SOURCE: A review of Dawn and Adulthood Rites, in Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 23, No. 2, Summer, 1989, pp. 389-96.

In the following review, Newson discusses the subjects of Butler's Xenogenesis series, including prejudice and genetic arrangement.

It is a widespread myth that Blacks don't write or read science fiction. The myth is fed by the notion that they cannot afford to indulge in fantasy. Octavia Butler's latest works, Dawn and Adulthood Rites, prove that Blacks can ill afford to remain ignorant of the genre.

Dawn, Octavia Butler's seventh novel and the first in the Xenogenesis series, introduces new possibilities in the scientific realm of genetic arrangement coupled with observations about the conflicts between the sexes and racial groups. Her canon includes the novels Patternmaster (1975), Mind of My Mind (1977), Survivor (1978), Kindred (1979), Wild Seed (1980), and Clay's Ark (1984), which treat timescape, mutants, mental telepathy, and genetic rearranging through disease. Thematically they concern...