Sad Note: Octavia Butler gone

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.