A review by sergek94
Mind of My Mind by Octavia E. Butler

dark reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

 

In a Southern Californian town bustling with what you would call normal human beings, a girl called Mary, who is pretty much anything but normal, is being raised. She is one of the thousands of results of a breeding experiment being undertaken by an immortal man named Doro,who, thanks to a rare mutation in his genes, was able to tap into psychic powers that allows him to transfer his consciousness from one body to the next, which has given him an unlimited lifespan. For thousands of years, Doro has been wandering this earth, firstly trying to mentally consume regular humans around him to satisfy his unending hunger, but at some point in his life, he began to develop a vision of forming his very own society, a society of people blessed with this psychic ability, his very own large "family" he would be the head of.In order to do so, Doro had to cherry pick people who have inklings of these psychic powers and have them mate in order to reproduce and bring about more and more children who would eventually grow up and mate with other people of their kind, hence creating a highly concentrated genetic pool of people with powerful psychic abilities they can use to bend humanity to their will, while also ultimately submitting to Doro's authority.

Following a snippet of Mary's journey in this book allows us to further delve into the central theme Butler seems to be exploring in the Patternmaster series, the value of free will and what it means, and how human beings can react when that free will is forcibly taken away from them.Mary is by far the most successful "experiment" Doro was able to breed, since she not only has very similar psychic powers to Doro, but she's also proficient in telepathy, being able to mentally connect with other psychics and bind them to her, irreversibly placing them under her mental mercy.Whatever she wills, the people bound to her must do, and if they resist her, she can easily kill them just by releasing that thought. Not only that, but once Mary discovers these powers, she begins developing an insatiable hunger for expanding her influence, wanting to bring more and more people into this mental "pattern" she's building.In this book, we explore how Mary's victims react to her psychic intrusions, and the struggles they deal with accepting that Mary will always have dominance over their free will, and the only two things they can do is to either give in, or die.As for Doro, he finds himself increasingly alienated from the empire he himself began building, since he doesn't have the power of telepathy and is ultimately shut out from the mental pattern Mary keeps creating with thousands of people. He expects Mary to be in a constant state of subservience towards him, but how long will Mary manage to not get drunk from her own power?

 Octavia Butler's writing style is very heavy in theme exploration, and the plot and characterization are secondary components that help drive the central theme forward. In this book, we go a few thousand years back from the first book that was published in the series. Here, human beings still ruled the world, but the Patternmasters, who would inevitably become the ultimate rulers and enslave regular human beings and reduce them to mere servants, have begun establishing their dominions within human society, thanks to Mary's psychic expansion. I'm still glad I chose to read this series in publication order as opposed to chronological order, since it's interesting to see how the seeds to that desolate world we read about in Patternmaster are beginning to be planted here, thanks to Mary. Octavia Butler's authorial voice is a bit distant and remote, which adds a bleak atmosphere to the narrative and a sharp cruel edge to the unpleasant events that happen, those little moments where people know that their freedom has been snatched away, and that the only thing they can do to avoid death is to bend their heads down and accept ultimate submission and the loss of autonomy, and learn to like it.This theme closely parallels the same phenomena that takes place in our human societies, where the norm is for people to bow down to a power they feel like they can never win against. The hierarchical nature of human society is given spotlight, and there is no egalitarianism here. Through Mary, we get to see the same person experience both sides of the coin. She is in control of thousands of people who learn to follow her like sheep, yet she also finds herself forced to submit to Doro's authority.

An interesting novel that serves as a prequel to the first novel published in the series. I'm curious to see how the next one in this series will be, and I recommend this to fans of Sci-fi who are into theme heavy explorations, and not necessarily an extraordinary plot or character work.


 “Could a creature who had to look upon ordinary people literally as food and shelter ever understand how strongly those people valued life?”

----------------------------------
You can also read my thoughts on:

#1. Patternmaster (Patternmaster, #4) by Octavia E. Butler.
----------------------------------