Seed to Harvest

by Octavia E. Butler

Paperback, 2007

Status

Checked out

Publication

Grand Central Publishing (2007), Edition: First Edition, 784 pages

Description

Fiction. Science Fiction. HTML:The complete Patternist seriesâ??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 esta… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member jshillingford
The first book I read by Butler was “Fledgling.” I enjoyed it a lot, but it was Lilith’s Brood (Xenogenesis) that truly blew me away and made me a fan. Butler crafts some of the most compelling, and in-depth science fiction I have ever read.

Seed to Harvest includes four related novels in the
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Patternist series: Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay’s Ark and Patternmaster. First, I have to say I am grateful for this omnibus edition because otherwise I might have read them in published order, whereas this collection is done in chronological order. I think it’s better this way. Patternmaster was the first book Butler published, and it throws readers directly into a very different and strange world than the one we know. The other three books show how we got there and I think it makes for a better reading experience.

WILD SEED is the tale of Anyanwu, an African woman who can heal herself of any injury and is seemingly immortal. She is discovered by Doro, a being who has lived for millennia but at the expense of countless lives. He intends to create a master race of humans through careful breeding. He finds those gifted with psychic abilities and brings them together, and he wants Anyanwu as part of that plan. The two of them are at odds, but also drawn to each other- living embodiments of life and death. Butler’s characters are fully developed and come alive off the pages.

MIND OF MY MIND introduces Mary, who may be the key to creating Doro’s master race. Mary is the first powerful telepath born who is not driven insane by her gift. She uses it to create The Pattern, which binds her people together. Only, Doro may have gotten more than he bargained for when he realizes he’s not part of that master race. I think this is the best book of the four – I read it straight through because it was so creative and the characters so interesting.

CLAY’S ARK is where things get a little…weird. Wild Seed and Mind of my Mind were tightly connected stories, tied together by Anyanwu and Doro. Clay’s Ark introduces brand new characters and a new story-telling structure which swaps between present day and the past. The book appears completely unrelated to the two books that come before it, but is a critical bridge to Patternmaster. A father and his two older teen daughters are accosted on the highway and taken prisoner. Eli calmly informs that that he is carrying a disease that they now have, and will come to accept. Naturally, they don’t want to accept it and try to escape, with global consequences. In the prior two books, Doro hinted that his master race is going to be needed for a purpose. One that is finally revealed in the final book.

PATTERNMASTER opens with a surprise attack on the Rayal, the Patternmaster, by Clayarks. These two species have been at war for decades, and the Clayarks realize killing Rayal is the key to winning. The story then moves to Teray, one of many sons of the Patternmaster His mental abilities are very strong, perhaps even strong enough to allow him hold The Pattern one day. This is something Coransee cannot allow, for he wants the Pattern for himself.

Overall, I didn’t find Seed to Harvest to be quite as good as Lilith’s Brood, mainly because of the conclusion. Lilith’s Brood has more closure while Seed to Harvest is left more or less in a stalemate. It’s almost as if Butler intended there to be another book (and perhaps the long out of print “Survivor” is that book). Still, I thought this was a brilliant, rich saga that pulls a reader in and keeps them long after the final page. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member stubbyfingers
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
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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?
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LibraryThing member sturlington
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
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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.
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LibraryThing member zjakkelien
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
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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.
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LibraryThing member Lyndatrue
It's a bit hard to write a review of an omnibus, and others have already done very good reviews. I originally bought the omnibus *after* buying an expensive copy of Survivor (the book that was excluded from this). I wanted to see what it was about, and to understand why the book was excluded, and
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whether it added to the group of stories, or detracted.

Patternmaster was the last work in this grouping, but the first actually published (and the first successful work by the author, as well). It's one of the strongest, as is Wild Seed, which is placed as the first work in the anthology (but was written after Survivor). Clay's Ark is the third work in the anthology, and was the last novel written in the series. Mind of My Mind is the second work in the anthology, and was written very soon after Patternmaster. It may be that Wild Seed was written to flesh out the details, or perhaps the author felt the need to revisit the characters in greater detail.. Patternmaster and Wild Seed are by far the strongest works, as is Survivor.

I understand, after reading all five, why she eliminated Survivor from this collection. It's a very different work, and effort, and doesn't need the other works as preface, or explanation.
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LibraryThing member haloedrain
I didn't really like the second and third books, but the first and last were good
LibraryThing member MorganDax
Octavia E. Butler is by far one of the best Sci-fi authors I've had the pleasure to discover. This series is no different. Following generations expertly, keeping the focal character at any given point absolutely engaging, and then daring to erase them is a feat not often achievable in fiction. Yet
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she does it with style and grace.
Superb.
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LibraryThing member zjakkelien
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
Show More
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.
Show Less

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2007

Physical description

784 p.; 5.38 inches

ISBN

0446698903 / 9780446698900

Local notes

fiction
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