A review by tinygriff
Survivor by Octavia E. Butler
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
NB: This is out of print (I was able to get a pdf copy from Sistah Scifi - https://sistahscifi.com/ . The quality of the pdf was a little questionable in places, but I am so used to reading children's work that I could overlook the typos and still access and enjoy the story! The only really frustrating thing was that there was NO formatting that signalled the change between POVs and timelines, that was jarring in every single chapter.)
With that caveat out of the way, this was Octavia Butler's personal least favourite in her Patternmaster series. It still fits into the overall themes of society, privelege and opression; but explores these in an alien setting on a world far from Earth.
A group of Missionaries have left Earth on a custom-built starship and have settled in a green valley. They have made trade deals with the local people, the Garkohn, in return for protection and knowledge of the world they find themselves on. However, things aren't simple and the humans are caught up in a power struggle between the Garkohn and a neighbouring tribe, the Tehkohn. When people start going missing it is up to Alanna, the daughter of the Missionaries' leader, to try and save her people.
Through a series of first person narratives we hear Alanna's story and then switch to that of the Missionary colony in third person. Octavia Butler balances these dual timelines and gradually builds a picture of a crumbling utopia. Through this story she examines prejudice and personhood and religion, what it means to belong, and how outsiders to a culture might adapt to survive and what advantages and disadvantages this brings for them and their adoptive society.
I enjoyed this story, I was engaged by Octavia Butler's prose and the story that she was weaving, and enjoyed the foreign planet setting. Would recommend if you want to read her whole body of work, it is worth not overlooking this one.
With that caveat out of the way, this was Octavia Butler's personal least favourite in her Patternmaster series. It still fits into the overall themes of society, privelege and opression; but explores these in an alien setting on a world far from Earth.
A group of Missionaries have left Earth on a custom-built starship and have settled in a green valley. They have made trade deals with the local people, the Garkohn, in return for protection and knowledge of the world they find themselves on. However, things aren't simple and the humans are caught up in a power struggle between the Garkohn and a neighbouring tribe, the Tehkohn. When people start going missing it is up to Alanna, the daughter of the Missionaries' leader, to try and save her people.
Through a series of first person narratives we hear Alanna's story and then switch to that of the Missionary colony in third person. Octavia Butler balances these dual timelines and gradually builds a picture of a crumbling utopia. Through this story she examines prejudice and personhood and religion, what it means to belong, and how outsiders to a culture might adapt to survive and what advantages and disadvantages this brings for them and their adoptive society.
I enjoyed this story, I was engaged by Octavia Butler's prose and the story that she was weaving, and enjoyed the foreign planet setting. Would recommend if you want to read her whole body of work, it is worth not overlooking this one.