Book Review, Fiction, Octavia Butler, SephiPiderWitch, The Fledgling

The Fledgling by Octavia Butler

fledgling Octavia ButlerI don’t remember where I came up with this book on my reading list, but I am aware of the notoriety of Octavia Butler.  Fledgling is an interesting novel and I have admittedly very mixed feelings about it.  I do have some reservations about being totally frank about my feeling about this book because of her place in literature and as a cultural icon.  And the reality is that they are my feelings and needn’t be representative of anyone else’s. Fledgling is a dark fantasy about a race that exists with humans and either evolved at the same time or prior to humans.  Octavia has redefined vampires as a creature that lives symbiotically with humans, mostly forming a lifelong family with their symbiots and only taking when needed but also giving long and healthful life to the humans.   However, the Ina bite also gives something akin to a drug that the symbiots become addicted to.   Its sort of a addictive/poly-amorous vampire story. The main character, Shori, is a product of genetic engineering by her family.  Bred with human DNA so that she could remain out in the daylight and not fall into the deathlike slumber of her kind during the day.  The human symbiot whose DNA is blended with her parents Ina genes is of African descent which gives her a much darker skin tone than the rest of her kind. Shori’s mother clan and father clan are all murdered by what is believed to be another clan of Ina.  As she begins to collect a new group of symbiots and learn about herself and who and what she is, she begins to solve the mystery of who murdered her family.  She begins to relay what she comes to know to her first symbiot, Wright as she pieces things together.  They begin to travel to a clan that she learned has the Ina sons she was promised to be wed to with her sisters before her family was killed.  Yeah, that made it a bit more interesting trying to figure out how that one works out.  Sisters of one family marry the brothers of the other.  Takes the polyamory concept to a rather bizarre level.  Interesting, but bizarre. With her newly found family, her growing family of symbiots, they begin to piece together an investigation into who, or what, is killing off her people. I mostly liked the book, but did find that it drug a bit in a lot of places.  The concept was intriguing though, portraying vampires as being in a symbiotic relationship with humans.  Though, there was one area where I did have some issues and that was in Ms. Butler’s insertion of racial bigotry into the story line.  Though I do understand the importance of such an issue, I felt it detracted from the story line she was developing and did nothing to aid the story.  In truth, I felt it weakened it.  I think that if she wanted to create a bigotry illustration, she would have been better served to have done it within the Ina people.  Much like was done in Enemy Mine when the alien race was used to show inequality.  But, that is just my personal opinion. All in all, it was a very interesting novel that challenged ideas about conventional morality, norms and lifestyles.  Its a shame that it will be the last of what looked to be on the way of becoming a very interesting series. SephiPiderWitch 05/06/2015  
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  1. Thank you! I don’t know that I’ll have time to give this one a go as I have a bunch of others on my reading list. Maybe I’ll add it to the bottom and if I get there, I get there.
    I’m not a big fan of vampire novels outside of Anne Rice, but I love all of her novels so that’s not quite fair.

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