Patternmaster

Reviews / Votes

One of the most significant literary artists of the twentieth century. One cannot exaggerate the impact she has had -- Junot Diaz Butler's prose, always pared back to the bone, delineates the painful paradoxes of metamorphosis with compelling precision * Guardian * A dark, compelling and still horribly resonant time travel story * Independent * [Her] evocative, often troubling, novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately, what it means to be human * New York Times * No novel I've read this year has felt as relevant, as gut-wrenching or as essential... If you've ever tweeted "All Lives Matter", someone needs to shove Kindred into your hand, and quickly * The Pool * Kindred is that rare magical artifact . . . the novel one returns to, again and again * Harlan Ellison * One cannot finish Kindred without feeling changed. It is a shattering work of art * Los Angeles Herald-Examiner * [A] must-read novel * BBC * Everyone should read at least one novel by the grand dame of science fiction, and Kindred is a perfect (and harrowing and disturbing and brilliant) place to start * Refinery 29 * The immediate effect of reading Octavia Butler's Kindred is to make every other time travel book in the world look as if it's wimping out... This is a brilliant book, utterly absorbing, very well written, and deeply distressing. It's very hard to read, not because it's not good but because it's so good * Tor * A searing, caustic examination of bizarre and alien practices on the third planet from the sun * Kirkus * One of the most original, thought-provoking works examining race and identity * Los Angeles Times * Impossible to turn away from once you've devoured the first few pages * Starburst * If you haven't read Butler, you don't yet understand how rich the possibilities of science fiction can be * Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction * Butler's books are exceptional * Village Voice * Few writers in our field are so good at blending page-turners with philosophical questions so seamlessly -- Cory Doctorow