These books are excellent. I very much enjoyed the first two books, in which the psychic abilities of a group of people increase due to enforced selective breeding. The person doing the enforcing, Doro, is amazingly understanding of his subjects yet cold. This particularly shows through contrast with Anyanwu, the woman who causes him such struggle. The third book I found disappointing. I didn't understand what link it had to the previous books. In a way, I suppose it didn't have one: it had a link to the fourth book. Where in the first two books the patternists appear, people with psychic abilities that are tied to each other in a psychic pattern, in the third book their antagonists are explained, the so-called Clayarks. The Clayarks are based on humans as well, but through a disease are impervious to most of the patternists abilities. The fourth book, which I understand was the first one written, ties both groups together in a struggle for resources. On top of that, the patternists struggle amongst themselves, when their leader is about to die...

I thought Butler's characterization had something distant about it, since a lot revolved about an almost rational struggle. This by no means stopped me from being engaged in the story. In this way, it reminds of John Wyndham's writing. The stories were most intriguing and raised a lot of issues surrounding slavery and free will that are relevant to this day. ( )

First the non-spoilers.

If you cruise the reviews you'll see a lot of discussion about the preferred reading order of the books in this collection. Some say publication order but I disagree and the story order presented in this collection is what I suggest. Events and themes Butler presents in the first two books affected my interpretation of the themes in the second two books.

I found the first book to be the most challenging for me primarily because of the theme. Butler is pretty blunt and brutal in her use of slavery and I had to put the book down from time-to-time in order to think about it before I was willing to continue.

*****OK. Now for some spoilers.*****

I'm pretty ignorant of the history of slavery outside of what is typically presented in US schools and whatever else I've picked up afterwards. Butler quickly sets it up in the first book with Doro. He eagerly enslaves people for his selective breeding program over the centuries. Most of his subjects either willingly agree or reluctantly agree when they discover that it's either that or die since there's almost no way to escape from Doro. He even gets another potential immortal, Anyanwu, to assist him.

In the second book the slavery theme continues but now the enslaved people find a way to adapt and then begin enslaving others to fulfill the "Pattern".

The third book is why I believe this collection is the best order. We find out about what will later be called the Clayarks disease and I see it as another form of enslavement except this time it's by an extraterrestrial organism. The infected people don't like it but they are forced to enslave others. They initially try to do it in a way that will have a minimal affect on the human population but that eventually fails. I think it's an interesting contrast to the slavery theme presented in the first two books.

By the time the fourth book starts most of the human race is enslaved by the Pattern or by the Clayarks disease. Some people are independents but even they are often forced to choose.

There are other themes like gender but the slavery one was the most powerful to me. It's disturbing to me to think about how casual people were about slavery and about how some seem to cast it aside as if it were just an historical footnote even though it's still happening. ( )

A gyűjtemény címe "The Complete Patternist Series" ami kissé meglepő módon a Patternist sorozat öt könyve közül csak négyet tartalmaz, mert az ötödikkel utólag nagyon elégedetlen volt az író. A könyveket kronológiai (és nem publikációs) sorrendben olvastam.

Wild Seed

Egy utólag írt előzményregény, ahol két különleges képességekkel rendelkező karakter élettörténetét ismerjük meg. A két szereplő tényleg érdekes, a többi karakter is izgalmas, de a kb. évszázadonként előreugró történet egy idő után eléggé repetitívnek tűnt.

Mind of My Mind

Ennek a könyvnek az előzményregénye volt a Wild Seed. Csak pár évvel írta korábban a szerző, mégis gyengébbnek éreztem az írás minőségét, a viszonylag kevés karaktert is folyamatosan összekevertem, ráadásul a korábbi regényben megismert két karakter is sokkal kevésbé tűnt itt fontosnak, mint az előző regény alapján vártam.

Clay's Ark

Ez a könyv egy teljesen új történet, látszólag semmi köze az előző két regényhez (kivéve a könyv végét). Egy korrekt módon megírt regény, ami egy új csoportot mutat be, csak éppen az nem világos, hogy miért is fontos az a csoport.

Patternmaster

Az időrendben utolsó regényt írta Butler legelőször, itt érnek össze a szálak, nagyon leegyszerűsítve, az első két regénynek megismert csoport (akiket jobban megismerünk) küzd a harmadik regény csoportjával (akik inkább csak az arctalan ellenség szerepét töltik be).

Összefoglalva engem túlzottan nem fogott meg ez a regénysorozat, a korábbi regények nincsenek túl jól megírva, a későbbiek pedig csak előzményregények amelyek önmagukban nem állnak meg. Ha valakit érdekel ez a sorozat, akkor szerintem az elsőként megírt Patternmastert érdemes elolvasni, és csak akkor továbbmenni, ha az nagyon tetszett. ( )

Octavia E. Butler is by far one of the best Sci-fi authors I've had the pleasure to discover. This series is no different. Following generations expertly, keeping the focal character at any given point absolutely engaging, and then daring to erase them is a feat not often achievable in fiction. Yet she does it with style and grace.
Superb. ( )

I didn't really like the second and third books, but the first and last were good ( )