This wonderful story crossed my dashboard, very appropriately, just in time for Christmas.
It has always been clear that Octavia Butler must have a pretty interesting view of God. She has never shied away from addressing questions of worship and spiritual community – such as in her Parable series, which follows the founder of a new religion in a swiftly declining United States of America.
In “The Book of Martha” – where Martha is clearly Butler herself, who we find in her home after pulling an all-nighter on a novel – explores how a person as complex as Butler sees divinity. What is a black, female science fiction author to do when God shows up looking like an old white man?
Probably not what you’d expect.
C. L. Kagmi 