15: Octavia Butler's Fledgling
Butler, Octavia. Fledgling
in short:The story of Shori a young genetically-engineered vampire with no memories of her past looking for family, answers, and justice.
in which it is all about me: So I have a back-log of other books to write up before this one, but I don't care.
I was walking around Borders like a lost child, as I sometimes do when I am bored, and decided to do a POC check, mostly of black genre writers. My findings from looking in Literature, Af-Am Lit, SF/F, and YA is that Octavia Butler is on both the Af-Am Lit. and SF/F shelves though different books are in different sections for some reason. The Af-Am Lit. section kind of makes my head hurt. Just looking for Butler went something like: James Baldwin; bunch of romance titles, one or more of which uses the word "thug" in the title; Butler; below that Gangtsa Bitch; below that, approximately a million books by Eric Jerome Dickey. There were a lot of writers that I could not find at all, including Chip Delaney, which makes me feel better about only recently having heard of his existence, because I doubt that this is a short-lived and soon-to-be-rectified oversight and my SF/F lit education was just me wandering around Barnes&Noble as a lone young, feral fan staring creepily at all the books with no one to guide me.
And then I picked up Fledgling.
actual analysis: Butler's work has the reputation of being well-written and depressing/life-altering/srs bzns, also she was a science fiction writer. So when I read the back blurb on the book, I had this picture in my head of the story as being a futuristic dystopian gender-swapped cross between the Blade franchise and 30 Days of Night (2007). (Not that I'd mind. If anyone knows of a such a book, feel free to recommend it to me.) Instead, I got a crack-fantasy vampire novel and I am so very pleased.
I know it's a crack fantasy novel because of the way I read it. Trusting as a lamb I sat down with in Borders to read just a tiny bit... and resurfaced a few hours later having read the whole book. See? Crack-fantasy novel. (Sorry Borders! I'll buy a book from you some other time. At least I bought your coffee?)
You guys! The main character is a vampire! Who is genetically engineered by her vampire brethren! To be the specialest, most desirable vampire ever! She. Has. AMNESIA! Symbionts! Ina! Vampire culture! Hidden away from humans! Other world-building type-things! (I kind of wanted her to sparkle. /o\) As a bonus, Butler still writes well, so I was never once tempted to stab my eyes out because of the prose. And! My not so inner feminist didn't feel the need to kill herself at the end of the book! This is more exciting than you could ever know.
The saddest thing is that I'll never get sequels. (My sadness is the most selfish of them all.)
One squicky thing: The main character, Shori, has the physical maturity of about a 10-year-old, and is 53-years-old which, considering that vampires in this universe can live to be 500+ years, makes her about 10 if you scale it too. But 50-something year-old vampires are considerably smarter than the average 10-year-old and are considered mature enough to have sex with humans, which Shori does. I just very carefully did not picture those scenes.
I should probably just give in and read the crack that is Majorie M. Liu, shouldn't I?
in short:The story of Shori a young genetically-engineered vampire with no memories of her past looking for family, answers, and justice.
in which it is all about me: So I have a back-log of other books to write up before this one, but I don't care.
I was walking around Borders like a lost child, as I sometimes do when I am bored, and decided to do a POC check, mostly of black genre writers. My findings from looking in Literature, Af-Am Lit, SF/F, and YA is that Octavia Butler is on both the Af-Am Lit. and SF/F shelves though different books are in different sections for some reason. The Af-Am Lit. section kind of makes my head hurt. Just looking for Butler went something like: James Baldwin; bunch of romance titles, one or more of which uses the word "thug" in the title; Butler; below that Gangtsa Bitch; below that, approximately a million books by Eric Jerome Dickey. There were a lot of writers that I could not find at all, including Chip Delaney, which makes me feel better about only recently having heard of his existence, because I doubt that this is a short-lived and soon-to-be-rectified oversight and my SF/F lit education was just me wandering around Barnes&Noble as a lone young, feral fan staring creepily at all the books with no one to guide me.
And then I picked up Fledgling.
actual analysis: Butler's work has the reputation of being well-written and depressing/life-altering/srs bzns, also she was a science fiction writer. So when I read the back blurb on the book, I had this picture in my head of the story as being a futuristic dystopian gender-swapped cross between the Blade franchise and 30 Days of Night (2007). (Not that I'd mind. If anyone knows of a such a book, feel free to recommend it to me.) Instead, I got a crack-fantasy vampire novel and I am so very pleased.
I know it's a crack fantasy novel because of the way I read it. Trusting as a lamb I sat down with in Borders to read just a tiny bit... and resurfaced a few hours later having read the whole book. See? Crack-fantasy novel. (Sorry Borders! I'll buy a book from you some other time. At least I bought your coffee?)
You guys! The main character is a vampire! Who is genetically engineered by her vampire brethren! To be the specialest, most desirable vampire ever! She. Has. AMNESIA! Symbionts! Ina! Vampire culture! Hidden away from humans! Other world-building type-things! (I kind of wanted her to sparkle. /o\) As a bonus, Butler still writes well, so I was never once tempted to stab my eyes out because of the prose. And! My not so inner feminist didn't feel the need to kill herself at the end of the book! This is more exciting than you could ever know.
The saddest thing is that I'll never get sequels. (My sadness is the most selfish of them all.)
One squicky thing: The main character, Shori, has the physical maturity of about a 10-year-old, and is 53-years-old which, considering that vampires in this universe can live to be 500+ years, makes her about 10 if you scale it too. But 50-something year-old vampires are considerably smarter than the average 10-year-old and are considered mature enough to have sex with humans, which Shori does. I just very carefully did not picture those scenes.
I should probably just give in and read the crack that is Majorie M. Liu, shouldn't I?