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    Seed to Harvest: The Complete Patternist Series
    Unavailable
    Seed to Harvest: The Complete Patternist Series
    Unavailable
    Seed to Harvest: The Complete Patternist Series
    Ebook1,090 pages18 hours

    Seed to Harvest: The Complete Patternist Series

    By Octavia E. Butler

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The complete Patternist series—the acclaimed science fiction epic of a world transformed by a secret race of telepaths and their devastating rise to power.
    In the late seventeenth century, two immortals meet in an African forest. Anyanwu is a healer, a three-hundred-year-old woman who uses her wisdom to help those around her. The other is Doro, a malevolent despot who has mastered the power of stealing the bodies of others when his wears out. Together they will change the world. Over the next three centuries, Doro mounts a colossal selective breeding project, attempting to create a master race of telepaths. He succeeds beyond his wildest dreams, splitting the human race down the middle and establishing a new world order dominated by the most manipulative minds on Earth. In these four novels, award-winning author Octavia E. Butler tells the classic story that began her legendary career: a mythic tale of the transformation of civilization. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateJul 24, 2012
    ISBN9781453271759
    Unavailable
    Seed to Harvest: The Complete Patternist Series
    Author

    Octavia E. Butler

    Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) was a renowned African American author of several award-winning novels, including Parable of the Sower, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 1993, and Parable of the Talents, winner of the Nebula Award for the best science fiction novel in 1995. She received a MacArthur Genius Grant and PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award for her body of work and was acclaimed for her lean prose, strong protagonists, and social observations in stories that range from the distant past to the far future.

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    Reviews for Seed to Harvest

    4/5

    317 ratings16 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is pt. 2 of the Patternist series (by story timeline). It's short and intense, marking an important turning point that leads up to whatever will be. Things are wrapped up for the main characters from Wild Seed and many new ones are introduced. The themes of ownership and symbiosis are very present as in just about anything I've read by Butler.
    • 3/5
      Part of Butler's Patternist series. Mary, the main character (chapters telling her story are written in first person) is not very likeable. She seems to develop more and more compassion towards fellow human beings as the story develops, but it's still not enough. When reading the book you ultimately find yourself rooting for the lesser evil, with the greater evil being Doro, and the lesser being Mary and her "First Family". There is a chilling savageness about what almost all the characters do, which works in the books favor. Character development is somewhat lacking however. You really don't get to know Mary, Doro, Emma, Karl, Vivian or any of the others. All in all, a somewhat interesting (albeit fast) read mainly because of its chilling nature.
    • 4/5
      The first Octavia Butler I ever read - they had it in my school library. I'm amazed really that they did, given some of the content, but definitely grateful. Excellent stuff; I love all her work.
    • 4/5
      Doro is an immortal, mind-controlling, body-snatching mutant who has spent 4,000 years on a human breeding program in an attempt to produce more creatures like him. Mary, a telepath with powerful new abilities, is his most promising result yet, but she also may be proof that he's succeeded a little too well. I should mention that this is the third book in a series. I read the first one so long ago that I remember little of it, and I managed to miss the second one, but it didn't really matter. This one stands on its own well enough.I'm really not sure quite what to think about it, though. It's reasonably well written, if a little talky. It's also disturbing, as it features incest, domestic violence, eugenics, murder, and various kinds of mental coercion from the violently forceful to the insidiously subtle. None of which I necessarily have a problem reading about, but there's something about the casual, matter-of-fact way the characters generally accept all this as just the way things are, even when they're the victims, that gets to me. (The book never spells it out explicitly, but I can only imagine that to some extent they're programmed to accept their place in the grand plan, with all that entails. They may baulk at specific things, but you never see them questioning the basic assumptions.) I felt vaguely unclean while reading it, but the book never develops enough emotional intensity for that disturbed feeling to lead to any kind of catharsis. Unfortunately, this also robs the story of any real sense of investment I might have felt. The only ending that seemed remotely worth caring about or hoping for would be one where the slaves rebel not just against their puppetmaster but against the whole premise of their lives. And that seemed to be almost literally unthinkable.
    • 5/5
      Octavia Butler's work tends to be absolutely gripping, but harsh, gory and sexually explicit (and certainly not romantic). This is the story of a loosely connected groups of psychics, some with astounding powers, founded by one man whose consciousness still lives after centuries. He, and his descendents, are able to leap from body to body. Not all of them are aware of their heritage. Apparently the power resides with the consciousness, not with the body. He, or the bodies he inhabits, have fathered a great many of his descendents.Their powers cause them many psychological problems, and a group of them decide to get together and organize for their own good.
    • 3/5

      Hard book to like. It touches on several complex and important themes such as bodily and mental integrity, slavery and racism, but moves quickly and never really delves into the material. Elements of the book stays with you afterwards.
    • 4/5
      These books are excellent. I very much enjoyed the first two books, in which the psychic abilities of a group of people increase due to enforced selective breeding. The person doing the enforcing, Doro, is amazingly understanding of his subjects yet cold. This particularly shows through contrast with Anyanwu, the woman who causes him such struggle. The third book I found disappointing. I didn't understand what link it had to the previous books. In a way, I suppose it didn't have one: it had a link to the fourth book. Where in the first two books the patternists appear, people with psychic abilities that are tied to each other in a psychic pattern, in the third book their antagonists are explained, the so-called Clayarks. The Clayarks are based on humans as well, but through a disease are impervious to most of the patternists abilities. The fourth book, which I understand was the first one written, ties both groups together in a struggle for resources. On top of that, the patternists struggle amongst themselves, when their leader is about to die...I thought Butler's characterization had something distant about it, since a lot revolved about an almost rational struggle. This by no means stopped me from being engaged in the story. In this way, it reminds of John Wyndham's writing. The stories were most intriguing and raised a lot of issues surrounding slavery and free will that are relevant to this day.
    • 4/5
      This is a collection of four novels that make up Butler’s Patternist series: Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay’s Ark and Patternmaster. I found this to be the weakest of Butler’s works yet. The third in the series, set in a near-future similar to that of Parable of the Sower, was my favorite of the lot: dark, violent and ultimately rather hopeless. Still, none of the novels felt really complete or satisfying. It was clear that Butler was still honing her chops with these early efforts. All that being said, even her mediocre books are fast and entertaining reads.
    • 5/5
      This is an omnibus of four of the five novels of the Patternist series, Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark and Patternmaster. For some reason unknown to me, the third book in the series, Survivor, is not included in this omnibus.The first novel, Wild Seed, was by far my favorite. It is the story of Doro, a man with a special power that allows his spirit to jump from body to body, leaving the discarded bodies dead. He quickly discovers that it gives him more pleasure to occupy the body of a person who also has some sort of special power, be it telekinesis, telepathy, shapeshifting, or the power to heal self or others. He starts collecting these people and breeding them, creating offspring with greater and greater powers for his personal use. Eventually he comes across a woman who is as long-lived as he and more powerful than any he has come across before. He realizes that she is more useful to him alive as breeding stock than the short-term pleasure he could get from her by occupying her body, and realizes that she already has many children who could also be useful to him. But she won't submit easily. She only agrees to do his will if he agrees not to harm her children. But Doro is not to be trusted and conflict ensues. This breathtaking story spans several centuries. I was blown away by the writing style, I felt the author was speaking directly to me. By the end of the novel I found Doro's single-mindedness a little disturbing, but otherwise this was an awesome novel.The second novel, Mind of My Mind, picks up a few hundred years after the first leaves off. Doro's creations have gotten stronger--strong enough to begin challenging him. This book was still quite good but somehow not quite as good as the first one. I was left at the end wanting to know what could possibly happen next, but that will be left to the imagination.The third novel, Survivor, is not included in this omnibus and I have not read it.The fourth novel, Clay's Ark, is completely different from the first two. One of the minor characters from the second novel is briefly mentioned in the third novel, but otherwise it is completely unconnected (perhaps explained by the missing third novel). This could easily have been a stand alone novel and I quite liked it. This is set in the dystopian near future. The first starship (named Clay's Ark) ever to carry humans to another planet has just returned to Earth, but it is bringing with it a highly infectious microorganism that changes the very essence of those it infects. Infected people are compelled to spread the disease to as many as possible and to reproduce as quickly as they can. The first infected people try desperately to retain their humanity--they live in the middle of a desolate desert and kidnap and infect only enough people to quiet their compulsions in an attempt to protect the rest of the world from their disease. This works for several years until one of the people they capture and infect escapes and heads straight for LA. A very chilling story and my second favorite in this omnibus.The last novel, Patternmaster, was definitely my least favorite. This is set even father in the future when most of the people on the planet are either powerful descendants of Doro or are infected with the Clayark disease from the previous novel. These two factions are at constant odds and each would like nothing better than to wipe the other out. The descendants of Doro, with all of their amazing mental powers, have lost almost all of their mechanical ability. The future has developed into what is almost a typical fantasy world. Everything is low tech and "magic" is common. Outside city walls are evil creatures, the Clayarks, that want to kill everybody. The story involves the interaction of some very powerful brothers vying for leadership positions in this setting. Somehow I just didn't find it to be very interesting. It's ok and this is a very short novel so if you've read the first three novels I definitely recommend finishing this one too, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend picking up a copy of Patternmaster on its own.Over all I definitely enjoyed this omnibus. I loved the first story and really enjoyed the fourth. The second was good and the fifth was ok. I really wonder, though, what happened to the third story?
    • 5/5
      One of the best anthologies I have ever read. This is truly a gem to enjoy.
    • 4/5
      Early Butler with all the themes in place and the strong characters, but with more emphasis on plot than later more mature books. An interesting contrast to the Earthseed books, as both are centered on a woman building a community with religious overtones, seen from both her perspectives and others not so happy with what she's doing. In this earlier book, there's less vision on the main character's part and more happens because of super-powers than because of sheer strength of will. Recommended
    • 2/5
      I think I became too invested in the characters of Anyanwu (Emma) and Doro in Wild Seed to fully appreciate this book. Perhaps if I had read this first, in its order of publication, I would have enjoyed the book more. As it was, I found the constantly rotating narratives from such a wide variety of people (who weren't terribly distinct, all being Patternists) distracting and not at all sympathetic. Which is strange. If anything, I should sympathize with Mary, but I had come to know Doro so well. I stuck with the book just to see what happens to Emma and Doro, and while I'm slightly curious to see the direction the rest of the series takes, I suspect I might not ever be too eager to read through them all.

      Did Butler intend for this reaction? She wrote the complicated relationship between Anyanwu and Doro so well in Wild Seed, but nearly all the Patternist characters--including Mary--felt so flat. Nothing about their telepathy intrigued me, but I awed at Emma's and Doro's ability. I am so very confused!
    • 4/5
      Doro from Wild Seed has created some very powerful telepaths. So powerful that they create a society without him. Mary is the most powerful, she creates a pattern of minds, that can make weak telepaths stronger, can heal physical and mental aches, and by the book’s end kills Doro. Butler’s second novel, published in 1977, this mentions that “mutes” (non-telepaths) are just another way of saying the "n" word. (Butler's books use the actual word where it is warranted.)It also gives a little attention to the slavery of the mutes to the telepaths. There are three more books in this series, the newer ones, I’ll bet, give more attention to this part of the new society.
    • 4/5
      A fascinating and quite imaginative novel. Doro, an immortal from the time of the Pharohs, has been attempting to breed a race of telepathics that can control the world. (Doro is thousands of years old and must kill people and adopt their bodies to remain alive.) The succesful results of his centuries-long attempts to create this race have been mixed. There are two types of telepaths: actives and latents. Actives can receive and send mental messages and, to greater or lessor degree, can shield their minds from unwanted messages. Latents cannot control the messages coming into them, the effect of this instrusive chatter often drives them insane; suicide is common among the latents. Actives because their powers are so dominant do not get along with one another and usually clash violently. Whether a Doro offspring becomes active or latent depends on a transition process at late teenage years which is tortuous and often fails.Doro attempts to mitigate these failures by marrying Mary and Karl, two actives who he hopes can develop a compatible and productive bond. Mary is going through transition and at Doro's insistence marries Karl. (Karl shows another power of active telepaths. They are able to control ordinary people called mutes by placing thoughts into their minds.)Mary proves to have extraordinary powers. She telepathically draws latents from all across the country and abroad to their home in California. She and others assist the latents in transitioning to actives. Her influence is such that, rather than conflicting, they form a community called Patternists. When she has gathered 1,500 in this society, Dora orders her to stop. It's plain he see his dominance threatened by Mary. He has insisted on complete obedience to his wishes, but Mary refuses, realizing that Doro will seek to kill her for her disobedience. Mary is able to draw telepathically on the strengths of her followers and is able to kill Doro.The themes of power and will are at the heart of the novel. Written in 1977, there is a strong element of feminism seen in Mary in her determination to exercise power as she sees it. This is part of a series of novels called the "Patternist" novels.
    • 3/5
      Not as good as the first. More emphasis on action, and less on character. Of course that makes it a pretty exciting read. It retains a certain amount of unpredictability, except for the ending. If it the writing gets worse in book #3, I won't be continuing. I'm not a completist.
    • 5/5
      Octavia Butler's work tends to be absolutely gripping, but harsh, gory and sexually explicit (and certainly not romantic). This is the story of a loosely connected groups of psychics, some with astounding powers, founded by one man whose consciousness still lives after centuries. He, and his descendents, are able to leap from body to body. Not all of them are aware of their heritage. Apparently the power resides with the consciousness, not with the body. He, or the bodies he inhabits, have fathered a great many of his descendents.Their powers cause them many psychological problems, and a group of them decide to get together and organize for their own good.