Octavia Butler was an amazing science fiction writer, and I enjoyed learning more about her and how she wrote. She died too soon! I wish that she had had time to write much more!

This essentially a paper about Octavia. If you're a huge fan and you want to learn more about her, and don't mind the academic tone you will enjoy this book. This isn't entertainment reading, it's more informative.

I was surprised and a bit put off by the extremely detailed approach taken by Canavan's book on Octavia Butler. I was looking for a biography of Butler that associated events in her life with episodes or characters in her books. I envisioned Canavan's approach to be an introduction to Butler. Instead, I found it to be a major scholarly thesis - an analysis of the major and minor themes in all of her works, taken chronologically, and cross-referenced with the development of other themes, characters and Butler's life events.

The scholarship is evident from the beginning. Canavan must have devoted years to reading and very minutely tracking the occurence and development of every theme found in Butler's works! While this is certainly a fine addition to literary scholarship on Butler, it is far too densely detailed for non-scholarly reading.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Octavia E. Butler by Gerry Canavan is part of the University of Illinois Press' Modern Masters of Science Fiction series. To quote from their website, "Modern Masters of Science Fiction is devoted to books that survey the work of individual authors...." In other words this is not a biography in the strict sense of the word. In Butler's case her life plays a very important role in what she wrote and how she wrote it so there is a lot about her life here. But that is not the focus of the book or the series. Just wanted to let any potential future readers know what they are looking at.

Canavan accessed Butler's archives and it provided a rich source for understanding not only why she wrote the way she did but also the process she went through. Drafts, notes, and every other kind of written material showed a writer who wrestled with her personal issues in addition to her writing. These personal struggles gave her writing much of its savory flavor.

One thing I was glad that Canavan did not do was try to delve too deeply into Butler's psychological history and turn this into some kind of second rate psychoanalysis of either the writer or her work. He also hopes that future researchers avoid making too much of Butler's personal life and even devotes part of the introduction to the ethics in using an archive that Butler did not have a chance to "prune" and take out some of the more personal pieces that might speak only to her depression or self-loathing at a particular moment.

While being familiar with her work will certainly make this a more pleasurable read it should still be of interest to those less familiar who may be more interested in the process itself rather than specific discussions of a work or works. I have read most of her published works and found this to be a wonderful way for me to both revisit the works as well as imagine variations based on changes she made or influences that helped her make the decisions she made. The writing is academic still quite accessible. Canavan uses minimal jargon and keeps any theory to a bare minimum.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

As a long-time fan of Butler, it was fascinating to gain insight into her writing process. I was particularly intrigued by the repetition of themes throughout her works, which at times only becomes apparent when looking at discarded drafts. I also was intrigued by the notion that the Earthseed novels were original just the prologue to an intended larger post-Earth series. Butler is arguably one of the most important science-fiction authors of the late 20th century, and this new biography is a must-read for all serious genre fans.

What a gift this book is for Butler's fans! Not only does Canavan give thoughtful, detailed analyses of Butler's published works, he covers the differences between early drafts and final products; however, the most thrilling part is the extensive consideration he gives to major unpublished works, which will give fans the closest thing to a new Butler novel they will probably ever get.

As with Letters to Tiptree, I went into this without having read any of Octavia Butler's work (don't worry, it's on my list) and without even knowing a whole lot about her. I feel that approach didn't work for me quite as well this time around.

I'd been expecting a biography. And Octavia E. Butler is a biography to some extent. However, it is equally concerned with analysing her work. Throughout the book, the author puts forward a theory unifying her work, looking in depth at her significant published and unpublished works and examining how they fit together. This necessarily reflects on her as a person--and in particular her views on humanity--but may not be satisfying for people looking for more details of her daily life. As someone who hasn't read the stories being examined, I found it reasonably accessible, though I have no doubt it will hold much more meaning for those who have.

Despite the heavy focus on her stories, I still learned a lot about the person. I found the examination of her writing process particularly interesting. Learning about the way she would almost compulsively write many different variations of the same story was intriguing. Her preoccupation with the business side of writing was also something I think many writers will be able to related to, even if it was amplified by her poverty. This drive to make sales is also shown as being in conflict with what she felt was her artistic integrity; she needed to sell her stories but resented making changes in order to make them more palatable to publishers or the public. Unsurprisingly, she is portrayed as a deeply unhappy person, never satisfied.

The tone tends towards academic and may be considered dry by some. Indeed, the book started to drag a little after a while.

Nevertheless, I found it an interesting read. This will probably appeal to fans already familiar with Butler's work.