I admit that I wanted to like this more than I did simply because I am a big fan of Kindred. I was slightly ambivalent about another book on vampires, however, and while I tried not to take that into serious account when reading Butler, it still crept in.Mostly, however, I liked the book fine. Any major issues I have can be neatly summed up in my opinion on quasi-pedophile literature in general. It's designed to make us squirm. If it doesn't make you squirm then maybe you're reading just a tad t...

in the middle of the vampire/twilight craze Octavia Butler used the ancient blood sucking monster as a literary vehicle to combat racial intolerances. With a sort of trial at the end that echoed my favorite book To Kill a Mockingbird. a woman wakes up in unbearable pain and with amnesia. it soon becomes clear that she is a supernatural creature and is told her name is Shori. it appears that someone attacked her and her family Who and why? is the mystery for the reader to discover. That's the syn...

I had a twenty year love affair with Anne Rice's vampires. It's no wonder I was most often single during those years because a real-world partner would probably have been jealous of my deep feelings and obsessions over Maharet and Mekare, Merrick, Pandora, Mona, and yes, the Brat Prince himself, Lestat. So it's perhaps odd that I've never met a vampire outside of Anne Rice's books that I liked. There's never been another vampire story to draw me in and get under my skin. I usually give vampire b...

Firstly, I wish there was a way to give this novel TEN STARS because like every single book she's ever written, it is a masterpiece of surperb writing, compelling characters and thought-provoking themes like sex, race and class - issues seldom dealt with in even the finest speculative fiction. Only in the hands of a skilled author could new life be breathed into the quickly becoming stale vampire genre, and Ms. Butler succeeds where so many others fail. Anyone looking for Anne Rice will be sadly...

Vampires! Sci-fi vampires! Octavia Butler! While I love Octavia Butler, I have been avoiding Fledgling for a while because Twilight* and the “paranormal romance” genre that followed in its wake are anathema to me. I knew of course that Ms. Butler would never slum it with Stephenie Meyer, but the subject matter is kind of spoiled for me. Still, I am running out of Octavias to read so I did not want to skip one of her - all too few – novels just because of my disillusion with vampire fiction in ge...

One of the best books I've read is Kindred, Octavia Butler's 1979 time travel novel. Had it been published twenty years earlier, I'm sure it would've put her on Rod Serling's radar as he scouted writers for The Twilight Zone. Butler's use of dark fantasy to dramatize issues of social injustice and racism, and explore our reaction to genocide, wrapped me up in a spell. I hesitated to read more of Butler's work, fearing it wouldn't measure up.Fledgling doesn't measure up. I scanned the second half...

I could not get over the 1. Child sex with adults, and 2. 'Beneficial' enslavement despite lack of free will or any impartiality being possible once enslaved. I finished this because I respect the author so much. She could not have written this to be her effort at writing pornography for deviants. It left a disgusting impression on me, though, and I won't read it ever again. I read it a couple of years ago, and I keep wavering between giving it one star because of my repugnance and five stars be...

Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || PinterestI am shocked that this was published by the same Octavia E. Butler who wrote PARABLE OF THE SOWER and KINDRED. It felt like it was written by a totally different person. If I hadn't looked at the publication date and seen the "2005," I would have thought that this was a less-successful first novel. That seriously bums me out because I love vampire novels, and the idea of reading a novel about a black vampire that explores the themes of r

Audacious & radical, it is basically a rebel literary monster thirsting for true blood.& innovation. Tired of the same formula, it breaks conventions as it establishes others. That there is a hybrid vampire able to move in sunlight, thus breaking with the status quo (or our interpretation of the status quo, you know, in some parallel universe where vampires exist), it is all just too majestically REAL.The tragedy of FLEDGLING is that it invites us into a world that is so fully alive that right a...

3.5 – 4 stars Another vampire book review from the guy who says he’s not a fan of vampires? Yeah, well I’m trying to find the good ones, not the dreck that’s jumped onto the Twilight bandwagon. And quite frankly I didn’t pick this one up because it was a vampire book per se, but because it was one by Octavia Butler, whose work I’ve been meaning to look into more, and this is the only stand-alone that I’m aware of. It turned out to be a good book, though there are some possibly ‘problematic’ issu...

*** this review has spoilers that will do irreversible damage to those who have not read the book, is long, and is, i'm afraid, rather academic in tone, because i just think that way. be warned. ***Fledgling opens with a birth scene of sorts. a little girl (we don’t yet know that she’s a little girl, but find out soon enough) wakes up in a cave in tremendous physical pain. her body is badly injured, more, we gather from the description, than a human being would be able to survive. she’s covered

“When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing.” Given the apparent age of the heroine, Shori, she looks the part of a little girl even though she is a much older vampire-like creature known as an Ina, I can understand why Octavia Butler's Fledgling is disturbing to readers. While I enjoyed much of the novel, I'm not anxious to see scenes of our 10-year old (looking) heroine seducing adults. Themes of sexual power and enslavement run through this book. It is no coincidence; however, t...

Time to give Butler another chance! Will she manage to avoid the Manichaean "Male = Bad. Female = Good." dynamic of Wild Seed? Only time will tell! But this stand-alone novel is about vampires and fits in perfectly with my goal for October.--- Well, a remarkable dearth of misandry! In its place was a really, really, really creepy story about how healthy and natural pedophilia can be. In context it makes sense, and technically the pre-pubescent girl was a 50 year-old member of an entirely differe...

This was so disappointing. I'm actually bothered by this. I'm such a big fan of Octavia Butler's novel Kindred and this one (her last before her unfortunate passing) almost felt like it was written by someone else. The book actually sports a really great concept that's ripe for tons of conflict and exploration of ideas and themes. The story is about an amnesiac 11-year-old-looking girl and her rediscovery that she is in fact an experimental member of the Ina, a vampiric species that live in

Ah vampires... Sexy sexy vampires... Octavia Butler used the last of her considerable writing talents to leave us with the Ina, an interesting new culture and species of vampire.The author decided to make the MC sexy vampire female.Yes, good choice.And black.Great, love diversity in stories.And ten years old. You've lost me. By the third sex scene where this little girl is joyfully plowed by an enormous hairy white twenty year old man, I decided the author had lost her mind. If this is where

Octavia Butler is dead (in 2006, actually), long live Octavia Butler. There are few authors who have taught me more about what it means to be human.Her stories don't teach with luxurious literary language or complex psychological portraits. The earlier novels are a little bit wooden, with characters that sometimes seem like cardboard cut-outs. But rarely have I found stories so LOADED down with ideas that there's barely time to explore one before the next one bursts upon me. Her stories teach th...

Octavia Butler was a genius who died far too young. In her too-short oeuvre are many classics of science fiction, Hugo and Nebula winners, all of them dealing with race and power and oppression in some way. Fledgling was (I think) her last book, or one of the last, and it's a fairly straightforward vampire story, except that as Butler handles it, the narrative is as deep and complicated as the story is simple.Butler was not one of those writers who spent a lot of time crafting words, or if she d...

Imagine that you are driving home one day and come across an interesting looking person by the side of the road. You invite this person into your car and are immediately drawn to him or her in extreme ways – after only a few hours together, you want to sleep with this person, do everything that he or she says, and give up everything in your life to devote yourself to this person's needs.You are attracted to this person above all others, and he/she can give you the greatest pleasure of your entir...

Reasons why I was excited for this book:1) Genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire in the body of a young, amnesiac girl.2) Octavia Butler, because, she's awesome.3) My first experience reading about a black vampire. Reasons why this book was a disappointment:1) The POV is a young, amnesiac girl who never "remembers." (It got old, fast.)2) According to my book club, several of Butler's other books are *much* better. 3) The most radical thing about the book was the "underage" sex.Usually, I'm d...

4.0 StarsThis was my first time Octavia Butler book and it did not disappoint.I loved her unique science fiction twist on the traditional vampire story. Within a story of blood-sucking creatures, Butler skillfully wove an insightful social commentary on racial prejudice. Her writing style was sparse, easy to read and suited me well. Even though the plot was slower paced, the world building kept me pulled into the story. I was fascinated by the animalistic nature of the vampires and their symbiot...