When two immortals meet in the long-ago past, the destiny of mankind is changed forever For a thousand years, Doro has cultivated a small African village, carefully breeding its people in search of seemingly unattainable perfection. He survives through the centuries by stealing the bodies of others, a technique he has so thoroughly mastered that nothing on Earth can kill him. But when a gang of New World slavers destroys his village, ruining his grand experiment, Doro is forced to go west and begin anew. He meets Anyanwu, a centuries-old woman whose means of immortality are as kind as his are cruel. She is a shapeshifter, capable of healing with a kiss, and she recognizes Doro as a tyrant. Though many humans have tried to kill them, these two demi-gods have never before met a rival. Now they begin a struggle that will last centuries and permanently alter the nature of humanity. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.

In a frightening near future, an alien disease is poised to become a devastating global epidemic—unless someone can stop it Blake Maslin and his two daughters are driving to Flagstaff when bandits swarm their car. At gunpoint, the marauders kidnap one of Blake’s children, promising to keep her safe in return for medical care. Warily, the doctor goes with them, not realizing that he has just taken the first step down a terrifying path that will consume his life. The gunmen take him deep into the desert, to a colony of people infected with a gruesome alien disease. It causes weakness, sallow skin, and birth defects so horrible that the children who suffer them cannot rightly be called human. The victims have quarantined themselves in the desert lest their illness spread and doom mankind. But as their willingness to accept isolation falters, Blake becomes the last hope for the survival of an uncontaminated Earth. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.

A despot’s heirs battle for control of all the minds on Earth A psychic net hangs across the world, and only the Patternists can control it. They use their telepathic powers to enslave lesser life forms, to do battle with the diseased, half-human creatures who rage outside their walls, and, sometimes, to fight amongst themselves. Ruling them all is the Patternmaster, a man of such psychic strength that he can influence the thoughts of all those around him. But he cannot stop death, and when he is gone, chaos will reign. The Patternmaster has hundreds of children, but only one of them—Coransee—has ambition to match his father’s. To seize the throne he will have to coopt or kill every one of his siblings, and he will not shy from the task. But when one brother takes refuge among the savages, a battle ensues that will change the destiny of every being on the planet. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.

Know Thy Enemy They fled from an Earth ravaged by plague and violence, seeking to fulfill their holy mission -- to discover a new home for humanity. But instead of landing in a peace-filled paradise, Earth's Missionaries find themselves caught between two warring civilizations -- the Garkohn and Tehkohn. And only one of the people from Earth, a young girl and "converted" Missionary named Alanna, has the proper survival training to see through the lies of their Garkohn "hosts," who extend the hand of friendship to the humans only to enslave them. Alanna alone can understand the necessity of becoming one with the Tehkohn "enemy." And, perhaps, she can find a way to release the Missionaries from the deadly bondage into which they have complacently fallen. Yet even if she succeeds, will Alanna merely be saving them for a still more inescapable doom . . . ?

Time travel, fantasy and alternate history are themes that capture and hold some very loyal readers. Older fans may need or just prefer Large Print; younger fans are often encouraged to read by Large Print.This series offers selections from current and bestselling authors as well as perennial favorites and true classics of the genre. Octavia Butler's eerie novella Bloodchild, which she once described as her "pregnant man story", explores the paradoxes of power and inequality -- starkly portraying a class of people who, like women throughout history, are valued chiefly for their reproductive capacities. Like all of Butler's best writing, Bloodchild and the six other works included here are parables of the contemporary world. She proves constant to her vigil, an unblinking pessimist hoping to be proven wrong, and one of contemporary literature's strongest voices.

Fledgling, Octavia Butler's first new novel in seven years, is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly un-human needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: she is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted—and still wants—to destroy her and those she cares for, and how she can save herself. Fledgling is a captivating novel that tests the limits of "otherness" and questions what it means to be truly human.

Two never-before-published stories from the archives of one of science fiction’s all-time masters The novella “A Necessary Being” showcases Octavia E. Butler’s ability to create alien yet fully believable “others.” Tahneh’s father was a Hao, one of a dwindling race whose leadership abilities render them so valuable that their members are captured and forced to govern. When her father dies, Tahneh steps into his place, both chief and prisoner, and for twenty years has ruled without ever meeting another of her kind. She bears her loneliness privately until the day that a Hao youth is spotted wandering into her territory. As her warriors sharpen their weapons, Tahneh must choose between imprisoning the newcomer—and living the rest of her life alone. The second story in this volume, “Childminder,” was commissioned by Harlan Ellison for his legendary (and never-published) anthology The Last Dangerous Visions™. A disaffected telepath connects with a young girl in a desperate attempt to help her harness her growing powers. But in the richly evocative fiction of Octavia E. Butler, mentorship is a rocky path, and every lesson comes at a price.

As humans and Oankali struggle to live together, the future of both species rests in the hands of Lilith’s hybrid son. Nuclear war had nearly destroyed mankind when the Oankali came to the rescue, saving humanity—but at a price. The Oankali survive by mixing their DNA with that of other species, and now on Earth they have permitted no child to be born without an Oankali parent. The first true hybrid is a boy named Akin—son of Lilith Iyapo— and to the naked eye he looks human, for now. He is born with extraordinary sensory powers, understanding speech at birth, speaking in sentences at two months old, and soon developing the ability to see at the molecular level. More powerful than any human or Oankali, he will be the architect of both races’ intergalactic future. But before he can carry this new species into the stars, Akin must decide which unlucky souls will stay behind. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.

Butler’s acclaimed Xenogenesis trilogy about humanity’s struggle for survival after nuclear apocalypse, and the alien race that could save the world—or destroy it The newest stage in human evolution begins in outer space. Survivors of a cataclysmic nuclear war awake to find themselves being studied by the Oankali, tentacle-covered galactic travelers whose benevolent appearance hides their surprising plan for the future of mankind. The Oankali arrive not just to save humanity, but to bond with it—crossbreeding to form a hybrid species that can survive in the place of its human forebears, who were so intent on self-destruction. Some people resist, forming pocket communities of purebred rebellion, but many realize they have no choice. The human species inevitably expands into something stranger, stronger, and undeniably alien. Butler’s Lilith’s Brood is both a thrilling, provocative meditation on the expansion of the human gene pool and an epic story of how it takes more than DNA to make someone human. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.

The first science fiction written by a black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given: to protect this young slaveholder until he can father her own great-grandmother.

Rescued from Earth's destruction, one woman is called upon to revive mankindLilith Iyapo has just lost her husband and son when atomic fire consumes Earth—the last stage of the planet's final war. Hundreds of years later Lilith awakes, deep in the hold of a massive alien spacecraft piloted by the Oankali—who arrived just in time to save humanity from extinction. They have kept Lilith and other survivors asleep for centuries, as they learned whatever they could about Earth. Now it is time for Lilith to lead them back to her home world, but life among the Oankali on the newly resettled planet will be nothing like it was before.The Oankali survive by genetically merging with primitive civilizations—whether their new hosts like it or not. For the first time since the nuclear holocaust, Earth will be inhabited. Grass will grow, animals will run, and people will learn to survive the planet's untamed wilderness. But their children will not be human. Not...

The acclaimed trilogy that comprises LILITH'S BROOD is multiple Hugo and Nebula award-winner Octavia E. Butler at her best. Presented for the first time in one volume, with an introduction by Joan Slonczewski, Ph.D., LILITH'S BROOD is a profoundly evocative, sensual -- and disturbing -- epic of human transformation.Lilith Iyapo is in the Andes, mourning the death of her family, when war destroys Earth. Centuries later, she is resurrected -- by miraculously powerful unearthly beings, the Oankali. Driven by an irresistible need to heal others, the Oankali are rescuing our dying planet by merging genetically with mankind. But Lilith and all humanity must now share the world with uncanny, unimaginably alien creatures: their own children. This is their story...Review"SHOWS THE AUTHOR AT THE HEIGHT OF HER IMAGINATIVE AND WRITING POWERS". -- Essence About the AuthorOctavia E. Butler was the first black woman to come to international prominence as a science fiction writer. Incorporating powerful, spare language and rich, well-developed characters, her work tackled race, gender, religion, poverty, power, politics, and science in a way that touched readers of all backgrounds. Butler was a towering figure in life and in her art and the world noticed; highly acclaimed by reviewers, she received numerous awards, including a MacArthur "genius" grant, both the Hugo and Nebula awards, the Langston Hughes Medal, as well as a PEN Lifetime Achievement award.

The complete Patternist series—Butler’s acclaimed vision of a world transformed by a secret race of telepaths and the violence, intolerance, and plague that follow their rise to powerIn the late seventeenth century, two immortals meet in an African forest. Anyanwu is a healer, a three-hundred-year-old woman who uses her wisdom to help those around her. The other is Doro, a malevolent despot who has mastered the power of stealing the bodies of others when his wears out. Together they will change the world. Over the next three centuries, Doro mounts a colossal selective breeding project, attempting to create a master race of telepaths. He succeeds beyond his wildest dreams, splitting the human race down the middle and establishing a new world order dominated by the most manipulative minds on Earth. In these four novels, Butler tells the story that began her legendary career: a mythic tale of the transformation of civilization.  This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.

The complete Patternist series: Butler’s acclaimed vision of a world transformed by a secret race of telepaths and the violence, intolerance, and plague that follow their rise to power. In the late seventeenth century, two immortals meet in an African forest. Anyanwu is a healer, a three-hundred-year-old woman who uses her wisdom to help those around her. The other is Doro, a malevolent despot who has mastered the power of stealing the bodies of others when his wears out. Together they will change the world. Over the next three centuries, Doro mounts a colossal selective breeding project, attempting to create a master race of telepaths. He succeeds beyond his wildest dreams, splitting the human race down the middle and establishing a new world order dominated by the most manipulative minds on Earth. In these four novels, Butler tells the story that began her legendary career: a mythic tale of the transformation of civilization. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.