Gregory J. Hampton Kendra R. ParkerThe Bloomsbury Handbook to Octavia E. Butler

Abstract

585 BOOKS IN REVIEW bear the imprint of Butler’s wider interest in bioscience, evident in her science fiction published both before and after Kindred” (128). More than a decade after John Rieder’s “On Defining SF, or Not” (2010), it feels strange to hear that qualifying as sf requires explicit references to particular scientific theories or enabling technologies. Nonetheless, Biofictions makes an overwhelming case that the science of genetics and its ongoing conceptualization of race have been heavily shaped by fictional visions. Gill’s book makes clear literature’s inextricability from genetic biology’s racial significance, and as a result, will likely strengthen its readers’ antiracist resolve. That is an interdisciplinary vision that should be welcome on any campus tour.—Everett Hamner, Western Illinois University Butler in Three Acts. Gregory J. Hampton and Kendra R. Parker, eds. The Bloomsbury Handbook to Octavia E. Butler. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. 312 pp. $175.00 hc, $157.50 ebk. It is difficult to deny Octavia E. Butler’s immense influence on the genre of science fiction. From her earliest fiction, she changed the genre and the ways in which readers interpret their contemporary world. In their introduction, editors Gregory J. Hampton and Kendra R. Parker acknowledge this impact and encourage those interested in Butler to push boundaries (as Butler often did) and to see how her fiction extends out past traditional literary scholarship. What makes this collection unique is best iterated by contributor Kitty Dunkley, who poignantly concludes her piece with the observation that after nearly twenty years, “Only now might we discover that, perhaps, we are finally ready for Octavia E. Butler” (114). Both as a writer and as a friend, Butler was someone to cherish, as evident in Sandra Y. Govan’s Foreword, a curious mix of personal and professional tales that allows the reader a more intimate view of Butler. Since Hampton and Parker divide their collection into three parts as a homage to Butler’s XENOGENESIS trilogy (1987-1989), this review considers the essays in their assigned location, as acts of scholarship. In chapter one of the first section, “Dawn,” Steven Barnes discusses Butler’s reliance on “biological research” (11) to recognize human beings as an inherently hierarchical society for whom difference results in a false sense of superiority both for individuals and for the species as a whole. Continuing the theme of the hierarchal nature of humankind, Heather Thaxter utilizes Butler’s PATTERNIST series (1976-1984) to lead readers through an intriguing look at Butler’s obsession with telepathy and immortality. In chapter three, Sami Schalk uses Butler’s story “The Evening and the Morning and the Night” (1987) to urge black disability studies to adopt an “expansive crip theoretical understanding of disability and ability as a system of privilege and oppression” (49), and to take account of other marginalized groups as well. Joe Heidenescher’s chapter four considers consent and free will in “Bloodchild” (1984) and “Amnesty” (2003) through a Marxist lens. Chapters five through eight encompass “the possibilities of Butler’s fiction” (5) in the next section, “Adulthood Rites,” and offer various techniques to comprehend, teach, and expand the reach of Butler’s fiction. In chapter five, 586 SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 48 (2021) Parker takes on metaphorical vampirism in Butler’s XENOGENESIS trilogy, theorizing that the vampire figure and the language surrounding it are ways to examine the loss of identity as a result of “miscegenation, invasion, and unfamiliar sexual communities” (73). Continuing with XENOGENESIS, Dunkley analyzes the trilogy as it relates to how humanism intersects with the Other, relying heavily on concepts such as Rosi Braidotti’s critical posthumanism, Homi Bhabha’s mimicry and third-space, and Gloria Anzaldúa’s mestiza. The next two chapters cover the teaching of and discourse on colonialism in Butler’s oeuvre. Aparajita Nanda provides insight into and techniques to teach colonialism through the XENOGENESIS trilogy and encourages the inclusion of the trilogy in sf courses, while Hampton comments on colonialism and identity in “Bloodchild,” Dawn (1987), and Survivor (1978) through the lens of Aimé Césaire’s concept of Négritude and his play A Tempest (1969). The last section, “Imago,” includes essays that “present mental images...