Wild Seed (Patternmaster #1)
By Octavia Butler
Publication Year: 1980
Type: Fiction
Genre: sci-fi, fantasy
Read on 2022-10-31
★★★★★
I am reading this series very out of order - I finished Mind of My Mind a few months ago, so reading this is like reading a prequel. I know the gist of the next 2 books in the series, the last of which was the first to be published, is set far into the future and involved aliens and shit, but honestly what I loved so much about these chronologically “first” two books are how deeply in tune they are with their respective historical settings, and how Octavia Butler deftly weaves between the supernatural - the supernatural megalomania of Doro or the supernatural empathy of Anyanwu - and real historical devastations of slavery and its legacy on American society into the late 20th century. These “real” historical settings made the allegories that much more clear and made for a very grounded reading experience. I feel like the next two books might veer much further into sci-fi and not feel like this, especially Wild Seed, which follows Doro and Anyanwu from Ancient Egypt through the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.
*spoilers below for Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind
Anyanwu is such a compelling character that I feel a little cheated knowing that she gets so little of her story continued as Emma in Mind of My Mind - the ending was rather abrupt, and the resolution a little abrupt. The central tension between Anyanwu and Doro, both powerful immortals, one a compassionate healer who seeks family and belonging through genuine relationships and the other a parasitic killer who lost their humanity and only seeks to breed a supernatural race to feed himself, is so gripping. Doro was always the stronger and so comprehensively abusive. Anyanwu and other supporting characters like Isaac seek to appeal to what little humanity he has left as a form of practical resistance, and I feel we end almost on an admission that Anyanwu simply must submit to the abuse in perpetuity and indoctrinate herself in a Stockholm Syndrome way to their reluctant “marriage”. I suppose this is all a set up to flow into the next book, which was written and published before this one, and in which the ultimate insurrection against Doro finally takes place. I didn’t write a review for Mind of My Mind after I read it but I do remember it was the power of the collective as well as the values of safeguarding the many over the one that killed Doro in the end. I’d like for re-read it again to hopefully catch glimpses of Anywanwu’s story and a better denouement to her character arc, but maybe Butler didn’t plot the series out down to these details as she wrote them.
Other notes - just so much incestuous polyamory. Far less consensual than in MoMM, and far more a byproduct of Doro’s breeding project which is directly compared to slavery in the text. A lot of cut away/fade to black sex scenes and rape scenes, which is thankfully (in my opinion) the correct creative choice here. I’m nervous for how these books will be adapted for the upcoming TV series.
I also feel like there was a much deeper, more sensitive exploration of the internal psychological experience and emotional turmoil of undergoing a psionic transition as well as immortality in this book. Butler dives much deeper into these themes throughout the book; I feel the best texts about immortal beings must to tap into the pathos of such an incomprehensible and inhuman experience. If we see Wild Seed as fundamentally an examination of what it is to extend humanity beyond natural abilities and lifespans, then the ending makes far more sense; Anywanwu’s fathomless grief, resignation to her own fate under Doro’s control, and resulting near suicide, as well as Doro’s climactic emotional collapse, after repressing his loneliness for eons and single-mindedly hunting and breeding his prey. Anyanwu and Doro are like two sides of the same coin, both suffering from the ways they came to cope with their conditions.
