Note: My read but “waiting to be reviewed pile” is growing. Short rumination/tangents are a way to get through the stack before my memory and will fades. My website partially serves as a record of what I have read and a memory apparatus for future projects. Stay tuned for more detailed and analytical reviews.

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1. Mind of My Mind, Octavia E. Butler (1977)

4/5 (Good)

Octavia E. Butler’s Mind of My Mind (1977) is the second-published and second chronological installment of her Patternist series of novels (1976-1984), that chart the dystopic and hyper-violent development (and destruction) of a telepathic society. The series also contains her disowned (and hard-to-afford without selling a child) novel Survivor (1978). I wish I had read Wild Seed (1980) first!

The immortal Doro, able to hone into those with telepathic talent and shift his essence into new human bodies at will, oversees a generations-old telepathic breeding project. The harrowing story follows one his many daughters, Mary, a rare active telepath (vs. latent), as she comes of age and begins to understand the role that she is designed to play. Doro preys on the downtrodden and abandons the majority of latent telepaths to live miserable lives, unable to filter out the emotions they sponge up. Doro pairs Mary with another active telepath named Karl in order to guide her through her transition. But something new appears in her mind, she seems to have created a pattern that compulsively draws in actives from across the country. And Doro begins to feel threatened by his own creation.

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