(Amy) This is an odd book. It's like The Andromeda Strain in some ways; like Darwin's Radio in others. Mostly, though, it's like nothing I've seen before. Which is actually about par for the course for Octavia Butler, in my experience, and as usual, she does a wonderful job in exploring some of the personal ramifications of the changing of worlds.

I honestly can't think of a single thing beyond that to say about this. How's that for lameness?
( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/ze... ) ( )

Published 14 years and seven books after Patternmaster this one goes back to explain the enemies of the telepaths, humans who’ve been infected by an alien virus. Telepaths, at least as written by Butler in this series, make lousy protagonists. These people, struggling to retain some humanity, are more noble, more interesting. A minor character in Mind of My Mind, Clay Dana, telekinetic, creates a space drive and takes 13 people to Proxima Centauri. The dystopian future in this book is very similar to the future in Parable of the Sower ( )

Butler's characters are among the most complex and fascinating in contemporary science fiction, and this book is a short but gripping example. A father and his two daughters, one dying of leukemia, are abducted in a roadside attack by an off-the-grid village infected with an alien disease it takes all their self-control not to spread. Its side-effects give them strange powers: immunity to terrestrial illness, heightened speed and senses; but the children they raise in their hidden mountain enclave are not human, and their enhanced physical drives make avoiding murder and rape a daily struggle. The story is awash in complex, difficult-to-unravel moral situations, where you're unsure which side to be rooting for: do you side with the family struggling to escape, even if that escape might lead to a global epidemic? Does the society they live in *deserve* one? If the disease could cure his daughter's leukemia and let her live, is the father right to try to prevent her from contracting it? Are the half-alien children frightening merely because they are strange, or is there something more sinister in them? How much of your humanity can you sacrifice and still remain human? A strikingly thought-provoking, disturbing, and masterfully written novel. ( )

Science fiction at its best. ( )

A short seemingly simple story, but there is more to it. What makes us human? How much can we change, and still call ourselves human? Should we resist change? ( )