Patternmaster by Octavia E. Butler
Patternmaster by
Octavia E. Butler
And so
it all ends. And it was so damn good! Okay, let me slow down and start with the
beginning of this book. The Clay’s Ark disease is running rampant. The only
people who exist now are those with the disease, those who hold the pattern and
the mutes being controlled. The Clayarks and Patternist are basically at war.
Teray is a son of the Patternmaster, Rayal, who is dying from the Clay’s Ark
disease. Coransee is also a son of Rayal and now sees Teray as his biggest
threat to obtaining the pattern once Rayal finally succumbs to the disease.
There
you have it. That is the backdrop for the final book in this series. I’m not
going to try and go into the details of this book because they are too vast and
I won’t be able to put into words everything going on, within the limits I want
this post to be. What I will say is that this was a satisfying finale. This
story spreads over hundreds of years. Many of the characters within the story
are never intertwined but they are vaguely mentioned and if you are familiar with
these books, then their presence is obvious. I kept wondering throughout if any
of the previous characters would intertwine more explicitly and honestly I like
that she didn’t. Each of these novels could easily stand on their own.
Interestingly enough that’s how this series began! Patternmaster was the first book released in this series but is the
last in the series chronologically. The story then moved to Mind of My Mind (chronologically the
second book), then Survivor
(chronologically fourth but a book she pulled from being published again
because she hated it. Of course I’m curious but it’s almost impossible to get
my hands on!) Fourth to be released was Wild
Seed (chronologically first) and the last book to be released was Clay’s Ark (chronologically third).
I’m
glad that my first experience reading this series was in the chronological
order. I absolutely loved the way these characters developed and how the story
was told. The world building blended and expanded beautifully with each book. I
gained more understanding of the how the pattern was formed and maintained
through each book. The introduction of the Clay’s Ark disease was a completely
unexpected twist that piqued my interest instantly and made me crave to know
the conclusion of the series. I will eventually read the series in the order it
was published because I’m curious to see what that reading experience would be
like.
This is
a series I would highly recommend. The topics and themes explored were
extraordinary. The concepts of slavery, control, freedom and maintaining
humanity were prevalent throughout the series, and the supernatural, magical
elements added so much depth to the story that it was easy to fall into the
story. I loved each of these book. I’m just upset it took me this long to read
them.
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