Mind of My Mind, Octavia E. Butler
Mind of My Mind, Octavia E. Butler
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Mind of My Mind

Author: Octavia E. Butler

Narrator: Robin Miles

Unabridged: 8 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/30/2023


Synopsis

A young woman harnesses her newfound power to challenge the ruthless man who controls her, in this brilliant and provocative novel from the award-winning author of Parable of the Sower.

Mary is a treacherous experiment. Her creator, an immortal named Doro, has molded the human race for generations, seeking out those with unusual talents like telepathy and breeding them into a new subrace of humans who obey his every command. The result is Mary: a young black woman living on the rough outskirts of Los Angeles in the 1970s, who has no idea how much power she will soon wield.

Doro knows he must handle Mary carefully or risk her ending like his previous experiments: dead, either by her own hand or Doro's. What he doesn't suspect is that Mary's maturing telepathic abilities may soon rival his own power. By linking telepaths with a viral pattern, she will create the potential to break free of his control once and for all-and shift the course of humanity.


About Octavia E. Butler

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, one of very few African American women in the field. She won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards and in 1995 was the first science fiction writer ever to receive the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Nicholas on December 29, 2023

4/5 stars One of the best sci-fi sequels I have ever read. Quick reminder: There are two ways to read Octavia E. Butler's Patternist series: the order in which it was published--Patternmaster (1976), Mind of My Mind (1977), Survivor (1978, disowned and never put back into publication), Wild Seed (1980......more

Goodreads review by Subarashi on August 05, 2008

In spite of myself, I've ended up discussing and recommending this book to a few people. There are really fascinating ideas here - Octavia Butler is a champ at slightly extrapolating and skewering present reality and transforming it into a plausible, not so removed future. Here she invents a world o......more

Goodreads review by BJ on June 08, 2024

Octavia Butler is a tricky writer. Her prose is straightforward—there’s never any doubt about what’s happening. But what it means? How the reader is supposed to make sense of it—if we’re supposed to make sense of it. How seductively Butler writes power; how bearable pain. And then—unbearable. A hard......more

Goodreads review by Stuart on March 05, 2016

Mind of My Mind: The rise of the first Pattermaster Originally published at Fantasy Literature Mind of My Mind (1977) was written second in Octavia Butler’s 4-book PATTERNIST series, and comes second in chronology. However, I think it is less polished than Wild Seed (1980), which comes earlier in chro......more

Goodreads review by Paul on April 27, 2011

Wild Seed, the first book in the Patternist series, was a phenomenal book that made me infatuated with Octavia Butler’s ability to tell a story. Mind of My Mind, the second book in the series, made me realize that she is probably going to be one of my favorite authors ever. Mind of My Mind picks up......more


Quotes

PRAISE FOR OCTAVIA E. BUTLER'S NOVELS

"Brilliant, endlessly rich...pairs well with 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale."—John Green, New York Times(on Parable of the Sower)

"Wild Seed is a book that shifted my life . . . It is as epic, as game-changing, as moving and brilliant as any science fiction novel ever written."—Viola Davis

"An internationally acclaimed science fiction writer whose evocative, often troubling, novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately, what it means to be human."—New York Times

"If we're talking must-read authors like Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison, the one-and-only Octavia Butler needs be a part of the conversation. The groundbreaking sci-fi and speculative fiction author was a master of spinning imaginative tales that introduced you to both the possibilities -- and dangers -- of the human race, all while offering lessons on tribalism, race, gender, and sexuality."—O, The Oprah Magazine

"More than any novel I've ever read, Octavia Butler's Wild Seed examines power, what it means to wield it responsibly and what it means to resist it when it is wielded capriciously."—Rion Amilcar Scott, PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize-winning author of Insurrections

"In the ongoing contest over which dystopian classic is most applicable to our time, Octavia Butler's 'Parable' books may be unmatched."—New Yorker (on Parableof the Sower)

"Butler is one of the finest voices in fiction-period . . . A master storyteller with a voice that cradles and captivates, Butler casts an unflinching eye on racism, sexism, poverty and ignorance, and lets the reader see the terror and beauty of human nature."—Washington Post Book World

"Haunting . . . apocalyptic . . . compelling."—Essence