Octavia Butler 1947-2006
Science fiction has lost one of its most precious voices this weekend. Octavia Butler’s body of work is outstanding, and she will be missed.
On audio, Recorded Books has three of her best titles; Kindred, Parable of the Sower, and Parable of the Talents.
An obituary can be found at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. From that obit: “Butler’s work wasn’t preoccupied with robots and ray guns, Howle said, but used the genre’s artistic freedom to explore race, poverty, politics, religion, and human nature.”
Indeed quite a loss to SF. :(
It should also be noted that there is an excellent audio dramatization of OEB’s Bloodchild. It is available on audible.com
“Terran refugees on a foreign planet bear the children of the native inhabitants.”
Adapted for audio by Yuri Rasovsky, with a cast featuring John Coppola, Dylan Kussman, Ann Marie Lee, Christina Pickles, Lynne Thigpen, Ira Burton, and Lorna Raver, and with guitar solos by Fred Koella.
Hosted by award-winning writer and broadcast personality Harlan Ellison.
Jesse