Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Wild Seed (Patternist, 1)

Top positive review

Deep,Engrossing

Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2020

I really don’t know how to express what I feel about this book. The premise is very “out there” in a weird down to earth way. The book is very well written and very engrossing, but is also very uncomfortable - almost disturbing with its “genetic experimentation” overlay. The book is deep and compelling, but I do not know if I have the fortitude to go on with this series. Ms Butler is surely one of the more profound writers in this genre so I do encourage readers to decide for themselves and not rely on reviews.

24 people found this helpful

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nanette

Just Crap

Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2021

Just somebody’s nightmare (Butler's). Largely about rape, incest, murder, promiscuity, etc. I had to read this for a grad course on Afrofuturism. I am a scifi fan & have read lots of it that is spectacular. I am also not a prude. This is my 2nd Butler book, after reading Kindred last year. I see no improvement in either the plot or writing between the two books. I had hoped Butler's writing would have improved over time. Both books are about women’s empathic and sexual exploitation and thrive on the prevailing sexual tensions. There's a tad of race-relation exploration in Wild Seed, but nothing really of note. Neither book is enjoyable—just salacious and anxiety-propelled. Not insightful, beautiful, inspiring, or really worth pondering. The emperor has no clothes.

44 people found this helpful

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From the United States

Evonne

So disappointing

Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2020

Verified Purchase

As a Black woman, I don't usually enjoy reading books by Black authors. I find them tedious, unwilling to leave slavery behind - regardless of the era of the story, & overall unimaginative. After reading up on Ms. Butler's history, I expected so much more science fiction from Wild Seed. Carrie had more science fiction in it than this. This should have been billed as epic story about blacks who weren't owned by whites. I felt like I was reading a book written by a 8th grader. I regret purchasing this book & spending the time to read it. I admire Ms. Butler accomplishments, but I will not be supporting her work again or recommending her work to anyone.

8 people found this helpful

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Stephen B. Kutzer

Ultimately a downer

Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2001

Verified Purchase

I disagree with the majority vote here. I found the writing and story line to be like a bad Anne Rice novel. At least with Rice's vampires, you get a sense of their passion. Butler's book lacks this passion. For this reason, I found the characters not very well developed. To me, Doro was flatly evil and Anyanwu was long-suffering. And the various powers the characters possess end up seeming X-men cartoonish.
I do think Butler writes well, and loved the Lillith's Brood series. But this book disappointed me and didn't leave me any the better for having invested my time in reading it.

13 people found this helpful

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Dianne

Not for me

Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2019

Verified Purchase

After reading the reviews I thought this would be a awesome read. It was not.
Took me forever to finish

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Kindle Customer

Interesting premise

Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2021

Verified Purchase

While the premise of this book is indeed interesting, the storyline is repetitive and unnecessarily drawn out. I've no desire to continue the series.

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oriflamme

Too weird--and too sexist

Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2014

Verified Purchase

Too bizarre for me. I appreciate the effort to create African-based fantasy/science fiction, but the main characters are sexist stereotypes (dominant male, giving female). Stereotypes are stereotypes in any culture.

5 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Two Stars

Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2018

Verified Purchase

Hated it.

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tqwert1

Another Octavia Butler book with too much filler despicable characters portrayed sympathetically

Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2019

This is the fourth Octavia Butler book I've read, and I think I'm done. I absolutely hated all three of the Lilith's Brood trilogy (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago) and only powered through all three of them because I bought them as a three-pack combined Kindle book and decided I was going to get all the way through to the end hoping something would redeem them (nothing did). I figured I'd give Butler another shot since she's so highly regarded as a Sci Fi master, so I picked up this first part of her most acclaimed series.

I didn't hate Wild Seed like I did those other three books, but I didn't really like it either, not enough to have much interest in continuing the series. It shares common flaws that seem to be characteristic of Butler's work from the four books I've read. First, there is simply not nearly enough material in the form of plot or character development to justify a full length, 300+ page book. She takes a short story idea and instead of actually writing a short story or expanding the initial idea to justify a novel she just pads it with repetitive conversations and set pieces. Anyanwu and Doro have more or less the same argument over and over and over again, and Doro talks about his (seemingly pointless and never explained) breeding program and brings slight variations of the same types into slight variations of his breeding towns over and over. And that's basically all that happens after the first couple chapters. The general premise is set up of these two immortals and their super powers coming together, then nothing is really done with it. There are some really good short sections with Anyanwu in animal form, but they don't go anywhere or result in any plot changes. It's just Doro and Anyanwu butting heads over and over and failed breeding experiments causing the same problems several times. Maybe this all goes somewhere in the next four books in this series, but I wouldn't bet on it after reading Lilith's Brood. Dawn set up the basic alien invasion scenario then did nothing interesting with it for 300 pages. Then it did almost nothing with it through two more books of increasing tedium and frustration for me as the reader.

Another distasteful element from Lilith's Brood repeated here in Wild Seed is the effort to portray plainly evil, despicable characters as sympathetic heroes. There's some kind of deep misanthropy in Butler that seems at work in the way she portrays evil, unredeemable characters who torture, murder, and rape humans by the thousands as the good guys. The aliens in Lilith's Brood series were genocidal, serial-raping slavemasters, but they were always portrayed as the good guys and the few humans that resisted them as caricatures of unreasoning evil fools. Here we get a mass murdering, mass raping slavemaster who starts as sort of a mild antagonist but that she tries to take on a character arc to be sympathetic by the end. Nope, I didn't buy it.

2 people found this helpful

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Kenya Starflight

Disappointing read by Butler -- awful characters and plot

Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2019

When I first read this book, my first thought was "okay, I usually like Octavia Butler and the premise of this book looks amazing, I'm going to enjoy it!" So I was disappointed to finish this book and find it not only up to Butler's high standard, but genuinely uncomfortable to read. And the longer I think on it, the more angry and disgusted I become. This is a book that, while it has some fascinating ideas and capable writing, is just downright uncomfortable and horrible to read, and left me incredibly frustrated in the end.

Doro is an immortal being who lives by hijacking human bodies, and has surfed from host to host for millennia while working on his project to breed people with superior abilities. In an African village he comes across something extraordinary -- a woman named Anyanwu, also immortal but gifted with abilities to heal, shapeshift, and nurture others. He believes he's found the perfect woman to add to his breeding stock, but Anyanwu has other ideas... and as Doro manipulates Anyanwu into joining his people, Anyanwu in return starts to feel a strange bond develop with this sinister yet inexplicable being...

I really wanted to like this book. And to be honest, there were things about it I DID like. Butler's writing is quite capable and pleasant to read, and she's put serious thought into the mechanics behind both Doro's and Anyanwu's powers. And she created an unexpectedly likable character in Isaac, one of Doro's many sons and perhaps the most reasonable and level-headed character in the entire book. I wasn't so fond of how the story just seemed to wander from scene to scene instead of following an actual plot, but that turned out to be a minor complaint.

Butler seems to want to convince us that Doro is a complex, flawed character who's nonetheless sympathetic, but if that was the case she failed badly. Doro is despicable, a sociopath willing to hurt anyone to get his way and who constantly manipulates others, even and especially Anyanwu, to get his way. Anyanwu herself is a complete wet blanket of a character, letting Doro walk all over her without putting up much in the way of resistance. The book gives us the excuse that she's submitting to Doro to protect her family, but given that he ends up using and abusing her family anyhow, that rings hollow to me. I hoped for a strong female protagonist out of her, but instead got a character who does little but bow to Doro's whims and clean up his messes in his wake.

I hoped for this book to be an epic struggle between two immortal beings, but instead it seems to want to try to be a love story between two flawed and troubled people. Which isn't all bad... except that one of these people is an utter monster and the other is a living doormat who just lets him use her. And while the book valiantly tries to make Doro seem like a sympathetic, albeit flawed, character, no amount of "he's a tragic tortured individual with a sad past!" can make up for the fact that he's a murderer, rapist, and psychopath who sees nothing wrong with using other people as tools and breeding stock.

I've loved Butler's other work, such as her "Xenogenesis" trilogy and her stand-alone "Kindred." Which is why I'm so upset that "Wild Seed" turned out to be such a dud. It has some good writing and interesting concepts, but that doesn't make up for an awful story about an abusive sociopathic immortal and the weak-willed shapeshifter who enables his abuse. And while this might not be representative of the "Patternmaster" series as a whole, it sure doesn't inspire me to pick up the rest of the series.

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Yuri Sobol

I Wasted My Time

Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2018

Butler creates a fantasy world in which people, or beings, have special powers--telepathy, telekinesis, transmutation, and healing. These people lead basically unpleasant lives and live in constant fear and abject subservience. There's not a clear purpose for what they do or what their goal might be. Trouble is, nothing much happens in the novel. It's certainly not a page turner. The resolution, if it can be called one, is rushed and not at all satisfying. The characters are not well developed or interesting, the point of view is inconsistent, and the plot is rather dull and plodding. The writing is similar to what a high school student might produce, lacking sophistication and elegance. Butler tells us instead of shows us who her characters are and what is happening. I read the whole book, so I feel I should give it two stars, but I feel as though I wasted my time.

2 people found this helpful

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Natalie Griffith

Unsure why I continued

Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2021

The thinking of the characters was so foreign to me, I kept hoping to understand, but never did. A window into something, but I don’t understand what. Will keep mulling over it for a long time. An uncomfortable read.

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Wild Seed (Patternist, 1)

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