Monday, February 27, 2006

Octavia Butler

I was just a reader. I couldn’t tell you where, when, or which of Octavia Butler’s books I read first. It was some time in the mid-1980s. I read Wild Seed, Dawn, Xenogenesis, Adulthood Rites. I may have gotten them from the library. Books were hard to get and when I read a book by an author I liked I wanted to read all of their books. For years I had a list of the ones I was missing. I had no idea she was black. I really liked the sound of her name. I was young and the books were sometimes a struggle. I liked that, too.

When Parable of the Sower came out I was in heaven. Later on I worked at a bookshop and got to stock and handsell all those little Warner paperback reprints. Parable of the Talents came out, and a collection of her stories, Bloodchild, most of which I hadn’t read, and I was pretty happy.

By some counts Butner wrote a lot, by some a little. I’m glad she wrote. There are some books back there I still haven’t read, so I’m glad for that. I still haven’t read Fledgling. Don’t know if I will. Uninformed as I am, the one thing about it that I like about it is that in the one time I met her, she was happy to be writing a vampire book because it had gotten her past some block in her writing. I met at Clarion West in Seattle, and I told her I loved her books. Then I tried not to be goofy and to respect her privacy. She was quiet and smart and funny. She was a great writer.

Monday, February 13, 2006

oi!

The Misfits
This is where you belong in the annals of punk history!

You're pretty cool but sometimes the problem is, is that you know it. 9
times out of ten, you are the life of any party you go to, just be
careful not to put your logo on everything you can. What you lack in
substance, you more than make up for with style and flare. You are
definately one of a kind, but don't let it go to your head... oh yeah,
I probably wouldn't want to mess with you or tell you this to your
face.



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