Book Review - Seed to Harvest

Overview

Contains the novels Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, and Patternmaster.

In her classic Patternist series, multiple Hugo and Nebula award winner Octavia E. Butler established themes of identity and transformation that echo throughout her distinguished career. Now collected for the first time in one volume, these four novels take readers on a wondrous odyssey from a mythic, primordial past to a fantastic far future.
In ancient Africa, a female demigod of nurture and fertility mates with a powerful, destructive male entity. Together they birth a race of madmen, visionaries, and psychics who cling to civilization's margins and back alleys for millennia, coming together in a telepathic Pattern just as Earth is consumed by a cosmic invasion. Now these new beings--no longer merely human--will battle to rule the transfigured world.

My Review

Octavia Butler is one of my favorite sci-fi authors and the reason I really got into sci-fi. This was one series of her's that I had not read and really wanted to since it contains some of her earliest work. It contains four books: Wild Seed (1980), Mind of My Mind (1977), Clay's Ark (1984) and Patternmaster (1976). The order of the books in the series compared to their publication dates makes the disconnect between the books more understandable.

Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind explain how the Pattern comes about and Doro and Anayanwu are characters that flow through both books. Clay's Ark is the book that just seems like a filler. It's a book to explain the Clayarks that exist in Patternmaster but doesn't do a good job explaining their connection to the first two books. Also the past/present chapter movement made it a hard book to follow at times. 

Rating

My overall rating is Good. If Clay's Ark was better connected to the other books, I could give it a higher rating.

This is part of the Diversity on the Shelf Reading Challenge

Diversity on the Shelf 2014

So I have decided to challenge myself this year to read different types of books this year. I also hope to read some books that I already own or that are on my to-read list. This challenge will help me accomplish both. 

The following is from the host's website.

Challenge Details

1. Any book (by any author) with a main character that is a person of color qualifies for this reading challenge, as well as any book written by an author of color. The goal is to encourage readers have a more diverse reading experience and to support diversity in the publishing industry by reading and reviewing books by or about person of color.

2. The challenge will run from January 1, 2014 – December 31, 2014 (books read prior to 1/1/2014 do not count towards the challenge). You can join anytime before 12/1/2014. Sign up at My Little Pocketbooks

3. Books can be any format (print, ebook, audio).

4. Novellas, Short story collections, Poetry, Graphic novels/manga, Children Books, and all genres are allowed. 

5. Books can be of any publication date. 

6. You can choose your books as you go or create a list in advance. Re-reads and crossovers from other reading challenges are allowed.

Join the Challenge

To join the challenge, grab the Diversity on the Shelf 2014 Challenge button and post this reading challenge on your blog to track your progress. Please include a link back to this sign-up post so others can join the reading challenge too. 

You do not have to be a book blogger to participate; you can track your progress on Goodreads, LibraryThing, BookLikes, Libib, etc., just as long as you have a dedicated shelf for the Diversity on the Shelf 2014 Challenge and your profile is not private. The point of linking up is to have a place where people can see what you’re reading.

Pick a Level

Choose how many diversity centered books you would like to add to your “read” shelf in 2014:

1st Shelf: Read 1-6 books

2nd Shelf: Read 7 -12 books

3rd Shelf: Read 13 - 18 books

4th Shelf: Read 19 -24 books

5th Shelf: Read 25+ books

Once you pick a level you can go higher and read more books but you cannot go down a level.

If you'd like to participate in the Diversity on the Shelf 2014 Reading Challenge, please sign up, and if you have a blog please spread the word by grabbing the button and post about your participation.

If you need some ideas for what to read go to the original POC Reading Challenge blog.

There will be giveaways along the way, theme reads and a giveaway at the end for the participants who participate each month and completes the challenge.

I'm going to start myself at the 2nd shelf level. Good thing I can go up if necessary. Some of the books I plan to read are listed on my Goodreads page and I'll add as I find other books to read. The plan is to post updates as I go along. Hopefully I can keep up with it.