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Patternist
Survivor
Know Thy Enemy
They fled from an Earth ravaged by plague and violence, seeking to fulfill their holy mission -- to discover a new home for humanity. But instead of landing in a peace-filled paradise, Earth's Missionaries find themselves caught between two warring civilizations -- the Garkohn and Tehkohn. And only one of the people from Earth, a young girl and "converted" Missionary named Alanna, has the proper survival training to see through the lies of their Garkohn "hosts," who extend the hand of friendship to the humans only to enslave them. Alanna alone can understand the necessity of becoming one with the Tehkohn "enemy." And, perhaps, she can find a way to release the Missionaries from the deadly bondage into which they have complacently fallen. Yet even if she succeeds, will Alanna merely be saving them for a still more inescapable doom . . . ?
They fled from an Earth ravaged by plague and violence, seeking to fulfill their holy mission -- to discover a new home for humanity. But instead of landing in a peace-filled paradise, Earth's Missionaries find themselves caught between two warring civilizations -- the Garkohn and Tehkohn. And only one of the people from Earth, a young girl and "converted" Missionary named Alanna, has the proper survival training to see through the lies of their Garkohn "hosts," who extend the hand of friendship to the humans only to enslave them. Alanna alone can understand the necessity of becoming one with the Tehkohn "enemy." And, perhaps, she can find a way to release the Missionaries from the deadly bondage into which they have complacently fallen. Yet even if she succeeds, will Alanna merely be saving them for a still more inescapable doom . . . ?
187 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
43 people are currently reading
6123 people want to read
About the author
Octavia E. Butler
103 books22.1k followersOctavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. She won both Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant.
After her father died, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. Extremely shy as a child, Octavia found an outlet at the library reading fantasy, and in writing. She began writing science fiction as a teenager. She attended community college during the Black Power movement, and while participating in a local writer's workshop was encouraged to attend the Clarion Workshop, which focused on science fiction.
She soon sold her first stories and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author that she was able to pursue writing full-time. Her books and short stories drew the favorable attention of the public and awards judges. She also taught writer's workshops, and eventually relocated to Washington state. Butler died of a stroke at the age of 58. Her papers are held in the research collection of the Huntington Library.
After her father died, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. Extremely shy as a child, Octavia found an outlet at the library reading fantasy, and in writing. She began writing science fiction as a teenager. She attended community college during the Black Power movement, and while participating in a local writer's workshop was encouraged to attend the Clarion Workshop, which focused on science fiction.
She soon sold her first stories and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author that she was able to pursue writing full-time. Her books and short stories drew the favorable attention of the public and awards judges. She also taught writer's workshops, and eventually relocated to Washington state. Butler died of a stroke at the age of 58. Her papers are held in the research collection of the Huntington Library.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 195 reviews
August 4, 2009
I had my first encounter with Octavia Butler last March when I read Wild Seed, the first book in the Patternist series. I was completely blown away by her storytelling and her imagination. I promptly went out and purchased the omnibus version of the series, Seed to Harvest. I thoroughly enjoyed all the books. Somewhere along the way, I learned that there was one book in the series that had been left out of the collection, Survivor. Butler hated the book so much, she never allowed it to be reprinted. Of course, that got my curiosity going, but not enough to pay over $100 for a used copy. (The current low price on Amazon is $134.01 for a paperback, $603.50 for a hardback.) Jo Walton did a review of it a few months ago on Tor.com and my curiosity was piqued once again. On my most recent visit to the library that I finally bought a library card for (grrr), I found a copy in the most excellent of library science fiction sections. Of course, I had to check it out.
So, I guess the real question is: Why did Octavia Butler hate Survivor so much? In her review, Jo Walton states that Butler called it her "Star Trek" book. That in and of itself doesn't sound so awful. The story is good and it is worthy of an episode of that boundary-breaking series. I think the real reason Butler loathed it is that she wanted to bring up issues of race, sex, and religion, and she chickened out. She approaches the these topics like a child playing tag--a quick touch before running off in another direction. As a result, the story never develops any depth. She also spends too much time having characters telling each other what's going on rather than putting the reader in the action. The best parts of the book are the scenes that are happening in the "now" rather than the "then".
I do have to say that the actual story was quite good. However, it wasn't particularly original, even for 1978. I also think the characters weren't developed very well. The protagonist, Alanna, is supposed to be 15 years old, but she has the maturity of a woman 10-15 years older. In a manner reminiscent of the original Star Trek, she is able to figure out almost every situation and tell others what is going on in excruciating detail.
What I learned in reading Survivor, is that reading the worst book by a master author is still better than reading a lot of the crap that's out there. Despite its numerous flaws, Survivor, kept me turning the pages to see what would happen next. If you are a fan of Octavia Butler, it's definitely worth trying to get a hold of a copy through your public library. However, do not pay $603.50 plus shipping.
So, I guess the real question is: Why did Octavia Butler hate Survivor so much? In her review, Jo Walton states that Butler called it her "Star Trek" book. That in and of itself doesn't sound so awful. The story is good and it is worthy of an episode of that boundary-breaking series. I think the real reason Butler loathed it is that she wanted to bring up issues of race, sex, and religion, and she chickened out. She approaches the these topics like a child playing tag--a quick touch before running off in another direction. As a result, the story never develops any depth. She also spends too much time having characters telling each other what's going on rather than putting the reader in the action. The best parts of the book are the scenes that are happening in the "now" rather than the "then".
I do have to say that the actual story was quite good. However, it wasn't particularly original, even for 1978. I also think the characters weren't developed very well. The protagonist, Alanna, is supposed to be 15 years old, but she has the maturity of a woman 10-15 years older. In a manner reminiscent of the original Star Trek, she is able to figure out almost every situation and tell others what is going on in excruciating detail.
What I learned in reading Survivor, is that reading the worst book by a master author is still better than reading a lot of the crap that's out there. Despite its numerous flaws, Survivor, kept me turning the pages to see what would happen next. If you are a fan of Octavia Butler, it's definitely worth trying to get a hold of a copy through your public library. However, do not pay $603.50 plus shipping.
June 14, 2024
Octavia Butler disowned Survivor. Her “star trek novel,” she famously called it, and kept it out of print, where it remains to this day. I can’t say I don’t understand why. In many ways, Survivor feels like an underdeveloped first draft of Xenogenesis (the single greatest exploration of extraterrestrial sex ever written, in case you were wondering). The Kohn aren’t aliens, they’re furry blue bigfoot people. Their alien world isn’t an alien world, it’s a B-movie set in the hills outside Los Angeles. The novel bears only a tangential relationship to the other Patternist books; certainly, it would have been madness to include it in the omnibus edition of that series.
As a reading experience, Survivor strikes me as rather run of the mill 1970s feminist science fiction. Awkward at points, magnetically compelling at others, it engages the running themes of Butler’s career—slavery and free will, racial hierarchy, sexual violence, bodily autonomy, the stories we tell ourselves for the sake of our own survival—but (as in the far superior Mind of My Mind, if I’m being honest), Butler doesn’t seem to know what she wants to do with those themes, exactly, besides place them alongside each other.
The novel has a tone problem. This, I think—and not the suspect mechanics of its extraterrestrial sex—is what led Butler to erase the novel from her catalogue. A number of reviews (sort by 1 star and they’ll rise right to the top) accuse the novel of handling rape and sexual violence very poorly. And they have a point. But then, it is a brutal novel—like the two Patternist novels that preceded it to publication. Butler does not dance around the question of consent, she places it front and center, underscores it again and again—she understands the centrality of intimate violence to colonialism, to put it in contemporary academic terms. But that gee whiz space aliens star trek tone gets in her way.
Central to the novel’s thought experiment is the question: what if race were biological? The Kohn have a strict caste system based on the color of their fur. Yellow is least valued, blue most. Almost everyone is some shade of green, the bluer the better. Our human lead, Alanna, is brown, and the Kohn seem to vacillate between seeing her as at the bottom of their hierarchy—no blue at all, as they repeatedly remind her—or outside of it entirely, in which case her status isn’t low, it’s indeterminate. Uncomfortably, the novel accepts and reifies the power of the blue. Bluer Kohn don’t just think they’re stronger—they are, in fact, stronger. And the Kohn seem to have a genuine biological urge to accept their hierarchy, to bow down before the power of the blue. Or perhaps it is just that that is what Alanna sees, because it is what they want her to see. Because to survive, she believes she has to see the world as the Kohn do. And she's right.
If you’re interested in Butler’s evolution as a writer and thinker—and have already read most or all of the novels she didn’t disown—it’s probably essential. Otherwise, though, I would recommend Survivor only to the kind of scifi fan who would happily pull a paperback that looked like this one out of the 99 cent bin at a used book store even if they’d never heard of the author at all.
As a reading experience, Survivor strikes me as rather run of the mill 1970s feminist science fiction. Awkward at points, magnetically compelling at others, it engages the running themes of Butler’s career—slavery and free will, racial hierarchy, sexual violence, bodily autonomy, the stories we tell ourselves for the sake of our own survival—but (as in the far superior Mind of My Mind, if I’m being honest), Butler doesn’t seem to know what she wants to do with those themes, exactly, besides place them alongside each other.
The novel has a tone problem. This, I think—and not the suspect mechanics of its extraterrestrial sex—is what led Butler to erase the novel from her catalogue. A number of reviews (sort by 1 star and they’ll rise right to the top) accuse the novel of handling rape and sexual violence very poorly. And they have a point. But then, it is a brutal novel—like the two Patternist novels that preceded it to publication. Butler does not dance around the question of consent, she places it front and center, underscores it again and again—she understands the centrality of intimate violence to colonialism, to put it in contemporary academic terms. But that gee whiz space aliens star trek tone gets in her way.
Central to the novel’s thought experiment is the question: what if race were biological? The Kohn have a strict caste system based on the color of their fur. Yellow is least valued, blue most. Almost everyone is some shade of green, the bluer the better. Our human lead, Alanna, is brown, and the Kohn seem to vacillate between seeing her as at the bottom of their hierarchy—no blue at all, as they repeatedly remind her—or outside of it entirely, in which case her status isn’t low, it’s indeterminate. Uncomfortably, the novel accepts and reifies the power of the blue. Bluer Kohn don’t just think they’re stronger—they are, in fact, stronger. And the Kohn seem to have a genuine biological urge to accept their hierarchy, to bow down before the power of the blue. Or perhaps it is just that that is what Alanna sees, because it is what they want her to see. Because to survive, she believes she has to see the world as the Kohn do. And she's right.
If you’re interested in Butler’s evolution as a writer and thinker—and have already read most or all of the novels she didn’t disown—it’s probably essential. Otherwise, though, I would recommend Survivor only to the kind of scifi fan who would happily pull a paperback that looked like this one out of the 99 cent bin at a used book store even if they’d never heard of the author at all.
November 4, 2010
Survivor lies tangential to the rest of the Patternist books, which I recently read in internal chronological order. When you tease them back into published order, with Patternmaster being published first, all the subsequently-published Patternists books exist to explain it.
Survivor isn't as weird as Patternmaster, as promising as Mind of My Mind, as twisted as Clay's Ark or as brilliant as Wild Seed, so I suppose that in that way it is also the odd book out of the Patternist cycle, although I think condemning it to languish out of print was a little harsh. It could be read as a rough draft of the thematic material of the Xenogenesis trilogy, and certainly in comparison with the Oankali, the Kohn are rather "Star Trek-y", being 'merely' humanoids with technicolor expressive fur.
Worth reading, in my opinion.
Survivor isn't as weird as Patternmaster, as promising as Mind of My Mind, as twisted as Clay's Ark or as brilliant as Wild Seed, so I suppose that in that way it is also the odd book out of the Patternist cycle, although I think condemning it to languish out of print was a little harsh. It could be read as a rough draft of the thematic material of the Xenogenesis trilogy, and certainly in comparison with the Oankali, the Kohn are rather "Star Trek-y", being 'merely' humanoids with technicolor expressive fur.
Worth reading, in my opinion.
August 6, 2016
Octavia Butler is one of my favorite authors, and this book is famously her "worst" one--she herself was seemingly embarrassed of it, requesting that it not be reprinted. It's been out of print since 1981, so you can imagine my glee when I was browsing the local library recently and came across a copy of it--one of only two Butler books they had on the shelf! Even better, the last Butler book I read was Clay's Ark , the book preceding this one in the Patternist series. So I got my hands on it and checked it out!
What did I think? I can see what she means--this isn't up to the standard of Kindred, Wild Seed, or the Earthseed books. It's the lowest rating I've given to a book of hers. Still, 3.75 for me means that I liked it (3 being "I liked it" and 4 being "I really liked it"). Despite its flaws this book is still better than a lot of what's out there.
The biggest problem I see with this book is that it is kind of "settler" or colonial. Missionaries (like an actual religious group that calls themselves Missionaries) go to some already-inhabited planet, without asking first or anything, and just start living there. There is not a whole lot said about how the original inhabitants of this planet feel toward them or react; we can guess based on some of their actions that they didn't really respect them, but were definitely on the lookout for how they could use Missionaries in their own power struggles and what they could learn from them technology-wise. Based on reading well-researched historical fiction about first contact between Europeans and indigenous Americans like The Moor's Account, the response of the native people of this planet (which is never named) to the Missionaries definitely seems plausible or realistic--the Missionaries in this book were, after all, a small group basically at the mercy of the native people, with no chance of more coming behind them, and unequipped to make it there on their own. The Missionaries don't come off looking good, Butler did not make them out to be a particularly sympathetic group, which goes a long way (in my opinion) to making the book come off as less colonialist--but I still would have liked the narrative to go into the Kohn response a bit more.
The thing I liked best about this book was probably Alanna, the main character and a narrator for part of the book (there are two alternating narrators who begin each chapter from their first person perspective telling the "past" or background of the story, and then the rest of the chapter is a third person narrator talking about the story unraveling in the present). She's interesting because she's constantly on the edge of two or more groups: wild human/Missionary or Missionary/Tehkohn. Like with earlier books in the series, there is a theme of submitting to survive, and yet still retaining your own essence or beliefs. It raises the question of assimilation versus belonging. To me, it read like it could be a comment on being mixed race (in addition to walking these boundaries, Alanna is also Black/Asian) in that mixed race people report feeling like they sometimes don't fit in anywhere, not trusted fully by either group they belong to. Butler could also be alluding to Du Bois's double consciousness.
Fitting in with the theme "submitting to survive" thread, it comes as no surprise that Butler continues to write about some of her most recurring themes (that I've come across anyway): power, abuse, and domination--between both genders and "races" (in this case it's more like "people from different planets," but same idea). There were a few moments where I felt like this book, more than others she has written, seemed somewhat comfortable with abuse, sort of--at least not as condemning of it. It was still nowhere near as permissive of abusive dynamics as many many books on the market--some are even downright celebratory of them (All Souls Trilogy, anyone?). And in the context of everything Alanna has been through and is ultimately able to accomplish, maybe it's not so huge a gripe, but it was something that I noticed nonetheless.
Overall it was a story with some substance and I am really glad I found it at my library.
July 19, 2021
I can see why this would be a work Octavia Butler would not want in her cannon, although I still find it to be a pretty enjoyable story. I enjoyed the format of once again having a past timeline and present timeline side by side to keep the pace moving along. I do think it was pushing against some tropes that existed in the 70s and 80s around humans interacting with "primitive" alien cultures but also is not perfect. I enjoyed the love story and was surprised that it was similar to a beauty and the beast retelling, which is not something I would expect in a Butler work. I think all of these things are probably why she eventually disavowed it but I enjoyed the story and seeing the work in all its messiness. I found the Kohn species interesting and although the one push against colorism and genetic rights to be strong was the villain I felt other parts of their creation and study were really interesting. Alanna is a really interesting character to follow as a mixed race person, an adoptee and then a hostage and how she uses her learned instincts to survive. All in all I am glad I read this one.
July 3, 2019
Reportedly Octavia Butler did not want this novel back in print and I thought I'd use the power of Interlibrary Loan to see if she was right.
Everything is fine enough and there are some interesting ideas therein until page 100ish, when it becomes clear that a case of assault/consent is indeed handled badly and interwoven through the entire story. I stopped reading there.
She was right. This book is in direct conflict with the themes and representation she strove to explore in her best titles.
And I have to give her props for her intellectual honesty: this book is better in terms of assault/patriarchy/sexism/exploitation than a load of classic and new science fiction and fantasy which are terrible on that front, but you won't see those guys pulling their titles. Hell, they can't even be fussed to acknowledge the problems verbally, much less in a foreword of new printings, nor can the academics and colleagues who write those forewards be bothered to write a few lines of criticism on the topic. Not a bit! But here comes OB actually doing something about it where she can. Less would have been acceptable, perhaps an opening critical statement from the author, but she went further than she need have gone when other SFF authors don't bother at all.
Everything is fine enough and there are some interesting ideas therein until page 100ish, when it becomes clear that a case of assault/consent is indeed handled badly and interwoven through the entire story. I stopped reading there.
She was right. This book is in direct conflict with the themes and representation she strove to explore in her best titles.
And I have to give her props for her intellectual honesty: this book is better in terms of assault/patriarchy/sexism/exploitation than a load of classic and new science fiction and fantasy which are terrible on that front, but you won't see those guys pulling their titles. Hell, they can't even be fussed to acknowledge the problems verbally, much less in a foreword of new printings, nor can the academics and colleagues who write those forewards be bothered to write a few lines of criticism on the topic. Not a bit! But here comes OB actually doing something about it where she can. Less would have been acceptable, perhaps an opening critical statement from the author, but she went further than she need have gone when other SFF authors don't bother at all.
March 8, 2025
This was fascinating. It is definitely different from other books by Butler, but I quite liked it. The only one out of print because she didn't really like it (or perhaps wasn't satisfied with where it was at when she published it?), Survivor is set on another planet where humans intermingle with aliens. I'm going to keep most of my thoughts for a video I'm working on, but Alanna is a great character. And while this feels like it lacks the number of layers Butlers other books tend to have, it's still doing some really interesting things.
June 5, 2014
reviews.metaphorosis.com
1.5 stars
A one-way colony ship of religious missionaries lands on an Earth-like planet and find an immediate ally in a local tribe. Alanna, a once-wild young human woman, is captured by an enemy tribe. When she is released she must find a way to sort out prejudices and enmities among the three groups.
Octavia Butler is said to have disowned this story, and to have called it her 'Star Trek' novel. It's easy to see why; this is not a good book.
In terms of continuity - there are minor mentions of the Clayark and psionic groups the colonists have left behind on Earth, but otherwise, the story stands alone. Which means that if you've read the first three, you can and should skip this one. I wish I had.
Spoilers from here on in.
Butler, despite her fairly smooth storytelling in prior books, here seems to have no idea what to do with aliens. She does indeed turn to the Star Trek mold, creating a race who are basically furry humans - to the extent that they can mate and breed successfully with humans. There's no effort to explain why this should be so; it's just an article of faith that two similar species will get over a mild distaste and want to have sex with each other - they just can't help themselves. Butler wasn't alone in this - not even past the 1950s. Anne McCaffrey's terrible Freedom series comes to mind as just one example.
Where Campbell-era humans could do no wrong, late 1900s SF humans could do no right. In addition to being essentially human, Butler's aliens are noble savages. Being essentially pure, they show humans the foolishness of technology, and open their spirits to the beauty of killing with bare hands. That's a bit of an exaggeration - one alien tribe is almost all good, while the other one is almost all bad. Still, the aliens here are about as simplistic as one could imagine. I'm not even touching the fact that they have a rigidly hierarchical society in which rank based almost entirely on one's fur color. I'd like to think it's meant as a super-subtle parody of race relations, but I don't think it is.
Unhappily, the plot of the story is worse. In two words, 'Stockholm Syndrome'. Alanna is kidnapped, beaten, raped - and learns to love it. Not the beating - that eventually stops. But once she's had sex with the alien chief, she learns to love him more than her human cohort - and there's no pheromone or other chemical-based explanation. Just for contrast, George R.R. Martin did a much more credible job with a Stockholm scenario in Dances With Dragons.
There's very little introspection about this. Alanna doesn't like being beaten, but gives in to rape without much turmoil. The story goes very quickly from that to her abiding love for him. Even the prejudiced missionaries are mostly upset by the miscegenation, not the violence.
I'm not against stories that include rape. It's a brutal, violent but true element of life, and it can create useful literary drama. But a story that sees nothing very wrong with rape - that's beyond my literary pale. In this book, there's very little that suggests anyone thinks any of this much of a problem. In a way, Survivor is similar to its prequels, in the way the three earlier books dealt with variants on vampirism - by virtually ignoring its moral elements. There, I was willing to consider that Butler was subtly leaving hard moral questions to the reader. Here, there's little to suggest she gave them much thought.
All in all - in case this was in any way unclear - this is a bad book. The writing is decent line by line, but otherwise it's enough in itself to drag down my moderate opinion of Butler by a lot. It's only because she herself seems to have recognized that the book was bad that I have much interest in going on to the last book in the series.
May 21, 2021
2021 Reread review:
The irony in this review is that this would be an okay, dated sci fi novel by any other author. It's as good as the 1st installment in the Darkover series ( the author of that series is a racist child molester and I no longer read or review her books) which has comparable themes of psi power and space colony ships.
Yet for Butler this is shockingly ordinary and compared to the rest of her work feels unfinished.
Butler tends to reuse names: for instance Larkin appears as a last name in Mind of My Mind and is Lauren's daughters name in Parable of the Talents. I think she also recycles themes in her work as well as concepts. This novel is later mined by Butler and developed into far superior story ideas:
Alanna will be remodeled and transformed into Lilith Iyapo, even the struggles with divided loyalty between the Oankali & the human settlements that hate and mistrust her somewhat mirror Alanna's experiences in this novel.
The bare bones of how oppressive the christianity of missionaries is to society will be fleshed out and repackaged for Parable of the Talents.
Still its a rare privilege to see what is really a developing story idea. This kinda reminds me of the early drafts of Kindred which are quite different from the gorgeous and tightly written novel eventually published with that title.
This novel is a treasure to anyone who is a lover of Octavia E. Butler's work.
Previous reread review:
This remains Butlers most awkward novel and I completely understand why she didn't want it reprinted.
Her writing style is vastly superior in her other novels.
Still, I'm grateful to have read this novel.
The irony in this review is that this would be an okay, dated sci fi novel by any other author. It's as good as the 1st installment in the Darkover series ( the author of that series is a racist child molester and I no longer read or review her books) which has comparable themes of psi power and space colony ships.
Yet for Butler this is shockingly ordinary and compared to the rest of her work feels unfinished.
Butler tends to reuse names: for instance Larkin appears as a last name in Mind of My Mind and is Lauren's daughters name in Parable of the Talents. I think she also recycles themes in her work as well as concepts. This novel is later mined by Butler and developed into far superior story ideas:
Alanna will be remodeled and transformed into Lilith Iyapo, even the struggles with divided loyalty between the Oankali & the human settlements that hate and mistrust her somewhat mirror Alanna's experiences in this novel.
The bare bones of how oppressive the christianity of missionaries is to society will be fleshed out and repackaged for Parable of the Talents.
Still its a rare privilege to see what is really a developing story idea. This kinda reminds me of the early drafts of Kindred which are quite different from the gorgeous and tightly written novel eventually published with that title.
This novel is a treasure to anyone who is a lover of Octavia E. Butler's work.
Previous reread review:
This remains Butlers most awkward novel and I completely understand why she didn't want it reprinted.
Her writing style is vastly superior in her other novels.
Still, I'm grateful to have read this novel.
July 28, 2019
I don’t think it’s possible for Butler to write a boring book.
I picked this up online from a second hand seller, as it is out of print. Apparently Butler disliked it and didn’t want it reprinted. She called it her Star Trek book but it doesn’t feel Star Trek to me, it feels a lot more like Ursula K Le Guin. I thought it was both fascinating and captivating, but not for the faint of heart (as if any of her books are). The portayal of a Alanna, a strongwilled, adopted young woman from a colony of human missionaries on a alien planet and how she navigates her background and two warring alien races is excellent. I guess I will never know why Butler didn’t like it. Do seek it out if you can find it.
I picked this up online from a second hand seller, as it is out of print. Apparently Butler disliked it and didn’t want it reprinted. She called it her Star Trek book but it doesn’t feel Star Trek to me, it feels a lot more like Ursula K Le Guin. I thought it was both fascinating and captivating, but not for the faint of heart (as if any of her books are). The portayal of a Alanna, a strongwilled, adopted young woman from a colony of human missionaries on a alien planet and how she navigates her background and two warring alien races is excellent. I guess I will never know why Butler didn’t like it. Do seek it out if you can find it.
August 8, 2024
I loved it. Butler hated and hasn't been available since 1st printing. It seemed to me to be a worthy addition to the patternist series. Sorry Octavia, I read it.
June 8, 2009
Wow, I didn't know this book existed, and then it was virtually impossible to find a copy without paying $100 or more. I finally got it through ILL from UCLA. It was so worth the trouble. I enjoyed evey page. It tied in nicely with Patternmaster and Clay's Ark.
I felt the main character's angst. Finally fitting in. Finding love and peace. Being an individual. Hard choices. Loyalties divided.
I felt the main character's angst. Finally fitting in. Finding love and peace. Being an individual. Hard choices. Loyalties divided.
December 18, 2013
I can completely see why Butler didn't want Survivor republished.
The main character, Alanna, is forced against her will to sleep with an alien, Diut. They then form a relationship and have a child together, and Alanna has deep feelings of love and trust by the end, convincing Diut to remain with her, like a marriage.
Alanna doesn't ever think back to that first moment at all. She doesn't have any doubts. Which is bizarre because when Diut takes her, she is thinking of a previous time when she was raped. When the scene is over, Alanna is rubbing his fur and bonding or something.
Butler characterizes her as a "wild human" that sets her apart from the regular humans, the Missionaries, as they are called. She definitely accepts the aliens more than the Missionaries and is less frightened. I don't think that's enough to make her carry along in the alien culture without second thoughts. Without trying to escape at least once!
It was conflicting that at some points she was fiercely independent, but when it came to the aliens, she was rather submissive.
...so he took you for his own and it made you a better person? Blergh.
The quality of writing and plot weren't bad, but I didn't find the story that engrossing. Even though Clay's Ark was a crazy book, that was far more entertaining that Survivor. Butler focused too much on the weird romance rather than the culture of the Missionaries and future of Earth.
Also, only about a one line reference to any telepaths or creations of Doro.
If Alanna had a little more feeling to how bizarre her situation was - rather than it's just another day in the universe - then I would have liked the story more.
The main character, Alanna, is forced against her will to sleep with an alien, Diut. They then form a relationship and have a child together, and Alanna has deep feelings of love and trust by the end, convincing Diut to remain with her, like a marriage.
Alanna doesn't ever think back to that first moment at all. She doesn't have any doubts. Which is bizarre because when Diut takes her, she is thinking of a previous time when she was raped. When the scene is over, Alanna is rubbing his fur and bonding or something.
Butler characterizes her as a "wild human" that sets her apart from the regular humans, the Missionaries, as they are called. She definitely accepts the aliens more than the Missionaries and is less frightened. I don't think that's enough to make her carry along in the alien culture without second thoughts. Without trying to escape at least once!
It was conflicting that at some points she was fiercely independent, but when it came to the aliens, she was rather submissive.
"Because Diut had slowly become my shield against the feelings of loneliness and isolation that I had to contend with now that I had less work to keep me busy. He no longer beat me and he repaid my co-operation and growing Tehkohn skills with gentleness and attention. He was remaking me more thoroughly than had the artisans before him."
...so he took you for his own and it made you a better person? Blergh.
The quality of writing and plot weren't bad, but I didn't find the story that engrossing. Even though Clay's Ark was a crazy book, that was far more entertaining that Survivor. Butler focused too much on the weird romance rather than the culture of the Missionaries and future of Earth.
Also, only about a one line reference to any telepaths or creations of Doro.
If Alanna had a little more feeling to how bizarre her situation was - rather than it's just another day in the universe - then I would have liked the story more.
January 5, 2022
Survivor is an out-of-print novel in Octavia E. Butler’s Patternist universe; the series was published from 1976 through 1984. I’m in the midst of reading the full series, because it’s covered in Lecture 19, “Octavia Butler and Utopian Hybridity”, from Great Utopian and Dystopian Works of Literature. In the series chronology, this one lies between Clay’s Ark (#3) and Patternmaster (#4). The books were not written in the order of story chronology, and there is some fan controversy as to whether they should be read in publication order or chronology order. The author’s legacy site (https://www.octaviabutler.com/frequen...) gives a third option, and I am following that. It is:
Book #1: Wild Seed, chronology #1, published 1980.
Book #2: Mind of My Mind, chronology #2, published 1977.
Book #3: Clay's Ark, chronology #3, published 1984.
Book #4: Patternmaster, chronology #4, published 1976.
Book #5, out of print: Survivor, chronology #3.5, published 1978.
This is a science fiction novel built around a fairly common premise – a colony of human refugees has landed on a new planet, and become involved with an intelligent native species, that turns out to be quite more dangerous than what was assumed. The aliens are not particularly creatively conceived, and that is the reason Butler gave for her dislike of the novel, referring to it as her “Star Trek” novel. Please understand that this is not actually a Star Trek novel, but a mockery of science fiction aliens that are nothing more than people in colorful costumes. The humans are a religious group dedicated to the original human form, that is fleeing conflict on Earth between Patternists and Clayarks that leaves little room for them. It is set in a time frame written around, but not detailed in any of the other Patternist novels.
The protagonist is Alanna, an adopted daughter of the colony’s leading family. Early in the colonization, she is abducted from the settlement by an alien tribe opposed to the alien tribe that the colony has aligned with. Two years later, she is returned to the colony after a raid. The nature of the aliens is revealed in two timelines. In the present time, she is a changed person, having been fully assimilated into the alien society, and now trying to protect the human colony from its false friends. And two years ago, it tells of events after her original abduction, which frankly show the good guy aliens to be not much different from the bad guy aliens. Many recognizable Butler themes appear in this early work of hers, but especially the relationship between hierarchical power, slavery, rape, and love.
I found the story to be mediocre, and while it fills in a little backstory to the Patternist series, it doesn’t add much. Because Butler took it out of print, it has become somewhat difficult to obtain, and has collector value all out of proportion to the quality of the writing. Don’t expend too much money or effort trying to get a copy. But if it does fall into your hands, read it as an entertaining addition to the Patternist universe.
Book #1: Wild Seed, chronology #1, published 1980.
Book #2: Mind of My Mind, chronology #2, published 1977.
Book #3: Clay's Ark, chronology #3, published 1984.
Book #4: Patternmaster, chronology #4, published 1976.
Book #5, out of print: Survivor, chronology #3.5, published 1978.
This is a science fiction novel built around a fairly common premise – a colony of human refugees has landed on a new planet, and become involved with an intelligent native species, that turns out to be quite more dangerous than what was assumed. The aliens are not particularly creatively conceived, and that is the reason Butler gave for her dislike of the novel, referring to it as her “Star Trek” novel. Please understand that this is not actually a Star Trek novel, but a mockery of science fiction aliens that are nothing more than people in colorful costumes. The humans are a religious group dedicated to the original human form, that is fleeing conflict on Earth between Patternists and Clayarks that leaves little room for them. It is set in a time frame written around, but not detailed in any of the other Patternist novels.
The protagonist is Alanna, an adopted daughter of the colony’s leading family. Early in the colonization, she is abducted from the settlement by an alien tribe opposed to the alien tribe that the colony has aligned with. Two years later, she is returned to the colony after a raid. The nature of the aliens is revealed in two timelines. In the present time, she is a changed person, having been fully assimilated into the alien society, and now trying to protect the human colony from its false friends. And two years ago, it tells of events after her original abduction, which frankly show the good guy aliens to be not much different from the bad guy aliens. Many recognizable Butler themes appear in this early work of hers, but especially the relationship between hierarchical power, slavery, rape, and love.
I found the story to be mediocre, and while it fills in a little backstory to the Patternist series, it doesn’t add much. Because Butler took it out of print, it has become somewhat difficult to obtain, and has collector value all out of proportion to the quality of the writing. Don’t expend too much money or effort trying to get a copy. But if it does fall into your hands, read it as an entertaining addition to the Patternist universe.
March 16, 2025
Not my favorite Octavia E Butler by far, but also not my least favorite.
I think this stands out from most of her other books in that themes of power and violence and chauvinism are absolutely present, but it somehow feels shallow — not because it’s about aliens that look like blue apes, but more that it doesn’t get the deeply explored treatment from every angle like in her other works.
Still though, I’m glad I’ve read it because otherwise not knowing it first-hand would have been its own special torment.
I think this stands out from most of her other books in that themes of power and violence and chauvinism are absolutely present, but it somehow feels shallow — not because it’s about aliens that look like blue apes, but more that it doesn’t get the deeply explored treatment from every angle like in her other works.
Still though, I’m glad I’ve read it because otherwise not knowing it first-hand would have been its own special torment.
August 1, 2025
My last Octavia book :’) :’(
I thought maybe it was silly to end on the book that she took out of print after only one run, but damn….even the work that she wasn’t proudest of is still, to me, fantastic.
I LOVED seeing her play around with things that she later turned into magnificent stories. This felt like a glimpse into a young Octavia’s mind and I am so grateful for the person on Reddit who posted the PDF of this book!!! Was it her best book? No, of course not! Was it an awesome book to read? Duh 🫶
I have endless words of praise and wonder and love and gratitude for Octavia, but for now I will just saw that I didn’t know an author could make me love reading so much. Thank you Octavia 🩷
I thought maybe it was silly to end on the book that she took out of print after only one run, but damn….even the work that she wasn’t proudest of is still, to me, fantastic.
I LOVED seeing her play around with things that she later turned into magnificent stories. This felt like a glimpse into a young Octavia’s mind and I am so grateful for the person on Reddit who posted the PDF of this book!!! Was it her best book? No, of course not! Was it an awesome book to read? Duh 🫶
I have endless words of praise and wonder and love and gratitude for Octavia, but for now I will just saw that I didn’t know an author could make me love reading so much. Thank you Octavia 🩷
October 12, 2019
Perhaps a bit unorthodox, but I need to start this review off by thanking my local library and Inter Library Loan system. First published in 1978 as an entry to the Patternist series, Survivor was Butler’s least favorite work and she subsequently opted to not have it reprinted. Being a completionist, I still really wanted to read it (without paying hundreds of dollars for a rare copy), so that is when my library came to the rescue—they have all of my nerd gratitude.
Now having read Survivor, I can see why Butler hated it. Compared to her other work, it really does stand out as it lacks her classic polish and narrative flow. In general, Butler’s stories are brilliantly paced with a smooth feel as they unfold; her dialogue often reveals key facts about the character, world, relationships, all while moving the plot along in interesting ways. As Survivor initially follows a group of humans (Missionaries) who have escaped a chaotic earth dealing with the Clayark plague and public emergence of Patternists, only to land on a planet during a dangerous conflict between the surprisingly anthropomorphic aliens called Tehkohn and Garkohn—there are simply too many sci-fi elements in too short a book (180 pages) to fully and seamlessly flesh out these different narrative ideas. This ultimately resulted in more “tell” than “show,” with dialogue often existing to provide convoluted exposition—I can see why Butler called this “my Star Trek novel.”
In this scenario, Butler has to lay down the rules of three distinct cultures, which we largely see through the eyes of Alanna—the titular “survivor”—who struggles to navigate all three. While not the first of Butler’s work to play with the concepts of consent amidst alien conflict and interspecies procreation (the Xenogenesis series does this really well), in Survivor these concepts devolve into a bizarre Stockholm syndrome as we follow Alanna’s storyline. She is not the strongest protagonist to begin with, but the way she jumps hoops of mental gymnastics to sympathize with a given captor would indicate more psychological malleability than adaptability. Some of these parts were really hard to read, but I digress.
So those are some criticisms, but all said and done I would be lying if I said I did not like this book (admittedly I do not think I could ever truly dislike anything Octavia Butler wrote, I stan far too much, as the kids say). The main reason I enjoyed this book was that Survivor, with its clunky over-expositioning, really does an excellent job of tying the events of Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, and Patternmaster together. Also, I am a Trekkie, so while this was not Butler’s strongest work, it still works for me as a decent space story fueled by weird melodrama.
All in all, Survivor will not be for everyone, but I would still recommend it as I do with everything by Octavia Butler. That said, DO NOT pay hundreds of dollars for a copy; check your local library and if they do not have it you can put in an order through Inter Library Loan. Every library system is a part of a unique loaning network, so results may vary, but it is worth a try if you’re truly curious.
Now having read Survivor, I can see why Butler hated it. Compared to her other work, it really does stand out as it lacks her classic polish and narrative flow. In general, Butler’s stories are brilliantly paced with a smooth feel as they unfold; her dialogue often reveals key facts about the character, world, relationships, all while moving the plot along in interesting ways. As Survivor initially follows a group of humans (Missionaries) who have escaped a chaotic earth dealing with the Clayark plague and public emergence of Patternists, only to land on a planet during a dangerous conflict between the surprisingly anthropomorphic aliens called Tehkohn and Garkohn—there are simply too many sci-fi elements in too short a book (180 pages) to fully and seamlessly flesh out these different narrative ideas. This ultimately resulted in more “tell” than “show,” with dialogue often existing to provide convoluted exposition—I can see why Butler called this “my Star Trek novel.”
In this scenario, Butler has to lay down the rules of three distinct cultures, which we largely see through the eyes of Alanna—the titular “survivor”—who struggles to navigate all three. While not the first of Butler’s work to play with the concepts of consent amidst alien conflict and interspecies procreation (the Xenogenesis series does this really well), in Survivor these concepts devolve into a bizarre Stockholm syndrome as we follow Alanna’s storyline. She is not the strongest protagonist to begin with, but the way she jumps hoops of mental gymnastics to sympathize with a given captor would indicate more psychological malleability than adaptability. Some of these parts were really hard to read, but I digress.
So those are some criticisms, but all said and done I would be lying if I said I did not like this book (admittedly I do not think I could ever truly dislike anything Octavia Butler wrote, I stan far too much, as the kids say). The main reason I enjoyed this book was that Survivor, with its clunky over-expositioning, really does an excellent job of tying the events of Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, and Patternmaster together. Also, I am a Trekkie, so while this was not Butler’s strongest work, it still works for me as a decent space story fueled by weird melodrama.
All in all, Survivor will not be for everyone, but I would still recommend it as I do with everything by Octavia Butler. That said, DO NOT pay hundreds of dollars for a copy; check your local library and if they do not have it you can put in an order through Inter Library Loan. Every library system is a part of a unique loaning network, so results may vary, but it is worth a try if you’re truly curious.
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May 5, 2023I can see why Octavia Butler didn't think this was her best book. There are some pretty odd things about it, including a woman who accepts a man who beats her because that's the way of his people. I think she was trying to do something with that but just couldn't find the words.
Also, it was bizarre that the whole time I pictured Diut as Sully from Monsters Inc.
Also, it was bizarre that the whole time I pictured Diut as Sully from Monsters Inc.
November 29, 2023
I kept picturing Jeff Goldblum pre-makeover in Earth Girls Are Easy meets Beast in Beauty and the Beast. Hot.
May 7, 2025
I can see why Butler wanted this to go out of print. It wasn’t bad, per se, but it didn’t have the same gravitas as the rest of the Patternist series.
February 17, 2020
On an alien planet, a woman uses her past experiences adapting to new societies to help human settlers survive native conflicts. I didn't read this for a long time, despite having read all of Butler's other work, out of respect for her wish to bury the book; Gerry Canavan's remarkable biography of Butler changed my mind--particularly discussions of her self-critical nature and the degree to which it stymied her work. In that context, it's no surprise that Survivor is fine. It's better, honestly, than her weakest novels (compare the clumsy, near-grimdark, borderline-boring Clay's Ark in the same series) and the writing is on par for Butler (read: more serviceable than phenomenal). The only thing that really sets it apart from the rest of her work is that it takes place on an alien planet. Butler called it her "Star Trek novel" and, no, the premise isn't groundbreaking, and yes, the science is fuzzy. (Some context, perhaps, for the intricate, plot-central means of interspecies reproduction in the Lilith's Brood series?) But this doesn't weaken the sociological elements of the worldbuilding and it's prime Butler thematically: a layered exploration of what it means to adapt to/be adopted into another culture, obsessed, as Butler always is, with the fuzzy borders between agency and complicity.
My positive response to this is in part that it's perfectly adequate Butler, and in part that "adequate Butler" is phenomenal, and in part because this is--finally, for real this time!--the last of her novels for me to read, so I'm celebrating (and mourning) her work entire.
My positive response to this is in part that it's perfectly adequate Butler, and in part that "adequate Butler" is phenomenal, and in part because this is--finally, for real this time!--the last of her novels for me to read, so I'm celebrating (and mourning) her work entire.
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April 24, 2023💫[instagram]💫[storygraph]💫[YouTube]💫[Patreon]💫[Get 60 Days Free of Scribd]💫
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I'm not going to rate this book because it's clear that it's not finished. OEB herself pulled this one off shelves because she thought of it as her "Star Trek" novel AND it was unfinished. If you've read this and want to get some insight on some of the Tekhon characters before they're involved with Alana, you should read the short story "A Necessary Being", in the book "Unexpected Stories" by Octavia E. Butler.
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I'm not going to rate this book because it's clear that it's not finished. OEB herself pulled this one off shelves because she thought of it as her "Star Trek" novel AND it was unfinished. If you've read this and want to get some insight on some of the Tekhon characters before they're involved with Alana, you should read the short story "A Necessary Being", in the book "Unexpected Stories" by Octavia E. Butler.
October 29, 2016
this may have been Butler's least favorite book and, while it's not as enthralling as several of her other novels, it's still more gripping and fantastic than many other sff books I've read over the past five years.
if you're in nyc, you can read it at the Schomburg library.
if you're in nyc, you can read it at the Schomburg library.
June 12, 2020
Octavia Butler may have considered this her least favorite story, but I actually enjoyed it. It’s more Sci-Fi than some, more in the Xenogenesis vein . Alanna the main character’s parents die, she lives wild for awhile, and then is adopted by a Missionary group...the whole group then leaves the planet to colonize elsewhere. Alanna skills at assimilating and adapting with various groups becomes essential to the survival of them all. There were some feminist issues, not unusual in early scfi, and Butler handles them better than most who wrote at that time, the bad things happen, but the characters confront them instead of just letting them pass unexplored. And I wished for more at the end, still a page turning read, but I was left wanting a few more chapters.
August 2, 2022
This is in many ways a typical Octavia Butler book, containing her major themes and strenghts. While it isn't her very strongest, it's not my least favorite by far and I don't agree with the decision not to publish it anymore (it was her decision, though, and I appreciate that she took control over her legacy).
Alanna is a strong and interesting protagonist and most other characters are as complex as such limited page count could possibly allow, too. I can't say I would like to spend time with either Duit or Jules, but Alanna's fondness of them came across perfectly. It's pretty much a story of finding your place and being strong for the people you love. The cultures crafted for this are fascinating and felt alive and I love the ending.
Alanna is a strong and interesting protagonist and most other characters are as complex as such limited page count could possibly allow, too. I can't say I would like to spend time with either Duit or Jules, but Alanna's fondness of them came across perfectly. It's pretty much a story of finding your place and being strong for the people you love. The cultures crafted for this are fascinating and felt alive and I love the ending.
September 3, 2025
This is basically a worse version of dawn but like, the worst octavia butler is still pretty entertaining
May 17, 2021
It seems kind of unfair to give Survivor a “meh” 3-star review after Octavia Butler did everything she could to discourage me from reading it. Well, almost everything. She did publish it (in 1978), and it is part of her excellent Patternist series. But, admittedly, she did later disown it, dismissively referring to it as her “Star Trek novel.” The thing is, I always liked Star Trek.
Anyway, Survivor isn’t bad, it’s just not up to the level of Butler’s other fiction. (At this point, I’ve read all of her published fiction except her last novel, Fledgling.) It's the only novel of hers that takes place on another planet (her short story “Bloodchild” memorably does, too). It starts off slow and a little confusing, as each chapter begins in the first person, narrating events that took place before the main narrative; then it switches to a third-person telling of the central narrative. It took a few chapters before I settled into the pattern. It’s a pretty short novel (185 pages), and once it gets going, it pulled me along pretty well.
The Kohn race of aliens native to the world on which the humans are colonists is divided into factions—Tehkohn and Garkohn. The Garkohn are exploiting the human missionaries by addicting them to the local fruit, the meklah, withdrawal from which is usually fatal. But the missionaries have aligned themselves with the Garkohn against the Tehkohn, whom they fear more. The novel opens with a flashback of the main character Alanna, a wild human whose parents were killed by Clayarks, being taken in by a missionary family back on Earth, before they left for the Kohn planet. Then it switches to Alanna being rescued by the missionaries and the Garkohn after she was taken captive by the Tehkohn two years prior.—You can kind of see how it starts off confusing.—Without getting bogged down in describing the plot and themes of the book, I will simply say that none of the big ideas Butler explores in this novel are as mind-blowing or profound as her best science fiction, which I would say are the Lilith’s Brood series (or Xenogenesis trilogy), the Parable novels, and the first two, chronologically, in the Patternist series (Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind). She touches on issues of captivity, religion, survival (naturally), and interbreeding, but not as well as she does in her other books. Still, she pulls off a satisfying climax to the story.
I got hold of an old hardcover edition of the book through my library system (interlibrary loan). Otherwise, I would’ve had to spend hundreds of dollars on a used copy, which—although I’m a huge Octavia Butler fan—I was not prepared to do. Until the Butler estate decides to go against Butler’s wishes and release a new paperback and/or ebook edition of Survivor, the book is only going to get rarer and harder to find. I respect the fact that her estate is respecting her wishes. Maybe it makes sense that only someone committed to reading all of Butler’s work should read the novel she didn’t want out there any longer. But I’m glad I got the chance to read it.
I read the Patternist series almost in chronological order: 1. Wild Seed, 2. Mind of My Mind, 3. Clay’s Ark, 5. Patternmaster, and then 4. Survivor (or 3.5, according to Goodreads). It's still so weird to me that she wrote and published them so completely out of order:
5. Patternmaster (1976)
2. Mind of My Mind (1977)
4. Survivor (1978)
1. Wild Seed (1980)
3. Clay’s Ark (1984)
Clay’s Ark is no doubt the darkest of all the series, perhaps of all her books (and that is saying something). But I really wish she had been able (or willing) to expand on that side of the series. In a way, Survivor is like Clay’s Ark in that it deals with the humans who didn’t evolve telepathic powers—whereas Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, and Patternmaster all deal with that evolutionary shift. But beyond Clay's Ark, which describes the origin of the Clayarks, we only see the Clayarks, in Patternmaster and Survivor, as remote, animalistic mutations of humans. Maybe Butler just didn’t see a compelling idea in telling about the future of that species, but it does seem full of potential. Then again, Butler died at the young age of 58. No doubt she had many stories left to tell.
If you’re like me, and Octavia Butler is one of your favorite authors and/or you’ve read the other novels in the Patternist series and loved them, you should definitely try to read Survivor. (Get it from your library system, if possible, or wait until her estate finally relents.) It’s the least of her novels, in my opinion, but as someone once said in a completely different context, even bad pizza is melted cheese on bread. That is, how bad could it be? Not bad at all.
Anyway, Survivor isn’t bad, it’s just not up to the level of Butler’s other fiction. (At this point, I’ve read all of her published fiction except her last novel, Fledgling.) It's the only novel of hers that takes place on another planet (her short story “Bloodchild” memorably does, too). It starts off slow and a little confusing, as each chapter begins in the first person, narrating events that took place before the main narrative; then it switches to a third-person telling of the central narrative. It took a few chapters before I settled into the pattern. It’s a pretty short novel (185 pages), and once it gets going, it pulled me along pretty well.
The Kohn race of aliens native to the world on which the humans are colonists is divided into factions—Tehkohn and Garkohn. The Garkohn are exploiting the human missionaries by addicting them to the local fruit, the meklah, withdrawal from which is usually fatal. But the missionaries have aligned themselves with the Garkohn against the Tehkohn, whom they fear more. The novel opens with a flashback of the main character Alanna, a wild human whose parents were killed by Clayarks, being taken in by a missionary family back on Earth, before they left for the Kohn planet. Then it switches to Alanna being rescued by the missionaries and the Garkohn after she was taken captive by the Tehkohn two years prior.—You can kind of see how it starts off confusing.—Without getting bogged down in describing the plot and themes of the book, I will simply say that none of the big ideas Butler explores in this novel are as mind-blowing or profound as her best science fiction, which I would say are the Lilith’s Brood series (or Xenogenesis trilogy), the Parable novels, and the first two, chronologically, in the Patternist series (Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind). She touches on issues of captivity, religion, survival (naturally), and interbreeding, but not as well as she does in her other books. Still, she pulls off a satisfying climax to the story.
I got hold of an old hardcover edition of the book through my library system (interlibrary loan). Otherwise, I would’ve had to spend hundreds of dollars on a used copy, which—although I’m a huge Octavia Butler fan—I was not prepared to do. Until the Butler estate decides to go against Butler’s wishes and release a new paperback and/or ebook edition of Survivor, the book is only going to get rarer and harder to find. I respect the fact that her estate is respecting her wishes. Maybe it makes sense that only someone committed to reading all of Butler’s work should read the novel she didn’t want out there any longer. But I’m glad I got the chance to read it.
I read the Patternist series almost in chronological order: 1. Wild Seed, 2. Mind of My Mind, 3. Clay’s Ark, 5. Patternmaster, and then 4. Survivor (or 3.5, according to Goodreads). It's still so weird to me that she wrote and published them so completely out of order:
5. Patternmaster (1976)
2. Mind of My Mind (1977)
4. Survivor (1978)
1. Wild Seed (1980)
3. Clay’s Ark (1984)
Clay’s Ark is no doubt the darkest of all the series, perhaps of all her books (and that is saying something). But I really wish she had been able (or willing) to expand on that side of the series. In a way, Survivor is like Clay’s Ark in that it deals with the humans who didn’t evolve telepathic powers—whereas Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, and Patternmaster all deal with that evolutionary shift. But beyond Clay's Ark, which describes the origin of the Clayarks, we only see the Clayarks, in Patternmaster and Survivor, as remote, animalistic mutations of humans. Maybe Butler just didn’t see a compelling idea in telling about the future of that species, but it does seem full of potential. Then again, Butler died at the young age of 58. No doubt she had many stories left to tell.
If you’re like me, and Octavia Butler is one of your favorite authors and/or you’ve read the other novels in the Patternist series and loved them, you should definitely try to read Survivor. (Get it from your library system, if possible, or wait until her estate finally relents.) It’s the least of her novels, in my opinion, but as someone once said in a completely different context, even bad pizza is melted cheese on bread. That is, how bad could it be? Not bad at all.
October 7, 2014
I abandoned this about 80 pages in, after attempting to read it for 2 or 3 weeks, which is about how long it took me to get through Clay's Ark, the previous book in this series, that I also wound up really disliking. I can see why Butler later disowned this book and didn't want it back in print. Mostly as a reader I just couldn't get into the story and the themes (Stockholm syndrome, addiction, race and interbreeding with other species/races) were unpleasant and unrewarding for me as a reader. I couldn't see spending any more time on it as most other readers seem to dislike this one as well. Overall I'm pretty disappointed in the Patternmaster series, as it seems to be so all over the place. Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind are amazing books that work well on their own. For me Clay's Ark and Survivor are very much in the skippable category, although it pains me to disparage the work of my current favorite author. I'll see what I think of Patternmaster, although honestly I'm in no rush to get to that one after Clay's Ark and Survivor. If I'm ever tempted to read this series again, I'd do better to re-read Parable of the Sower or Kindred, my two favorites by her, or spend some time brushing up on other sci-fi authors.
June 16, 2007
So I finally finished the patternmaster series. Not really a series, as there's no big finale but all the books are linked. I have heard that Butler didn't like this book and didn't want it to be printed again. I'm not sure why.
The only problem I had with it was the changing narrator. She went from 1st person with a human, to 1st person with an alien, and then to 3rd person. It was a bit jarring at times. Sometimes she would label the chapter with the narrators name but then she would change to 3rd person with just a couple lines of space.
As with her other books, this is sturdy work, well written and harsh. No hi-tech gadgets but some pretty cool aliens with a fully developed culture that reminded me of -Speaker for the Dead- in their alien-ness. The difference is that she writes shorter stories so her characters aren't as well developed as Card. So I like her stuff but it hasn't blown me away yet. Maybe the Xenogenisis trilogy will, I'm going to try to read that later this year.
The only problem I had with it was the changing narrator. She went from 1st person with a human, to 1st person with an alien, and then to 3rd person. It was a bit jarring at times. Sometimes she would label the chapter with the narrators name but then she would change to 3rd person with just a couple lines of space.
As with her other books, this is sturdy work, well written and harsh. No hi-tech gadgets but some pretty cool aliens with a fully developed culture that reminded me of -Speaker for the Dead- in their alien-ness. The difference is that she writes shorter stories so her characters aren't as well developed as Card. So I like her stuff but it hasn't blown me away yet. Maybe the Xenogenisis trilogy will, I'm going to try to read that later this year.
March 23, 2009
This book is in the Patternist series, chronologically fourth, but has very little in common with the others. A group of humans has left Earth in an attempt to escape the Clayark disease, but have arrived on a new planet only to find themselves smack dab in the middle of alien clan wars. This is a story of how intolerance and prejudice will bring a people down while acceptance of differences can lead to strength and happiness. As always, Butler is the master of complex relationships and alien lifeforms. I thought this was a great story--not Butler's best, but definitely worth tracking down a copy, if you can.
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