Patternmaster, Octavia E. Butler
Patternmaster, Octavia E. Butler
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Patternmaster

Author: Octavia E. Butler

Narrator: Robin Miles

Unabridged: 6 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/30/2023


Synopsis

An all-powerful ruler's son vies for control over the human race in this brilliant conclusion to the Patternist saga, from the critically acclaimed author of Parable of the Sower.
In the far future, the human race is divided into two groups striving for power. The Patternmaster rules over all, the leader of the telepathic Patternist race whose thoughts can destroy or heal at his whim. The only threat to his power are the Clayarks, mutant humans created by an alien pandemic, who now live either enslaved by the Patternists or in the wild.
Coransee, son of the ruling Patternmaster, wants the throne and will stop at nothing to get it, even if it means venturing into the wild mutant-infested hills to destroy a young apprentice -- his equal and his brother.

About Octavia E. Butler

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, one of very few African American women in the field. She won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards and in 1995 was the first science fiction writer ever to receive the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant.


Reviews

Goodreads review by BJ on June 06, 2024

Octavia Butler is one of my favorite novelists. I particularly love her Xenogenesis trilogy (published in one volume as Lilith’s Brood)—one of my favorite series of all time. Somehow, I never got around to her Patternist novels. Patternmaster, Butler’s first novel, has the feel of a great, old school......more

Goodreads review by Stuart on March 12, 2016

Patternmaster: Clearly a first novel - Wild Seed is much better Originally posted at Fantasy Literature Patternmaster (1976) was written first in Octavia Butler’s 4-book PATTERNIST series, but comes last in chronology. It takes place several hundred years after Clay’s Ark (1984), back in the Forsythe,......more

Goodreads review by Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany) on January 14, 2025

This series is so interesting because they're almost like companion novels that inform each other. This one has a driving plot and compelling characters that bring together strands from previous books in the series. Humans are now divided into two biologically different groups in competition with ea......more

Goodreads review by Ruxandra Grrr on February 28, 2025

Even though I blabbed on an on about the book and this series at book club, I finally finished it and I'm way too tired and I need to deal emotionally with the fact that I have no more official Octavia Butler books to read... But of course, I can re-read. This one, the first she ever published, feel......more

Goodreads review by Apatt on September 06, 2019

Patternmaster is the last volume of Ms. Butler’s classic* Patternist series (AKA “Patternmaster series”. I read this volume as part of the omnibus Seed to Harvest which consists of the entire series except for the one volume that Ms. Butler disowned and removed from publication**. Patternmaster i......more


Quotes

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