The responsibility of the powerful to the powerless is the continuing theme of science-fiction writer Octavia E. Butler. Creating worlds of the future and visions of the past no more intrinsically humane than our own society, Butler peoples her novels with characters of seemingly limitless psychic abilities who must learn to master themselves as much as any outside force that threatens them. It is her handling of these timeless themes that has won her work virtually universal acclaim by critics and fans of science fiction and that promises to attract a wide audience among general readers as well.

Octavia Estelle Butler was born in Pasadena, California. An only child, her father died when she was still a baby, and she was reared by her mother, grandmother, and other relatives in southern California. Her own experience accounts for the positive treatment of such adoptive relationships in all of her...