Although the name contains the word “tint”, this is a black-and-white printing process aquatint plates can often be hand colored, however. By changing the areas of the plate that are exposed and the length of time the plate is submerged in the acid bath, the engraver can obtain fine and varying shades of gray that closely resemble watercolor washes.

Aquatint Copperplate process by which the plate is “bitten” by exposure to acid.

Barron, Anatomy of Wonder II:200.īook fine only lightest edge-wear to lovely about-fine dust jacket. In Butler's Patternist series, Wild Seed was issued following Patternmaster (1976), Mind of My Mind (1977), Survivor (1978), and before Clay's Ark (1984), yet is first in the series' internal chronology of: Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, Survivor and Patternmaster. First edition, first printing: with 'First Edition' stated on copyright page. It is as epic, as game-changing, as moving and brilliant as any science fiction novel ever written… Octavia Butler was a visionary' ( Los Angeles Times). In 2019 actress Viola Davis and her production company began developing a television series based on it. Wild Seed received the prestigious James Tiptree Jr. 'Butler's work 'pushes the genre to speak to our deepest, culturally burdened horrors as well as to our transcendent hopes' (Kilgore & Samantraim, Memorial, 353).

With Anyanwu 'we discover the inspiring force for all of Butler's heroines.' Butler's novel emerges in the turmoil of the Middle Passage as Anyanwu 'is transported on a slave ship to colonial America' and, as a telepath, 'senses the horror of slavery well before she actually witnesses its real-life horrors… Butler's concern with racism and sexism is a conscious part of her vision… Confronting this problem head on, Butler placed her heroines in worlds filled with racial and sexual obstacles, forcing her characters to survive and eventually overcome these societal barriers' (Salvaggio, Octavia Butler, 78). Here Butler links science fiction 'directly to the Black American slavery experience… a fundamental departure for science fiction as a genre' (Govan, 'Homage to Tradition,' 79). Wild Seed, chronologically the first book in Butler's groundbreaking Patternist series, begins in Africa where it introduces two godlike shapeshifters, Doro and Anyanwu, who give birth to the telepathic offspring of the series that also contains (in order of publication): Patternmaster (1976), Mind of My Mind (1977), Survivor (1978) and Clay's Ark (1984).

Octavo, original maroon paper boards, original dust jacket.įirst edition of a signal work in the Patternist series by award-winning African American author Octavia Butler, boldly inscribed by her, 'To M-A-Best wishes Octavia E. LINKS SCIENCE FICTION 'DIRECTLY TO THE BLACK AMERICAN SLAVERY EXPERIENCE': FIRST EDITION OF WILD SEED, INSCRIBED BY OCTAVIA BUTLERīUTLER, Octavia.

Octavia butler seed