I waited far too long to read Kindred by Octavia Butler, and I was riveted from the first page. Time travel meets slave narrative in this modern science fiction classic. When Dana, a modern Black woman from 1976, gets transported to the antebellum south in order to save one of her white ancestors, she preserves her own history. But it doesn’t end there. As she keeps getting pulled back to the past, her trips grow more and more dangerous, and Dana must figure out how to survive in a reality far more terrifying than the history books ever suggested. If you still need a push to read Kindred, listen to Volume II Episode III of One Great Book.

I revisited this modern classic for the first time in over a decade this month! I'm stunned once again by how modern Butler's 1993 dystopian novel feels today. This series—a planned trilogy that was never completed—is the most realist of Butler's fiction. The setting is California, 2026, where a Black teenager named Lauren struggles for survival in a world gone to pieces, ravaged by climate change and drug abuse of epidemic proportions. Despite the overwhelming and terrifying obstacles she faces, Lauren isn't ready to give up yet, and bands together with a group of fellow travelers to head north in search of rumored safety, with the hopes of founding a colony for her Earthseed religion. Utterly gripping, and a great introduction to Butler's work.

Hugo and Nebula award–winning author Octavia E. Butler's sweeping cross-century epic places her "among the best of contemporary science fiction writers" (Houston Chronicle). From the publisher: "As the acclaimed Patternist science fiction series begins, two immortals meet in the long-ago past. For a thousand years, Doro has cultivated a small African village, carefully breeding its people in search of seemingly unattainable perfection. But when a gang of New World slavers destroys his village, Doro is forced to go west and begin anew. He meets Anyanwu, a shapeshifter, capable of healing with a kiss. Though many humans have tried to kill them, these two demi-gods have never before met a rival. Now they begin a struggle that will last centuries and permanently alter the nature of humanity."

Part time-travel tale, part slave narrative. From the publisher: "More than 35 years after its release, Kindred continues to draw in new readers. Octavia E. Butler's bestselling literary science-fiction masterpiece, adapted in graphic novel format. Held up as an essential work in feminist, science-fiction, and fantasy genres, and a cornerstone of the Afrofuturism movement, and adapted by celebrated academics and comics artists Damian Duffy and John Jennings, this graphic novel powerfully renders the story of Dana, a young black woman who is suddenly and inexplicably transported from her home in 1970s California to the pre–Civil War South. As she time-travels between worlds, one in which she is a free woman and one where she is part of her own complicated familial history on a southern plantation, she becomes frighteningly entangled in the lives of Rufus, a conflicted white slaveholder and one of Dana’s own ancestors, and the many people who are enslaved by him."

I just talked about author Octavia Butler on a recent episode of One Great Book. This is her classic science fiction Patternist series. From the publisher: "In the late seventeenth century, two immortals meet in an African forest. Anyanwu is a healer, a three-hundred-year-old woman who uses her wisdom to help those around her. The other is Doro, a malevolent despot who has mastered the power of stealing the bodies of others when his wears out. Over the next three centuries, Doro mounts a colossal selective breeding project, attempting to create a master race of telepaths. He succeeds beyond his wildest dreams, splitting the human race down the middle and establishing a new world order dominated by the most manipulative minds on Earth."

From the publisher: "Featuring strong and compelling characters and exploring complex themes of gender and species, Octavia E. Butler presents a powerful, postapocalyptic interplanetary epic, as well as a ray of hope for humanity. Lilith Iyapo has just lost her husband and son when atomic fire consumes Earth—the last stage of the planet's final war. An alien race calls on one woman to revive mankind after Earth’s apocalypse in this science fiction classic from the award-winning author of <em>Parable of the Sower</em>. They have kept Lilith and other survivors asleep for centuries, as they learned whatever they could about Earth. For the first time since the nuclear holocaust, Earth will be inhabited. Grass will grow, animals will run, and people will learn to survive the planet’s untamed wilderness. But their children will not be human. Not exactly."