# Octavia Butler has died **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 26, 2006, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octavia-butler-has-died/346232 "2006-02-26T23:17:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![wonderlust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonderlust/32/7237_2.png) [@wonderlust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderlust)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octavia-butler-has-died/346232/21 "2006-02-28T01:35:43Z")
Oh no! That just breaks my heart! I’ve got many, many of her books, including her new one. **Eleanor of Aquitaine** , did you enjoy Fledgling? ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octavia-butler-has-died/346232/22 "2006-02-28T02:19:04Z")
There comes a certain point in the life of happily self-deluded, unmarried, childless people like myself where we can no longer sustain the illusion of ourselves as kids anymore; when the tug of mortality strikes us unexpectedly hard and deep. If we’re lucky enough to still have grandparents still living, and healthy parents happily in our lives, and lives largely untouched by close loved ones who’ve died unexpectedly and friends who always stick around – I think, for us, one of the first real whiffs of mortality comes when artists we know and have long admired die: the seminal actors, the legendary writers, the godlike entertainers, the zeitgiest personalities: fixed points of references in our deathless existences. When these remote rocks die, a little of us do too. For me, I think it was last year when Richard Pryor died that I was first really, really taken aback by the news someone like that I long admired died. I mean: _Richard Pryor is dead, y’all_. I can damn near lip-synch Live On The Sunset Strip. I’ve listened to most of his albums. I checked out all his concert videoes, heard the jokes, watched CBS’ Pryor’s Place religiously. Mudbone’s dead. Now Octavia Butler. A woman I’d read since I was twelve and helped myself to my Mom’s copy of _Kindred._ A woman I met once in a writer’s workshop, who paitently answered all my questions as I peppered her with questions. I walked up to her after that lecture, shook her hand and impulsively stole a kiss from her left cheek in an act of fanboy reverence. I of course sputtered apologies and blushed immediately. She merely said, “Ooh!” and touched her cheek. I will always love her a little for that. We’ll have the Xenogenesis trilogy; we’ll have poor doomed Doro; we’ll have the eerie ties of more than blood bondage between Dana and Rufus. But Octavia Butler’s gone. Sigh. Ellison, Clarke and Vonnegut, don’t you three go nowhere this year. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octavia-butler-has-died/346232/23 "2006-02-28T02:36:30Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > She merely said, “Ooh!” and touched her cheek. I will always love her a little for that. Now you’ve got me sniffling, **Askia**. That’s a beautiful memory. ---
**Author:** ![Ensign\_Edison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ab992/32.png) [@Ensign\_Edison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ensign_Edison)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octavia-butler-has-died/346232/24 "2006-02-28T02:40:05Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > Ellison, Clarke and Vonnegut, don’t you three go nowhere this year. Yes, thank you, that was good. I’ve been feeling at a loss for words all day. Just for the record: Harlan Ellison bought Butler’s first (or second) short story, I believe. I think he didn’t even know what he was going to use it in at the time. ---
**Author:** ![XaMcQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/f9ae1b/32.png) [@XaMcQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XaMcQ)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octavia-butler-has-died/346232/25 "2006-02-28T04:15:41Z")
It’s a sad, sad day. We’ve lost a bright literary light much too soon, to something as simple as a fall. I have read and cherished all her books and the handful of short stories she published. Her works were fascinating, elegant, beautifully spare and deeply thought-provoking. It is a great tragedy for us all that there will never be another Octavia Butler book. She had been struggling with writer’s block after ‘Parable of the Talents’, but ‘Fledgling’ had broken down the wall. Sigh. I will miss her. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Tiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Mama\_Tiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Tiger)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octavia-butler-has-died/346232/26 "2006-02-28T04:25:34Z")
I was fortunate to meet her once in the early '90s. What a lovely woman, and what a gifted writer. I’ve never read anything of hers that I didn’t absolutely love. She will definitely be missed. ---
**Author:** ![Odinoneeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@Odinoneeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odinoneeye)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octavia-butler-has-died/346232/27 "2006-02-28T04:25:36Z")
I’ve been a fan of hers for years. I’ve often recommended her works on this board. I reread Wildseed so much it’s in ruins. Parable of the Talents is the only book I stopped reading because it was hurting me emotionally. I finally finished it a couple months later. ☹☹☹☹☹☹ One of the few occasions that call for multiple frownies. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octavia-butler-has-died/346232/28 "2006-02-28T05:26:18Z")
_Parable of the Sower_ is one of those books tha changed the way I think and feel. I’m sorry I never got to meet the woman who wrote it. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octavia-butler-has-died/346232/29 "2006-02-28T14:49:49Z")
> [@brightpenny](#): > > Oh no! That just breaks my heart! I’ve got many, many of her books, including her new one. **Eleanor of Aquitaine** , did you enjoy Fledgling? Very much, yes. It has a lot of exposition, but as usual by the time it was over I wished it was twice as long. It’s typical Butler in that the characters have seriously freaky relationships with each other that after a while start to seem normal and even enviable. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octavia-butler-has-died/346232/30 "2006-02-28T15:57:46Z")
That really is sad; I’m sorry to hear it. _Wild Seed_ was the first book I ever read by her, and remains my favorite. It’s an amazing story. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![LateComer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b5ac83/32.png) [@LateComer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LateComer)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octavia-butler-has-died/346232/31 "2006-03-02T19:06:59Z")
Just wanted to make sure everyone saw this article about Butler in [Slate.com](http://Slate.com) \*\* [Octavia Butler: The outsider who changed science fiction.](http://www.slate.com/id/2137269/)\*\* ---
**Author:** ![Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octavia-butler-has-died/346232/32 "2006-03-02T20:31:21Z")
“Devil Girl From Mars”: Why I Write Science Fiction is a talk she gave at MIT in 1998. [http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/forums/octaviabutler.html](http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/forums/octaviabutler.html) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octavia-butler-has-died/346232.md?page=1)