I am a huge nerd. Science fiction was one of my 1st loves [View all]

And Octavia E. Butler was a giant in my eyes.

I seemed to gravitate to female writers - Octavia Butler, Ursula Le Guin, Emma Bull, Anne McCaffery, etcetera etcetera... I enjoyed all of their work, but Octavia E. Butler was in her own league in my opinion.

I was just a white trash coal country hillbilly when I discovered her and it was her short stories that slapped my mind and started to wake my thoughts.

She made me imagine my way forward into her created worlds and backward into her life to attempt to understand what led her to take a particular path or make a particular choice in telling her story.

But beyond, and more important than, the deep thought and introspection she triggered in me was her voice - Clean clever prose. Precise word choices, nimble phrasing and entrancing story telling all in one writer. Novels Novellas and short stories she excelled at all of them.

Todays Google doodle reminded me that today was her birthday (and thank you Rogue Emissary for the OP pointing it out) and it struck me that I hadn't even thought of her since she passed.

Looks like I need to take a stroll over to my local Library.

Here is an article that points out that she was clairvoyant as well.

https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/octavia-butlers-prescient-vision-of-a-zealot-elected-to-make-america-great-again