Sad Note: Octavia Butler gone

[netmouse]

matociquala passed on the news that Octavia Butler died Saturday after a fall outside her house.

I was so excited to see the publication of Fledgeling in 2005, after a 7-year hiatus. Now I guess there won't be any more. ... The first book of hers I ever read I read in a single sitting. I started it as I entered a class I was sitting in on, waiting for it to begin. I read at the back of the room all through the class and on for another hour after everone had left, unmoving. It was Clay's Ark, and I swallowed it whole.

I met Octavia Butler one year at Minicon. She struck me as a dignified and thoughtful, highly intelligent woman, nice to talk to, and of course she was an outstanding and sensitive author. She will be greatly missed.

Comments

[rikhei.livejournal.com]

That's very sad to hear. :(

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I'm sad, now, too.

[yix.livejournal.com]

This is very sad for me. :(

[yarram.livejournal.com]

Very very very very sad. I met her at the same Minicon, and found her to be extremely intelligent and an interesting person to have met. I'm depressed that there will be no more new works from her. :-(

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Octavia Butler was Writer GoH at Minicon 34. I was struck (and delighted) by her enjoyment of fannish whimsy. Like you said, she was a dignified and thoughtful, highly intelligent woman. But she was the dignified and thoughtful, highly intelligent woman who appreciated seeing a chicken hat on a fan as she walked into Opening Ceremonies. And she used the chicken hat as the example of what she loved about science fiction conventions in her brief remarks that night.

Y'see, Octavia Butler didn't know it, but I was the person who handed that chicken hat to that fan. It was part of the general, convivial chaos of the event. We also had four remote control blimps gliding through the air, frequently dive bombing each other, the audience, and the stage. Then there was the Las Vegas showgirl-style feathered headdress that turned out to look surprisingly fitting on Jane Yolen, and other silly decorative hats and bits I'd picked up along the way. Octavia Butler's warm, amused, appreciative reaction helped make my night.

May she rest in peace. And may the world long appreciate everything she and her writing gave us.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I remember the first Octavia Butler I read. It was, most likely, just coincidence that it was by her -- I was young, and we were visitting my Grand parents (or Grandfather, I don't remember if my Grandmother was still alive) in Listowel, Ontario. A small town. I had, somehow, run out of reading material, and I wandered over to the local small-town drug store, which had a rack of paperbacks for sale... the selection of sf/f was limitted, but the most interesting looking one was Survivor by Octavia Butler. Probably not her strongest work (it was early, 3rd published, in 1978), and I didn't notice or read anything by her for many years thereafter, but I did enjoy it.

I think the more powerful book by her I read was (the far more recent) Parable of the Sower.