I've been reading a lot of Octavia E. Butler lately -- an African American sci fi writer who put out a lot of great books starting in the 70s.
Just finished Kindred, in which a black woman from 1976 finds herself in Antebellum Maryland. It is so, so good.
I just started Kindred this week. I'm loving it so far. I don't normally like anything with a sci fi focus, but my husband forced me to try it anyway. I'm glad I relented and broadened my horizons.
It's so good, right? So much to ponder ... and it's really only tangentially sci-fi, which makes it easier to swallow if you are not a sci-fi fan usually.
I read a trilogy by her that was much more sci-fi-y and also BANANAS called the Xenogenesis Trilogy. Not sure if you would like it but it's really bizarre and thought-provoking ... after human armageddon, an alien species comes to save as much of humanity as it can, because its reason for existing is to collect and blend with other species. The trilogy describes what happens once the species start to mate and blend with each other.
Kind of amazing that all of this came out of one person's imagination!
Hear hear on
Kindred being great. I listened to an audiobook version on a road-trip last summer. The relationship between Rufus and Dana stuck with me. I will have to check out
Xenogenesis. It sounds a little like the book I am reading now,
The Cleft by Doris Lessing, mainly in that both books are about new products of conception moving along the evolutionary project. Lessing's version is a myth about the first males ever born, as recounted by a Roman historian. I can't recommend it wholeheartedly; it is a bit repetitive, out there, and simplistic (sophisticated-simplistic sometimes, simplistic-simplistic others). However, Doris Lessing is a master so when in the right frame of mind, I've enjoyed sinking into the weird little myth she created.
I also recently finished reading
Arcadia by Lauren Groff. A great little book about a person who grows up on a commune and witnesses its dissolution. It took me to some emotionally satisfying places, and had a great dialogue style, too.
Next up is visiting the works of Ms. O'Conner - I have an embarrassing experience deficiency with her work. I started listening to
Wise Blood on a road trip but didn't finish it. I'm excited to finally read it.