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This Nebula Award-winning sequel to Parable of the Sower continues the story of Lauren Olamina in socially and economically depressed California in the 2030s. Convinced that her community should colonize the stars, Lauren and her followers make preparations. But the collapse of society and rise of fanatics result in Lauren's followers being enslaved, and her daughter stolen from her. Now, Lauren must fight back to save the new world order.

“Doro wanted an empire. He didn’t call it that, but that was what he meant. Maybe I was just one more tool he was using to get it. He needed tools, because an empire of ordinary people wasn’t quite what he had in mind. That, to him, would be like an ordinary person making himself emperor over a lot of cattle.”I am reading the omnibus edition of Octavia Butler’s Patternist series, published as  Seed to Harvest (Patternist #1-4 ). Mind of My Mind is volume 2 of the series but actually written and published before volume 1, the excellent Wild Seed. This is another excellent Butler book but I wish I had read it before Wild Seed because, to my mind, reading in publication order is always better§, I would have read it as a prequel to Mind of My Mind and appreciate both books more (even though I already appreciate both very much).Mind of My Mind begins with body hopping super-mutant Doro* visiting Anyanwu—who now calls herself Emma—the protagonist of the previous volume. He persuades and coerces Emma to take charge of Mary, a latent telepath who will soon transition† into a functional telepath, able to wield psionic powers. Doro has a life mission to build a race of powerful telepaths by breeding and crossbreeding people with psi abilities like cattle. Mary is expected to transition into a powerful telepath with unusual powers. This turns out to be the case, but the result is more spectacular than anybody expected. It turns out that post-transition Mary has the ability to permanently link herself to other telepaths and form an almost hive mind-like psionic group called “the pattern” of seemingly unlimited size. This seems like the ultimate goal of at Doro’s life mission, but things are happening too fast for his liking and a power struggle becomes unavoidable.Mind of My Mind belongs to the “psychic power” sub-genre of sci-fi, the best known examples of this that I can think of is Alfred Bester’s  The Demolished Man, Theodore Sturgeon’s classic  More Than Human, and the lesser known but excellent  Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg. Now I can add this book to my list of favorite psi sci-fi. Interestingly Wild Seed does not belong in this subgenre because it focuses more on shape changing. The idea of “the pattern” is similar to Sturgeon’s “homo gestalt” where separate individuals can act in tandem as if they are parts of one body.This book is relentlessly entertaining and very fast-paced, I was gripped from beginning to end. It does, however, lack the nuances and elegance of Wild Seed, written later in Butler’s career. I am also mildly disappointed that the wonderful Anyanwu from Wild Seed is barely featured in this book and does not keep her beautifully exotic name. There is a vague theme of slavery and resistance to tyranny through a united effort, but I think this book is mostly a sci-fi thriller, and as such, it works very well. If you like the other psi books I mentioned above, or if you are a fan of movies like Cronenberg’s head exploding Scanners and Brian De Palma's The Fury you are likely to have a great time with this book. I think it is tremendous, and short too! (224 pages).Notes:* Doro is the main antagonist in Wild Seed. He is able transfer his personality (or soul) from one body to another, a sort of hostile takeover that also leaves the previous body dead. He also needs to make these transfers from time to time as he feeds off the soul of the original owner of the body that he is evicting.† Transition is a sudden development process like caterpillar to pupa to butterfly, which a latent needs to go through and survive, in order to usefully manifest their powers.§ If you are undecided about the reading order of this series, read the discussion here, it should help.• Yes, the series is more science fantasy than science fiction. ___________________Quotes:“She’s part of my latest attempt to bring my active telepaths together. I’m going to try to mate her with another telepath without killing either of them myself. And I’m hoping that she and the boy I have in mind are stable enough to stay together without killing each other. That will be a beginning.”“Breed didn’t sound like the kind of word that should be applied to people. The minute he said it, though, I realized it was the right word for what he was doing.”“Before the Pattern, active telepaths had not been able to survive together in groups. They could not tolerate each other, could not accept the mental blending that occurred automatically without the control of the Pattern.”

An innocent familiy, carjacked on a desolate highway, is abducted to a bizarre new world. A world being born in the Californian desert.They discover Earth has been invaded by an alien microorganism. The deadly entity attacks like a virus, but survivors of the disease genetically bond with it, developing amazing powers, near-immortality, unnatural desires - and a need to spread the contagion and create a secret colony of the transformed. Now the meaning of "survival" changes. For the babies born in the colony are clearly, undeniably, not human...

The combined mind-force of a telepathic race, Patternist thoughts can destroy, heal, rule. For the strongest mind commands the entire pattern and all within. Now the son of the Patternmaster craves this ultimate power, He has murdered or enslaved every threat to his ambition--except one. In the wild, mutant-infested hills, a young apprentice must be hunted down and destroyed because he is the tyrant's equal... and the Pattermaster's other son.

“Recently, however, I began to suspect that calling myself a science fiction critic without having read anything by Octavia Butler bordered on the fraudulent.”“Books to Look For” - Orson Scott Card I have to thank OSC for the above-mentioned article (from 1990) which piqued my interest for reading Octavia Butler. It is strange that I first read Wild Seed in January 2012, I loved it and it made me a lifelong fan of Octavia Butler, but since then I have not read any of the sequels. I have, however, read most of her other novels, and she has never disappointed me. Wild Seed is the first of the Patternmaster series, some of the later books in the series were written prior to this book, but in term of chronological order this is the first. I won’t do an overview of the series at this point as I have not read the other books, I will just stick to Wild Seed for now.Wild Seed is about an African woman named Anyanwu who is immortal and has shape changing abilities. One day she encounters a man called Doro who is also a shape-changer, of a very different sort. Where Anyanwu changes her shape by metamorphosis, Doro does it by evicting people from their bodies and taking over (and thereby killing the body’s owner). At the beginning of the narrative, Anyanwu is already about three hundred years old, living in a village among her descendants. While it is not clear how old Doro is, he was born in Egypt during the reign of the Pharaohs, so he is more than twice her age. Doro coerces Anyanwu into leaving Africa with him and move to a community he built in New York, he does this mainly by threatening the safety of all her descendants. It transpires that Doro is working on a project to breed people with unusual powers (the word mutant does not appear in this book) and he perceives Anyanwu as a “wild seed” to become a potent new ingredient in this project. What follows is a story of power struggles between these two characters, involving intimidation, submission, heartbreak, courage and rebellion.To say that Wild Seed is a page turner may give the impression that this is a sci-fi thriller that moves at breakneck speed. This is not the case at all; the story spans over a hundred years and is not particularly fast paced. However, it is very compelling, I always look forward to discovering what happens on the next page. Ms. Butler has an uncanny ability to effortlessly create vivid and believable characters. At times it seems like she can make them seem real as soon as they are introduced in the narrative. The only snag is I love her protagonist so much I wish she can just get away from this nefarious Doro, who is not only a creep but also doing a very creepy project; but if she does get away early in the book we would not have much of a story left.  AnyanwuThe book’s timeline spans over 100 years, from the late 1600s to the 1800s, at a time where slavery is prevalent in the US. Unlike Butler’s  Kindred, Wild Seed is not exactly a slave narrative, Anyanwu is enslaved in a manner of speaking, without actually being a slave. The narrative is more concerned with her struggle to free herself from Doro’s project without risking the people she loves (her children and descendants). The sci-fi element of Wild Seed tends to read rather like science fantasy with all the shapeshifting going on, and no technology involved. However, Anyanwu has an ability to synthesize medicines from inside her body with the application of medical science principles. She comes up with a much more humane method of genetic engineering than Doro’s degrading version that treats human beings as seeds and animals. What makes the novel works so well is Butler’s humanity and compassion. Anyanwu is one of sci-fi’s best protagonists who embodies the best characteristics of motherhood, even Doro is a very complex kind of villain with understandable motivations, considering his backstory you can almost forgive his heinous behaviour, but he certainly is an overbearing larger than life character. For me, Wild Seed is one of the all-time greats, and I look forward to finally moving on to the subsequent volumes soon.Notes:• One of the things I love most about Octavia Butler is her love of the sci-fi genre, and how she was happy to embrace it; unlike some literary authors who utilize the genre's tropes but reject the label.• Sadly she is no longer with us, and I am running out of her books to read (｡•́︿•̀｡)Quotes:“Haven’t you seen the men slaves in this country who are used for breeding? They are never permitted to learn what it means to be a man. They are not permitted to care for their children. Among my people, children are wealth, they are better than money, better than anything. But to these men, warped and twisted by their masters, children are almost nothing.” “I kill, Anyanwu. That is how I keep my youth, my strength. I can do only one thing to show you what I am, and that is kill a man and wear his body like a cloth.” He breathed deeply. “This is not the body I was born into. It’s not the tenth I’ve worn, nor the hundredth, nor the thousandth.”He smiled a little, but could not help wondering how hard it might be to tame even partially a wild seed woman who had been helping herself for three hundred years.Wild seed always had to be destroyed eventually. It could never conform as children born among his people conformed. But like no other wild seed, Anyanwu would learn to fear him and bend herself to his will.  Nice new cover

In this installment, the Bad Company crew again find themselves in the heart of the action, where they must use every weapon and vehicle at their disposal to su...

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness is a fantasy real-time strategy computer game developed by Blizzard Entertainment and released for DOS in 1995 and Mac OS in 1996 by Blizzard's parent, Davidson & Associates. It's a sequel to Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. The game was met with positive reviews and won most of the major PC gaming awards in 1996. In 1996, Blizzard released an expansion pack, Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, for DOS and Mac OS, and a compilation, Warcraft II: The Dark Saga, for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. The Battle.net edition, released in 1999, provided Blizzard's online gaming service, and replaced the MS-DOS version with a Windows one.In Warcraft II, as in many real-time strategy (RTS) games, players collect resources to produce buildings and units in order to defeat an opponent in combat. Players gain access to more advanced units upon construction of tech buildings and research. The majority of the display screen shows the part of the territory on which the player is currently operating, and, using the small minimap, the player can select another location to view and operate on. The fog of war completely hides all territory which the player has not explored: terrain that has been explored is always visible, but enemy units remain visible only so long as they stay within a friendly unit's visual radius.

Episode One is an all-new episode created by Valve that extends the Half-Life 2 single player adventure. The player reprises his role of Dr. Gordon...

Episode Two is the second in a trilogy of new games created by Valve that extends the award-winning and best-selling Half-Life adventure. As Dr. Go...

Years after taking Stilwater for their own, the Third Street Saints have evolved from street gang to household brand name, with Saints sneakers, Saints energy d...

When assassins from Agent 47's contract agency, The ICA, are systematically eliminated in a series of hits, it seems a larger, more powerful agency has entered...

Team Fortress 2 (TF2) is the sequel to the game that put class-based, multiplayer team warfare on the map. TF2 delivers new gametypes, a signature art style pow...

Mortal Kombat returns to consoles after a long hiatus featuring a return to the gruesome fatalities....

Human Revolution you play Adam Jensen, a security specialist, handpicked to oversee the defense of one of America's most experimental biotechnology...

The original Half-Life 2 - The player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds h...

Set 500 years after the original, Fable II provides gamers with an epic story and innovative real-time gameplay, including a massive amount of freedom and choic...

The game that incorporates RPG, action, adventure, and 1st-person shooter genres into a chaotic blend of real-world conspiracies, cliffhangers, and plot twists....

Initially conceived as a floating symbol of American ideals at a time when the United States was emerging as a world power, Columbia is sent to distant shores w...

[Metacritic's 2004 PC Game of the Year] By taking the suspense, challenge and visceral charge of the original, and adding startling new realism and responsiven...

Engage in this saga set in the Golden Age of the Republic - over 4,000 years before the first Star Wars film, when both Jedi and Sith number in the thousands. W...

Approach each assassination with your own unique style. Use shadow and sound to your advantage to traverse silently through levels unseen by enemies, or attack...

The latest game in the post-nuclear RPG series is being developed by many members of the Fallout 1 and 2 team at Obsidian Entertainment using the Fallout 3 eng...

Going beyond "run and gun corridors," "monster-closet AIs" and static worlds, BioShock creates a living, unique and unpredictable FPS experience. After your pla...

Follows a day in the lives of a group of Los Angeles high school students and the strange lives they lead.

After an odd new medical student arrives on campus, a dedicated local and his girlfriend become involved in bizarre experiments centering around the re-animation of dead tissue.

1985 American science fiction horror film by Stuart Gordon

After moving to a new town, two brothers discover that the area is a haven for vampires.

1987 film by Joel Schumacher, Richard Donner

When an open-minded Jewish librarian and his son become victims of the Holocaust, he uses a perfect mixture of will, humor, and imagination to protect his son from the dangers around their camp.

1997 Italian film directed by and starring Roberto Benigni

The story follows Jack, a highly intelligent serial killer, over the course of twelve years, and depicts the murders that really develop his inner madman.

The Candyman, a murderous soul with a hook for a hand, is accidentally summoned to reality by a skeptic grad student researching the monster's myth.

A seventeen-year-old aristocrat falls in love with a kind but poor artist aboard the luxurious, ill-fated R.M.S. Titanic.

A criminal pleads insanity and is admitted to a mental institution, where he rebels against the oppressive nurse and rallies up the scared patients.

1975 drama film based on the novel by Ken Kesey

A sexually frustrated suburban father has a mid-life crisis after becoming infatuated with his daughter's best friend.

1999 American drama film directed by Sam Mendes

A delusional young man strikes up an unconventional relationship with a doll he finds on the Internet.

Mourning his dead child, a haunted Vietnam War veteran attempts to uncover his past while suffering from a severe case of dissociation. To do so, he must decipher reality and life from his own dreams, delusions, and perceptions of de

A black Southern woman struggles to find her identity after suffering abuse from her father and others over four decades.

1985 American period drama film by Steven Spielberg

In 2027, in a chaotic world in which women have become somehow infertile, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea.

A sole survivor tells of the twisty events leading up to a horrific gun battle on a boat, which began when five criminals met at a seemingly random police lineup.

1995 German-American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Bryan Singer

Six complete strangers with widely varying personalities are involuntarily placed in an endless maze containing deadly traps.

1997 Canadian independent science-fiction horror film by Vincenzo Natali

Set in the near-future, technology controls nearly all aspects of life. But when the world of Grey, a self-labeled technophobe, is turned upside down, his only hope for revenge is an experimental computer chip implant.

In a totalitarian future society, a man, whose daily work is re-writing history, tries to rebel by falling in love.

A cyborg policewoman and her partner hunt a mysterious and powerful hacker called the Puppet Master.

Ben Sanderson, a Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his alcoholism, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera.

In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.

1971 dystopian crime film directed by Stanley Kubrick

John Howard Carpenter is an American filmmaker, actor, and composer. Although he has worked in various film genres, he is most commonly associated with horror, action, and science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s. He is generally recognized as one of the greatest masters of the horror genre. At the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, the French Directors' Guild gave him the Golden Coach Award, lauding him as "a creative genius of raw, fantastic, and spectacular emotions".

An idiosyncratic FBI agent investigates the murder of a young woman in the even more idiosyncratic town of Twin Peaks.

American drama television series from 1990–1991

Maniac is the story of Espen, a man in his thirties who is loved by everyone. Every day is a party and there's no limit to what he experiences. We meet Espen in various situations where everything is amazing and whatever happens, Esp

Adventure Time is an American fantasy animated television series created by Pendleton Ward for Cartoon Network and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television. The series follows the adventures of a boy named Finn (Jeremy Shada) and his best friend and adoptive brother Jake (John DiMaggio)—a dog with the magical power to change size and shape at will. Finn and Jake live in the post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo, where they interact with Princess Bubblegum (Hynden Walch), the Ice King (Tom Kenny), Marceline (Olivia Olson), BMO (Niki Yang), and others. The series is based on a 2007 short film that aired on Nicktoons. After the short became a viral hit on the Internet, Nickelodeon's executives passed on its option before Cartoon Network commissioned a full-length series from Fred Seibert and Ward, which was previewed on March 11, 2010. The same year, the series premiered on Cartoon Network on April 5, and ended its eight-year run on September 3, 2018.

The first manned mission from Earth to Mars in 2033 attempts to colonize the red planet.

A Walking Dead spinoff set in Los Angeles, California. Follows two families who must band together to survive the undead apocalypse.

American post-apocalyptic horror drama television series

Omniscient is a Brazilian science fiction streaming television series created by Pedro Aguilera and starring Carla Salle, Sandra Corveloni and Jonathan Haagensen. The plot revolves around a society with an all-knowing security system in place.

In the wake of a mysterious alien invasion, a family fights to stay together in a new world order.

2016 American science fiction television series

Sheila and Joel are married real estate agents in Santa Clarita, California. When Sheila dies, their lives take a dark turn.

2017 American horror-comedy web television series

Set in an altered United States, several unrelated people discover how far they will go to survive a night where all crime is legal for 12 hours.

In the dark, early days of a zombie apocalypse, complete strangers band together to find the strength they need to survive and get back to loved ones.

When ten people wake up on a treacherous island with no memory of who they are and how they got there, they set off on a trek to try to get back home, only to discover the world is not as it seems.

American science fiction web television series

Six people return from the dead with no memory and attempt to unveil what brought them to the grave in the first place.

After an eerie mist rolls into a small town, the residents must battle the mysterious mist and its threats, fighting to maintain their morality and sanity.

2017 American science fiction-horror television series

After a brutal virus wipes out most of the population, two young siblings embark on a perilous search for safety.

Following the tragic end of her brief superhero career, Jessica Jones tries to rebuild her life as a private investigator, dealing with cases involving people with remarkable abilities in New York City.

Vikings transports us to the brutal and mysterious world of Ragnar Lothbrok, a Viking warrior and farmer who yearns to explore - and raid - the distant shores across the ocean.

Canadian-Irish historical drama television series

After the murder of his family, Marine veteran Frank Castle becomes the vigilante known as "The Punisher," with only one goal in mind: to avenge them.

A group of people around the world are suddenly linked mentally, and must find a way to survive being hunted by those who see them as a threat to the world's order.

The survivors of a plane crash are forced to work together in order to survive on a seemingly deserted tropical island.

Follows the personal and professional lives of six twenty to thirty-something-year-old friends living in Manhattan.

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