Thank you for making a point about the biological themes in Butler's work! I have long been a fan of her writing since I first read "Parable of the Sower" years ago (while in Africa on a working trip). I have devoured whatever of her books I could get my hands on since. I happen to be a professor of evolutionary biology, and had the good fortune to meet Ms. Butler in 2003 at the "New Frontier" conference at Howard University. We talked about evolution and biological symbiosis, and she talked glowingly about her favorite biologist, Dr. Lynn Margulis of UMass Amherst. Dr. Margulis developed the "serial endosymbiotic theory" of the origin of complex multicellular organisms, which states that more complex forms arose via a close symbiotic association between simpler forms such as bacteria. Symbiotic lifeforms are a common theme in Butler's writing - "Bloodchild" definitely exemplifies this.

I feel a profound connection with many of her characters (even though I am male), because even beyond gender, she has consistently been able to capture the basic essence of humanity... Losing her so soon has left us with one less glimmer of hope for this world - I will miss her deeply, but I will treasure what she has left us.

Thank you Karen for a terrific elegy for Octavia. I will always be grateful for the way she overcame her shyness to do the Guest of Honour things at Readercon in 2002, to speak with grave and prophetic deliberation. And even more than that I am grateful for her work. (And for your own, which is also in my top 10, although I want to argue with the concept of having to pick 10, but still. Thank you.)

I've not been a fan of SF for years - though I've read most of the biggies: my most recent forays have been Dune - which is okay, but tortured, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (does that count?), which was pretty stiff, but I had an old translation. These days I think of SF as the realm where writers go when they need to force a plot - when magic is easier than reality, when the stories of the real world elude the author, or as a tool for satire or comedy - I guess there's a place for this stuff. But I'm only posting to say this: I'd never heard of Butler 'til she died - and then, suddenly, I've been told that she's a very important writer - mostly, according to almost every postmortem I've read, because she was black, and one of the first blacks - and a woman! - in a genre that's white and male and blah, blah, blah. In fact, after reading a few eulogies, I felt bad for Ms. Butler, looking down from where ever she might be, seeing that her body of work was only worth the color of her skin: makes one think that she'd just be another rat in the pack had she been born white and, particularly, male. Also, Ms. Fowler, google top 10 sf novels and Butler's name doesn't come up (including this list of women sf writers! http://books.guardian.co.uk/top10s/top10/0,6109,1102650,00.html) - so she may not be quite the star you pitch here, but, hey, she's dead: even Nixon looked good after he died!

If you haven't heard of Octavia Butler, you haven't been paying attention. She's frequently mentioned as one of the most literary sf authors (along with Vance and Wolfe). If you feel that sf is where writers go to force a plot it's no surprise you haven't heard of her. She (and much of sf, if you actually look for it) goes beyond borders and your preconceived notions of the genre. As important as Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov, Herbert, etc are, there's a world of sf beyond them.

Octavia Butler was one of the best in a sub-genre of Literature that is severely hobbled by its strengths. The sheer pleasure of creating new worlds is automatically punished with the loss of the reader's tacit recognitions; imagine a Hemingway story being read by someone who had never beforehand heard of a 'fish' or a 'bull'; worse still, imagine Hemingway writing specifically with such a reader in mind. Kafka of course got away with it, but Kafka is Kafka.

Sci Fi writers tend to hate being called Sci Fi writers...they crave a distance from the term that the sub-genre has yet to earn. Octavia Butler was, very much as Harlan Ellison is, a kind of tall midget of the Literary Arts because she'd mastered an essentially immature form. Sc Fi is so much exposition...so much explaining explaining explaining (usually, as in B-movies of the '50s, delivered in clunky dialog)...whereas truly great Lit is recognized by what's artfully un-and-understated...the perfectly-shaped gaps. Sci Fi is over-explained, plot-heavy, bulky and dense, even in the rare cases where the characterizations and prosody are sophisticated.

Sci Fi is fun...very much descended from the parable and the fairytale as a form...but it doesn't make The Canon. Butler's death is more a loss to entertainment specifically and humanity in general than to Literature itself.

Octavia Butler was one of the best in a sub-genre of Literature that is severely hobbled by its strengths. The sheer pleasure of creating new worlds is automatically punished with the loss of the reader's tacit recognitions; imagine a Hemingway story being read by someone who had never beforehand heard of a 'fish' or a 'bull'; worse still, imagine Hemingway writing specifically with such a reader in mind. Kafka of course got away with it, but Kafka is Kafka.

Sci Fi writers tend to hate being called Sci Fi writers...they crave a distance from the term that the sub-genre has yet to earn. Octavia Butler was, very much as Harlan Ellison is, a kind of tall midget of the Literary Arts because she'd mastered an essentially immature form. Sc Fi is so much exposition...so much explaining explaining explaining...whereas truly great Lit is recognized by what's artfully un-and-understated...the perfectly-shaped gaps. Sci Fi is over-explained, plot-heavy, bulky and dense, even in the rare cases where the characterizations and prosody are sophisticated.

Sci Fi is fun...very much descended from the parable and the fairytale as a form...but it doesn't make The Canon. Butler's death is more a loss to entertainment specifically and humanity in general than to Literature itself.