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posted by martyb on Sunday December 18 2016, @01:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the fact-following-fiction dept.

Wired has a recent article about author Octavia Butler and how her work presaged the "Make America Great" again campaign.

Octavia Butler, who died in 2006, was the author of such visionary science fiction novels as Kindred, The Parable of the Sower, and Dawn. Gerry Canavan, who just published a book-length study of Butler, describes her as one of the greatest writers of her era.

"I think you'd put her up there with Philip K. Dick and Le Guin and Delany and these other people who really made an impact on the way that science fiction circulates," Canavan says in Episode 234 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "Especially that mode of literary science fiction that's somewhere in the middle between genre fiction and prize-winning novels, she has to be top two, top three in that list."

Butler made headlines this year when fans noted that her 1998 novel The Parable of the Talents features a fascist politician who rises to power by promising to "make America great again." The comparisons to Donald Trump are obvious, but Canavan says the character was actually inspired by Ronald Reagan.

[...] Butler had a singularly dark imagination, and often had to do multiple rewrites in order to tell her stories in a way that readers would find palatable. But Canavan says that in the current political climate, Butler's dim view of humanity is starting to seem ever more relevant.

"She often thought about how easy it would be for everything to just kind of go back to the way it was," he says. "That the things that seemed like they were permanent progress were really just a kind of epiphenomenon of the wealth of the United States in the latter half of the 20th century, and that when that fell apart, all the bad days would come back again."


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by opinionated_science on Sunday December 18 2016, @07:04PM

    by opinionated_science (4031) on Sunday December 18 2016, @07:04PM (#442749)

    agreed. Though I'm sort of waiting to see how Trump's picks work out. On the face of it I no longer trust the media as there is simply no objective analysis, just loads of opinion re-enforced by constant bickering.

    I must say I was impressed by his State pick - though curious why he didn't go to Energy....I saw an interview with him back in 2011 (C.Rose) and he articulated some very logical and pragmatic opinions about energy futures.

    In short, oil will run out , renewables are unreliable, we should build nuclear.

    I think we should be reminded that all his picks can be fired - and they still need to be confirmed.

    Perhaps if we learnt one thing from this election, is that dogmatic party boundaries are insufficient in the 21st century.

    If your local representative doesn't think he/she can be voted out, they'll do what the hell they like...

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