Octavia Butler Books in Chronological Order: Unveiling a Trailblazing Author's Bibliography, Biography and the best book

When Octavia E Butler was 10 years old, her mom bought her a typewriter so she could write.

Her mom didn’t get a good education but she made sure that her daughter gets enough material to read.

She thus brought magazines and books for young Octavia. Actually these were the same magazines and books that her white employers would throw away.

When young Octavia was writing a story she told her that she might become a writer someday and eventually it did happen.

Octavia E Butler rose to fame as a trailblazing science fiction writer who left an ineradicable mark on the literary world through her groundbreaking works.

Here in this article, bx-zone.com brings for you a complete list of Octavia E Butler’s books. This list presents you Octavia E Butler’s books in order of publication.

Publication order of Patternist Series

• Patternmaster (1976)
• Mind of My Mind (1977)
• Survivor (1978)
• Wild Seed (1980)
• Clay's Ark (1984)
• Seed to Harvest (2007)

Chronological order of Patternist Series

• Wild Seed (1980)
• Mind of My Mind (1977)
• Clay's Ark (1984)
• Survivor (1978)
• Patternmaster (1976)

Publication order of Xenogenesis Series

• Dawn (1987)
• Adulthood Rites (1988)
• Imago (1989)
• Xenogenesis (1989) (an omnibus edition of Dawn, Adulthood Rites, & Imago)
• Lilith's Brood (2000) (another omnibus edition of Dawn, Adulthood Rites, & Imago)

Publication order of Earthseed series (Parable series)

• Parable of the Sower (Four Walls, Eight Windows, 1993)
• Parable of the Talents (Seven Stories Press, 1998)

Publication order of Octavia E Butler’s Standalone novels

• Kindred (Doubleday, 1979)
• Fledgling (Seven Stories Press, 2005)

Publication order of short stories by Octavia E Butler

• Speech Sounds (1983)
• Blood Child (1984)
• The Evening and the Morning and the Night [short story] (1987)

Publication order of Short Story collections

• Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995)
• Unexpected Stories (2014)

Publication order of Anthologies

• Nebula Awards 20 (1985)
• Terry Carr's Best Science Fiction of the Year 14 (1985)
• The Norton Book of Science Fiction (1993)
• Omni Visions One (1993)
• Invaders! (1993)
• Visions of Fear (1994)
• Women of Wonder (1995)
• New Eves (1995)
• The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women (1995)
• Future on Ice (1998)

Chapbooks

• The Evening and the Morning and the Night (1991)

Non Fiction

• Conversations with Octavia Butler (2009)

Incomplete novels of Octavia E Butler

• I Should Have Said... (memoir, 1998)
• Paraclete (2001)
• Spiritus (2001)
• Parable of the Trickster (1990s-2000s)

Unpublished stories and novels

• To the Victor (1965)
• Loss (1967)
• Blindsight (1978)

Who is Octavia E Butler?

Octavia E. Butler was an african-american author who wrote primarily in the genre of science fiction.

She is the writer of the popular Patternist series and Xenogeneis series. Her novellete Bloodchild received Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novelette while her short story Speech Sounds received Hugo award for Best short story which rose her to prominence.

Butler was influenced by a schlocky B-movie Devil Girl from Mars to start writing after watching which she thought that she could write a better story. She went to attend community college during the Black power movement.

Octavia’s mother supported her passion to write fiction.

She even gave up the money she had been saving for some dental fixing to pay Octavia’s fees so she could attend the Clarion science fiction writers workshop.

But still she wanted Butler to take up the job of a secretary to earn a regular income.

However, the writer Octavia had some other plans. She took a series of temporary jobs with less demanding work so that she could focus more on writing.

Butler attended a writing workshop that was for minority writers where she met Harlan Ellison, a renowned science-fiction author. Ellison encouraged her to attend the 6-week Clairon Science fiction writers workshop in Clarion, Pennsylvania.

Here is where she sold her first two stories for anthologies and she continued writing novels for the next five years which were later known as the ‘Patternist series’.

Her hardwork paid off soon because in 1978, she left all her temporary jobs to become a full-time writer which she always wanted to be.

Butler finally rose to fame with the release of her short story Speech Sounds. Speech Sounds won the Hugo award.

What added value to her fame as a writer was her novellete Blood Child receiving Hugo award in 1985.

She travelled to South America to visit Amazon rainforest and Andes to perform research for her new novels series that was later known as the Xenogenesis trilogy.

In the 1990s, the release of the 2 novels of the Parable series - Parable of the Sower, and Parable of the Talents that won the Science Fiction writers of America's Nebula Award for Best Science novel gave further recognition to Butler pushing her into the list of the renowned female writers America has ever produced.

Butler planned for 4 more novels in the Parable series but because the depression she suffered while performing the research for them she switched to writing a new kind of fiction.

This became her last novel Fledgling which was a combination of science fiction and vampire fiction.

Which is the best book of Octavia E. Butler?

Butler has written some excellent science fiction but by far her best novel is Kindred released in 1979.

Kindred cannot be restricted to only one genre as it crosses genre boundaries.

Kindred gives you time-travel experienced several times by an african-american woman who is married to a white man.

And it gives you slavery too as Dana (the protagonist) goes back to an early 19th century period of antebellum slavery where she meets her ancestors, a proud Black woman who is forced into slavery by a white planter and a young white boy who she saves from drowning in a river.

Octavia E. Butler put two interracial couples at the core of the story and based it on slavery narratives.

The novel explores the issues of race, gender and unfair use of power during the slavery period.

Kindred by Octavia Butler stole so much spotlight that it went on to become a recommended text in community-wide reading programs, middle schools, high schools and universities across the United States.

If you’re wondering which Octavia E Butler’s book should you read first then you should begin with Kindred.

Conclusion: Octavia E Butler books in order

Butler’s father died when she was 7.

Butler attributes her success as a writer to her mother’s struggles.

She would often accompany her mother to work and it hit her at the core when they had to enter through the back door into the wealthy houses where she worked.

Butler through her novels hit the issues of injustice towards african-americans, global warming, political disparity and women’s rights in the society which is why she became one of the pioneering female writers of all time.

Which book of Octavia E. Butler have you ready already? Have you read Kindred already?

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