Sink Your Teeth Into This

I love the work of Octavia Butler. If you haven't read any of her books, you should consider picking one up, even if you're not a sci-fi fan. They are truly extraordinary. There are very few African-American female science-fiction writers; Butler's work earned her both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, as well as a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant.

When I read her newest novel, "Fledgling," I was excited to begin what was sure to become a fascinating new series. Unfortunately, we'll never see the next installment. Butler passed away on Feb. 24, 2006, after a fall at her home in Seattle. She was 58.

January 5, 2006

In this vampire tale, there's a lot to drink in

By Lylah M. Alphonse, Globe Staff

Octavia E. Butler, the first successful female African-American science-fiction writer and a winner of a MacArthur Foundation ''genius" grant, is skilled at persuading her readers to reconsider social norms while immersing them in the alternate reality she's created. The settings are usually familiar (Los Angeles a few years from now, for example), and her main characters seem fairly ordinary -- at least, at first. Bit by bit, she reveals the unusual -- an extraterrestrial parasite searching for hosts, an evolutionary freak of nature that can morph from human to animal, a woman who can slip through time -- and, by then, the reader is hooked. ... [More]