I asked myself “what is Octavia Butler trying to accomplish in her science fiction novels? Is there a reason that Geneseo has made this author’s work into an author study?” After reading several of Octavia Butler’s novels, I have discovered that Butler sought to expose her audience to issues regarding racism, prejudice, and slavery. However, Octavia Butler’s novels are very different from one another and extends across different subject areas, such as Ina vampires, Clayarks, and telepaths.Īnother question that I asked myself at the beginning of the semester was about the purpose of Butler’s work. I admit that I used to be a part of the group of people who thought that every piece of science fiction was similar to Star Trek and Star Wars. You can go anywhere with it” (Francis 224). She spoke against the stigma that science fiction has, stating that “People tend to think of science fiction as, oh Star Wars or Star Trek, and the truth is there are no closed doors, and there are no required formulas. In Octavia Butler’s interview with Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman in Conversations with Octavia Butler, Butler talked about how she first became attracted to the genre of science fiction and how she liked how open it was. I was so used to the pop cultural persona of the vampire novel (such as Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight) that I did not realize that science fiction could be written within this discourse. When I first read Fledgling, I had no idea that a vampire novel could be classified as science fiction. Reading Octavia Butler’s work has allowed me to observe how free this genre really is, because it ranges from a variety of different settings. However, my involvement in this course made me realize that there is not a specific storyline that science fiction is regularly concerned with. The types of questions that I entered into this course with dealt mostly with what the genre of science fiction was and what type of storyline it generally involved. In each one of her novels, Butler creates a fantasy world that explores the type of conflicts that are apparent in our own reality. In my opinion, the works of Octavia Butler are captivating and contain many important themes that go beyond spaceships and aliens. What I thought was going to be my least favorite class of the semester turned out to be my favorite.

However, I am very happy to say that I was wrong.

I was very concerned that I would not like Octavia Butler’s work, because science fiction was a genre that was completely foreign to me. I entered into this course with many preconceived notions about the genre and thought that it only concerned story lines about aliens and spaceships. Prior to taking this course, I have never read a science fiction novel before. Octavia Butler has introduced me into the world of literary science fiction.

Octavia butler vampire