Description

‘A book that shifted my life… Epic, game-changing, moving and brilliant’ VIOLA DAVIS

‘Will rewire the mind of whoever reads it… you don’t emerge from the journey unaffected’ NNEDI OKORAFOR

A PATTERNIST NOVEL: BOOK ONE

It begins when two immortals meet in an African forest.

Doro is an ancient spirit who, for thousands of years, has cultivated a small village of people in search of perfection. He steals from their bodies to sustain his own life. Doro fears no one – until he meets Anyanwu.

Anyanwu is like Doro and yet different. She uses her wisdom to help others, healing injuries, birthing tribes and shifting the shapes of her own body. Anyanwu feels no threat – until she meets Doro.

In an epic story of love and hate, Doro and Anyanwu chase each other across continents and centuries – a power struggle that echoes through generations. Together they will change the world.

Publisher Review

Few writers in our field are so good at blending page-turners with philosophical questions so seamlessly -- Cory Doctorow Butler's books are exceptional * Village Voice * If you haven't read Butler, you don't yet understand how rich the possibilities of science fiction can be * Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction * Impossible to turn away from once you've devoured the first few pages * Starburst * One of the most original, thought-provoking works examining race and identity * Los Angeles Times * A searing, caustic examination of bizarre and alien practices on the third planet from the sun * Kirkus * The immediate effect of reading Octavia Butler's Kindred is to make every other time travel book in the world look as if it's wimping out... This is a brilliant book, utterly absorbing, very well written, and deeply distressing. It's very hard to read, not because it's not good but because it's so good * Tor * Everyone should read at least one novel by the grand dame of science fiction, and Kindred is a perfect (and harrowing and disturbing and brilliant) place to start * Refinery 29 * [A] must-read novel * BBC * One cannot finish Kindred without feeling changed. It is a shattering work of art * Los Angeles Herald-Examiner * Kindred is that rare magical artifact . . . the novel one returns to, again and again * Harlan Ellison * No novel I've read this year has felt as relevant, as gut-wrenching or as essential... If you've ever tweeted "All Lives Matter", someone needs to shove Kindred into your hand, and quickly * The Pool * [Her] evocative, often troubling, novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately, what it means to be human * New York Times * A dark, compelling and still horribly resonant time travel story * Independent * Butler's prose, always pared back to the bone, delineates the painful paradoxes of metamorphosis with compelling precision * Guardian * One of the most significant literary artists of the twentieth century. One cannot exaggerate the impact she has had -- Junot Diaz