Monthly Archives: April 2010

Octavia Butler could write, no doubt about it, and it’s a shame she died so young. Who knows what else she might have done? I’ve read a half dozen of her books and this is one of the few that qualify as science fiction. Yet it also matches the sensualist preoccupation of many of the others. Although this time it’s hard to imagine a sexual liaison with creatures that look and feel like shuffling collections of earthworms.

I gave this a one-star review at Amazon not for quality but because the idea of a planet-devastating nuclear exchange between the US and Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union (the hook that lets the aliens take over) was trite, as well as unbelievable. And, then, the story was so strange, compelling at times but, in the end, just too creepy for me to want to go on to the next in the series.