and comfort to the master with a sustainable exchange of human male hosting of the Aliens brood, a sometime dangerous and always painful surgical procedure.

In return the humans were provided with pleasure from the intoxicating eggs and sustenance from the same eggs, with injections from the aliens to induce rest and pain relief. The imagery is also of the mater larger scorpion like body and the slave banded smaller frail bulimic humans kept on a Preserve. Humans in a constant state of stupor from the eggs and raising animals and secret hidden weapons. The weapons used to slaughter the animal hosts of the pupae Aliens so as to save the usually male implanted humans, called N-Tlic, lives, who carried the egg brood before they are consumed, images of pregnant c sections and larvae implanted in a dead animal to become a fly. The imagery of males versus female grubs with sex drives to match. The cars were even band from the humans like the weapons. So now the main character Gan knows what he is in for and the rest of the story deals with the emotions and fears related to the process, a revolt and a choice to use his sister instead but chivalry is not dead and he gets impregnated, the cycle continues.

Quotes

 * "I killed an Achti" page 19  line 16
 * "the young ate it" page 19 line 16
 * "I had..... never seen a person cut open before " page 19 line 16

Summary
The Evening and the Morning and the Night is a fiction story about a disease and its toll on the individual and the greater society. The setting is in a different time and place but mimics what happens with Mental Health, Tuberculosis and Leprosy treatments in the past. The isolation from the society in general in the Dilg and the loss of participation in the general society by those afflicted. Then it turns on the effects of the disease and a new realization that some of the affected possess a new and different ability to create and control a new community based on the effects of a hormone on these DGD sufferers. The journey from regular society to this alternate community of diseased individuals shunned by the general population. A disease with a sort of old age, Zombie human eating and self mutilating in the worst cases. Then the twist that a way to control them has been discovered through people like Lynn double DGD's produced a pheromone that seems to make them attentive to the person with the pheromone and make the Dilg problem solvers. DGD better than any other and she had the ability to exercise this new control, which everyone was trying to copy in the labs. Lynn in her journey from normal to DGD and loosing control but also making a new order of Dilg. Her choice to make.

Quotes

 * "Our patients can still read and write" page 65  line 16
 * "Dilg scholarship, right?"" page 63 line 2
 * "Drifting is normal for every DGD sooner or later " page 62 line 24

Summary
Speech Sounds is a fiction story about People who have been infected by a virus and lost many of the abilities like reading writing and speech which make us supposedly unique in the animal kingdom. In this story the ability to speak was a closely guarded secret and cause of concern to all speakers. The setting starts in a bus as a passenger and a fight erupts between people. These were not your present day buses but rather post apocalyptic society broken by the loss of these abilities to read and write and speak, caused by the disease process. Then after the fight she meets a silent large person which she implicitly trusts and takes a ride for safety and turns out to be a bonding experience. A story of learning to communicate without language as the ASL ( American Sign Language )community does.

Then the twist in a short span of time this new stranger of trust called Obsidian rises to the occasion and seeks to protect another woman by shooting her attacker after she is shot, then Obsidian is set to investigate the near dead man. Obsidian is set upon and gets killed by the assailant. Now the children come running out for there mother and heard screaming, the ohh moment they were speakers like Rye and now they were together and in symbolism Rye returns to bury her Obsidian and the children's mother, a sign that civilization may return after the virus after all.

Quotes

 * "No!" page 11  line 26, 28
 * "Don't talk," page 11 line 30
 * "Fluent Speech1" " page 11 line 34

Summary
Amnesty is a fiction story about inter species relations, a story building on typical power relationships in human existence. In this case the story revolves around a new world order after the aliens. All that came before is gone and a new shared world after the destruction of the last, or at least the attempt. This new world of strange creatures with a composite of intelligence ruling and now paying for services from these humans. Somehow they develop and addiction to the human interface while humans are in translation mode explaining all things and communicating with them in a new language. The story relates the science fiction abduction stories and makes the story based in facts or at least familiar. The community came on a one way trip to live on this planet and find a human species their, which they study as if we were studying rats. In time they learn that these creatures carry a special addiction to them in translation mode and decide to keep the humans at beckoned call without destroying them anymore. The main character Noah tells of the treatment at the tentacles of the community and the treatment at the hands of the Humans who treated her as a traitor, both experiences were not pleasant and unfair. SO Noah seems to move us to working with the community and to preserve the humans at least for now, after all,they still have half the nuclear weapons they caught in the war and may still use. This all is captured within the framework of an employment interview preparation for several potential candidates by Noah, this is what we can expect from aliens?

Quotes

 * "medical emergencies are covered by the contract" page 164  line 7
 * "they hurt you " page 160 line 21
 * "and what? you forgave them for what they did to you? " page 160 line 4

Summary
The Book of Martha is a fiction story about individual relations by a conversation with self and GOD. A Story built on the typical power of Gods and how we and God can effect relationships in human existence. The story involves a conversation between Martha and God, in which the image of Daunting large White God transforms into a Human likeness of Martha. The major discussion revolves around what changes she and God can make to Humans to stop the tendencies to kill, war and maim. The thought process involved in using a custom Utopian world construct made while dreaming as a way to eliminate differences that incite the violence. The practicality of a such a world and ultimately the cause and effects of such a drug induced type of existence.

All the discussions lead to the power of dreams and how God and she can create dream like environments at will. Many images of time travel and the beginnings of the universe are brought to bear in the discussion and we are left with the idea that unintended consequences occur from well intentioned dreams. She teaches us how to weight cause and effect throughout the writing and that we are our own Gods and should be mind full of that.

Quotes

 * "she stepped to God and hugged her hard" page 212  line 28
 * "you are really doing this to yourself, you know but as long as it's not upsetting you I suppose it doesn't matter" page 209 line 21
 * "dreams.... powerful, unavoidable , realistic dreams that come every time people sleep" page 203 line 24

"Summary of Octavia E. Butler’s Biography for the Introduction to the Research Essay"
Octavia Estelle Butler was Born in Pasadena Ca. on June 22, 1947 an only child of Octavia Margaret Guy, a housemaid, and Laurice James Butler, a shoeshine man. Her father died when she was 7 and was raised by her mother and grandmother in a strict Baptist environment. She grew up in an integrated Pasadena Ca. community, ethnic diversity in the midst of racial segregation which she experienced firsthand by going with her mother to work at houses through the back door and being treated badly. She was shy and had difficulty socializing with other children. She had reading challenges that made schoolwork a challenge and made her feel inferior and a target for bullies. These feelings lead her to spend time in the Pasadena Public Library and passionate writing began and interest in Science fiction magazines and stories. The purchase of a Remington typewriter at age ten and her desire to publish grew when at age 13 she submitted a first manuscript to a science fiction magazine despite her aunts comment that “ Honey.. Negroes can’t be writers”. She graduated John Muir High School in 1965. Butler worked Days and attended Pasadena City College at night where she scored her first paid story in a college wide short story contest. She graduated in 1968 with Associates of Arts degree and had the seed of a story for Kindred. After School Butler continued to write despite her mother’s pressure to become a secretary, leading her to take easy jobs to allow her to write all nite and enrolled in UCLA and the switched to UCLA for writing instructions. Finally, she came on a break at Open Door Workshop of the Screen Writers Guild of America, West , and was discovered by a teacher writer Harlan Ellison, who directed her to Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop in Clarion, Pennsylvania and teacher Samuel R. Delany. The first stories “ Child Finder” and “ Crossover” sold. The next five years she worked on her series of novels known as the Patternist series: Pattermaster ( 1976), mind of My Mind ( 1977), and the Survivor ( 1978). Now living on the income of writing Kindred ( 1979), Wild Seed (1980), Clay’s Ark (1984), Speech Sounds (1984), Bloodchild (1985), (both HUGO award winners, the Locus award and science fiction Chronicle Reader Award for best Novelette Pushing the limits she went to the amazon to research and write the Xenogenesisi trilogy: Dawn ( 1987), Adulthood Rites ( 1988), and Clay’s Ark ( 1984). In the 1990 Parable of the Sower ( 1993) , Parable of the talents (1998) to capture the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship “ Genius Grant” with the money. In 1999 her mother passed and Butler moved to Lake Forest Park, Washington, and her last Book Fledgling ( 2005). – passing on February 24, 2006 as an accomplished American science fiction writer.

=
=====

= Secondary Sources and Reviewers of Octavia Butler's literary Works =

Summary
Maria Holmgren Troy's "Loss of Words: Octavia Butler's 'Speech Sounds'." The Book of Martha is a fiction story about individual relations by a conversation with self and GOD. A Story built on the typical power of Gods and how we and God can effect relationships in human existence. The story involves a conversation between Martha and God, in which the image of Daunting large White God transforms into a Human likeness of Martha. The major discussion revolves around what changes she and God can make to Humans to stop the tendencies to kill, war and maim. The thought process involved in using a custom Utopian world construct made while dreaming as a way to eliminate differences that incite the violence. The practicality of a such a world and ultimately the cause and effects of such a drug induced type of existence.

All the discussions lead to the power of dreams and how God and she can create dream like environments at will. Many images of time travel and the beginnings of the universe are brought to bear in the discussion and we are left with the idea that unintended consequences occur from well intentioned dreams. She teaches us how to weight cause and effect throughout the writing and that we are our own Gods and should be mind full of that.

Quotes

 * "she stepped to God and hugged her hard" page 212  line 28
 * "you are really doing this to yourself, you know but as long as it's not upsetting you I suppose it doesn't matter" page 209 line 21
 * "dreams.... powerful, unavoidable , realistic dreams that come every time people sleep" page 203 line 24

Summary
Sandra Y. Govan's "Disparate Spirits Yet Kindred Souls: Octavia E. Butler, 'Speech Sounds,' and Me."

The Disparate yet kindred souls is a paper on the freindship and shared experiences of Sandra Govan and Octavia Butler and i a way a combined personal observations. Govan and Butler struck a common interest and common support roles for both.

Quotes

 * "she stepped to God and hugged her hard" page 212  line 28
 * "you are really doing this to yourself, you know but as long as it's not upsetting you I suppose it doesn't matter" page 209 line 21
 * "dreams.... powerful, unavoidable , realistic dreams that come every time people sleep" page 203 line 24

Summary
The Digging Deep story by Isaih Lavendar the third analyzes Octavia Butler's The evening and the morning and the night. He finds it to be absent any racial overtones and remarks that that is uncharacteristic of Butler. He goes and tries to relate Butler's work to other contemporaries in his analysis and Butler's other works.

Quotes

 * "she stepped to God and hugged her hard" page 212  line 28
 * "you are really doing this to yourself, you know but as long as it's not upsetting you I suppose it doesn't matter" page 209 line 21
 * "dreams.... powerful, unavoidable , realistic dreams that come every time people sleep" page 203 line 24

Summary
Claire P. Curtis” “Theorizing Fear: Octavia Butler and the Realist Utopia.” Utopian Studies 19.3 (2008): 411–431.

The Theorizing fear article deals with the Utopias of Butlers books in a critique.

Quotes

 * "she stepped to God and hugged her hard" page 212  line 28
 * "you are really doing this to yourself, you know but as long as it's not upsetting you I suppose it doesn't matter" page 209 line 21
 * "dreams.... powerful, unavoidable , realistic dreams that come every time people sleep" page 203 line 24

Summary
Elisa Edwards’ “Octavia Butler’s ‘Amnesty’.” (2003) in Race, Aliens, and the U.S. Government in African American Science Fiction. Münster [u.a.: Lit, 2011.]

The Article by Edwards takes on the Amnesty short story and builds background on the topics of race, aliens and african americans in butlers writing.

Quotes

 * "she stepped to God and hugged her hard" page 212  line 28
 * "you are really doing this to yourself, you know but as long as it's not upsetting you I suppose it doesn't matter" page 209 line 21
 * "dreams.... powerful, unavoidable , realistic dreams that come every time people sleep" page 203 line 24

Summary
Gregory Jerome Hampton’s “Religious Science Fiction: Butler’s Changing God.” Changing Bodies in the Fiction of Octavia Butler. Blue Ridge Summit, US: Lexington Books, 2010.

TheHampton article religious science fiction focuses on the God discribed by Butler in her short stories.

Quotes

 * "she stepped to God and hugged her hard" page 212  line 28
 * "you are really doing this to yourself, you know but as long as it's not upsetting you I suppose it doesn't matter" page 209 line 21
 * "dreams.... powerful, unavoidable , realistic dreams that come every time people sleep" page 203 line 24