Survivor (Octavia Butler novel)
First edition
|
|
| Author | Octavia Butler |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Patternist series |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
|
Publication date
|
1978 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 185 p. |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 3480629 |
| 813/.5/4 | |
| LC Class | PZ4.B98674 Su PS3552.U827 |
| Preceded by | Mind of My Mind |
| Followed by | Wild Seed |
Survivor is a science fiction novel by Octavia E. Butler. First published in 1978 as part of Butler's "Patternist series," Survivor is the only one of Butler's early novels not to be reprinted after its initial editions. Butler expressed dislike for the work, referring to it as "my Star Trek novel."
Survivor follows the early contact between the Missionaries, a group of human colonists fleeing a plague on Earth, and the Kohn, intelligent natives of the planet on which the Missionaries have arrived. In particular, the novel focuses on Alanna, the adopted daughter of the Missionaries' leader, as she attempts to prevent the Missionaries' destruction or assimilation at the hands of a dominant local culture. During the course of the novel, Alanna's experiences assimilating and negotiating with the Kohn draw upon her earlier, similar experience joining the Missionaries themselves, and Alanna's ability to interact with the various cultures becomes the key to their survival.
Although set within the broader plot of the Patternist series, the entire plot of Survivor is largely separated from the events of the other books in the series.
Butler begins the novel in medias res, during the "rescue" of the main character, Alanna, from the "Tehkohn," a group of extraterrestrials. Although the main narrative follows Alanna's perspective after the rescue, Butler also inserts a series of flashbacks, some of them from the perspective of other characters. Through this literary device, the readers learn about Alanna's past gradually, even as they follow the efforts of the other characters to discover that past as well.
Eventually, the narrative reveals Alanna's background. The novel is set in the indeterminate future, sometime after the events that Butler would later describe in her novel Clay's Ark and before the events of Patternmaster. At the time of Survivor, humanity is threatened by the "Clayark plague," an extraterrestrial disease that has destroyed half of the Earth's population, either by killing them or by mutating them and their children into the bestial "Clayarks." Humanity survives in an embattled state, supported somewhat by the "Patternists," a group of mutant humans previously living in secret. (The development of the Patternists is described in more detail in Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind, and a later stage of their conflict against the Clayarks is described in Patternmaster.)
...
Wikipedia