The SFWA has details of a tribute to the sadly missed writer Octavia Butler coming up on Thursday 1st of March at 7pm at the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library. Regular readers will recall how shocked the SF&F community was last year at Octavia’s untimely and sudden death. I’m sad to say her work remains less well known than it should be to many readers – she is one of those writers you hear about and, if you are lucky, ‘discover’ for yourself at some point in your reading life (and there are few simpler and finer pleasures than finding a brilliant author for the first time, opening your eyes and your mind, as your curiosity takes you away from the well trodden paths of the 3 for 2 offers on the same books you see in every store, down the dusty aisles for something different, something better) with her books not so easy to spot on UK bookshelves.
After her death last year I felt compelled to go back to some of her work and found myself reading though the Gollancz ‘yellow jacket’ edition of Wild Seed and marvelling at her skill again. That’s one of the good things about a good writer; we may lose the person but their books are still there, waiting patiently to be discovered by new readers as the years go past; someone out there is going to pick up one of Octavia’s books for the first time and I almost envy them that simple pleasure. She is one of those rare writers you want to take with you as you travel through life.
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