Ebook: Wild Seed

Wild Seed is not the first novel I've read by Octavia E. Butler, but it is the earliest. And it is a joy and a comfort to discover that she was as probing and engaging a writer back then as she is now. On the surface Wild Seed is about power and control. But beneath the surface, it's about so much more. And like all great science fiction, it sheds a bright light on our world now.

Imagine the only two immortals on the planet locked in an inextricable relationship of hatred and need. In Wild Seed, Butler writes about race and gender and class with a fresh voice, asking: Can there be a marriage among enemies; a peace among opposites? Can the powerless ever be safe from the powerful?

On one level, Wild Seed reads like a travelogue across land and time. It takes place in a simpler and more superstitious time, though we don't see much of the world as it was in the story. Rather we hear about it more, through the eyes and struggles of the culture that no one but they know exists. Or the two founders--the mother and father of the culture (as it were)--Doro and Anyanwu.

Together they try to breed a race of witches and wizards (for lack of better words), to perpetuate their rapidly dwindling kind. But breeding is a tricky science, especially when the two conducting the mission are at odds on its every aspect. For example, one seeks stable progeny to build a family, a community; the other seeks it like a predator, seeking the meat he most needs to feed on.

Anyanwu is a healer, and the only match for Doro, the most frightening kind of all-powerful being--the body-snatching kind. He cannot be killed, and he is the only one of his kind. So he hops from body to body, recklessly mixing and matching people like samples in a petri dish, then consuming them like so much prey. In Anyanwu, Doro sees a once-in-a-lifetime chance (an even bigger deal for an immortal) to build his civilization from Anyanwu's wild seed. And in Doro, Anyanwu sees her captor, her extorter. And truly, obeying Doro is the only way Anyanwu has to stay alive and keep her children safe. But obeying him comes with a price, as his commands are so heartless and repugnant.

Besides depicting a viperous coil of a moral crisis, what also makes Wild Seed such a thrilling read is how rich and complex Butler's characters are. So tightly wound themselves they spring to life off the page One stylistic element I particularly loved, in fact, was how the author shifted back and forth between Doro's point-of-view and Anyanwu's from scene to scene--always keeping the action moving forward, and always keeping both the hero's (or in this case heroine's) and anti-hero's conflicts present.

The hardest thing for an author to write, if you ask me, is the ending. And even though I saw where the story was taking me from somewhat early on, it didn't take one iota of enjoyment away from the experience. I still found myself surprised. And I laid down the novel happy that I read it.