And still sci-fi's Octavia E. Butler rises: A graphic adaptation. A literary society.

[ismnotwasm]

And still sci-fi's Octavia E. Butler rises: A graphic adaptation. A literary society. Is a 'Kindred' movie next?

When she died in 2006, black female science fiction pioneer Octavia E. Butler left behind more than a dozen books and devastated admirers worldwide. Many of us thought about her on her recent June 22nd birthday.

But her work lives on. From book club meetings, to college classrooms, I have been thrilled to see more readers organizing to embrace the work of Octavia Butler, who was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (also known as the “genius grant”) in 1995.

Coming soon: Butler’s Kindred as graphic novel, and more

Next year, a graphic adaptation of Butler’s seminal 1979 time-travel novel Kindred will be published by Abrams ComicArts. In Kindred, a contemporary black woman is whisked between slavery-era Maryland (in the early 1800s) and modern-day Los Angeles. Kindred is in film development, as the option to make the book into a movie was exercised this year, according to a knowledgeable source — which means a movie may also be on the horizon at last.

Also, according to the black cinema website Shadow and Act, director Ernest Dickerson is shopping a film version of Butler’s 1984 plague novel Clay’s Ark.

New York-based director and producer M. Asli Dukan, whose documentary Invisible Universe: a History of Blackness in Speculative Fiction, says she has met readers from all over the world who love Butler’s work.

http://mobile.thegrio.com/thegrio/#!/entry/and-still-scifis-octavia-e-butler-rises-a-graphic-adaptation,51cecb61da27f5d9d0ecb9ca/1


(I'm a huge Octavia Butler fan, if you are a SciFi fan, you know that she was one of the only Black Female writers in Sci Fi--that anybody had heard of--you may or may not know she was a feminist, which shows in her work, she artfully tackled race and gender in her fiction in a way that was thoughtful and challenging. Even if you're not a Sci-fan, her speculative fiction such as "Parable of the Sower" and of course "Kindred" make worthy reading indeed.)

[CrispyQ]

1. I love her stories.

I've been looking for something to read. Maybe I'll re-explore these stories.

[ismnotwasm]

2. She's awesome

I don't think there's anything she written I don't like. She's due for a little more attention from me as well.

[CrispyQ]

3. Guess what I found in my basement?

Parable of the Sower

It's the only Butler book I have, but I'm already well into it! Tomorrow I'll stop by the library & pick up two more.

[ismnotwasm]

4. Cool

I have that one too--my favorite is the science fiction "Lilith's Brood" a human/alien story told in three parts.

[CrispyQ]

5. I just finished "Kindred."

I had not read it before. It was one of the most unusual time travel stories I've read, the connection with an ancestor, the way she moved through time. It was such an interesting concept for a story, I'm still digesting it.

[ismnotwasm]

6. That one does make you think

There are no clean lines--things are just blurry enough that you HAVE to think about them (IMO anyway)

[nomorenomore08]

7. I still haven't gotten around to her stuff. Much to my regret.

So many unread books on my shelves, and that's not even including my "to buy/borrow" list.

[ismnotwasm]

8. Oh I hear that

It was a random comment on DU that got me to read "Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon this year-- I thought I had read it, silly me, because its one of those books that practically puts you in a hallucinatory state (plus it's hard to read) and you DON'T "forget" if you've read it or not.

Octavia Butler is awesome, but while she's not difficult to read, she's thought-provocking. Fledgling-a social commentary vampire novel written around the time of 'Twilight', is an interesting take on the 'Vampire' genre.