A powerful story of survival in unprecedented times, from the award-winning author of Parable of the Sower.
In an alternate America marked by volatile class warfare, Blake Maslin is traveling with his teenage twin daughters when their car is ambushed. Their attackers appear sickly yet possess inhuman strength, and they transport Blake's family to an isolated compound. There, the three captives discover that the compound's residents have a highly contagious alien disease that has mutated their DNA to make them powerful, dangerous, and compelled to infect others. If Blake and his daughters do not escape, they will be infected with a virus that will either kill them outright or transform them into outcasts whose very existence is a threat to the world around them.
In the following hours, Blake and his daughters each must make a vital choice: risk everything to escape and warn the rest of the world, or accept their new reality -- as well as the uncertain fate of the human race.
OCTAVIA E. BUTLERwas a renowned writer who received a MacArthur "Genius" Grant and PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award for her body of work. She was the author of several award-winning novels including Parable of the Sower, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and was acclaimed for her lean prose, strong protagonists, and social observations in stories that range from the distant past to the far future. Sales of her books have increased enormously since her death as the issues she addressed in her Afrofuturistic, feminist novels and short fiction have only become more relevant. She passed away on February 24, 2006.
PRAISE FOR OCTAVIA E. BUTLER'S NOVELS
"Brilliant, endlessly rich...pairs well with 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale."—John Green, New York Times(on Parable of the Sower)
"Wild Seed is a book that shifted my life . . . It is as epic, as game-changing, as moving and brilliant as any science fiction novel ever written."—Viola Davis
"An
internationally acclaimed science fiction writer whose evocative, often
troubling, novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately,
what it means to be human."—New York Times
"If we're talking must-read authors like Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison, the one-and-only Octavia Butler needs be a part of the conversation. The groundbreaking sci-fi and speculative fiction author was a master of spinning imaginative tales that introduced you to both the possibilities -- and dangers -- of the human race, all while offering lessons on tribalism, race, gender, and sexuality."—O, The Oprah Magazine
"A revolutionary voice in her lifetime, Butler has only become more popular and influential . . . A generation of younger writers cite her as an influence, from Jemisin and Tochi Onyebuchi to Marlon James and Nnedi Okarafor . . .She is now praised as a visionary who anticipated many of the issues in the news today, from the coronavirus to climate change to the election of President Donald Trump."—Associated Press
"More than any novel I've ever read, Octavia Butler's Wild Seed examines power, what it means to wield it responsibly and what it means to resist it when it is wielded capriciously."—Rion Amilcar Scott, PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize-winning author of Insurrections
"In the ongoing contest over which dystopian
classic is most applicable to our time, Octavia Butler's 'Parable' books may be
unmatched."—New Yorker (on Parableof the Sower)
"Butler is one of the finest voices in
fiction-period . . . A master storyteller with a voice that cradles and
captivates, Butler casts an unflinching eye on racism, sexism, poverty and
ignorance, and lets the reader see the terror and beauty of human nature."—Washington Post Book World
"Haunting
. . . apocalyptic . . . compelling."—Essence
