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[book post] Mind of My Mind by Octavia Butler
I've already Tumblr'd some pithy liveblogs on this one, but, basically? If you're into moral/power-level quandaries around "so if mind-readers/empaths/telepaths were actually real, how would they cope with being in the world, and also, how would people cope with them, would freedom become impossible, etc"—this book should be extremely your jam.
The pitch: Mary is a young (18-20ish iirc?) biracial woman growing up in a poor LA neighborhood. She also happens to be the result of one of Doro's many experiments—Doro being this creepy immortal motherfucker with some busted-ass powers, and some blind determination to breed a superhuman race of telepaths, which involves a lot of awfulness and coercion and a very busy travel schedule on his part. (It's not like he's locking people in labs or anything; he's content to keep people on a long leash—but like, if you're a psychic, he's probably gonna knock you up at some point and then take the resulting kid away, that's just how it goes.)
At the book's start, Mary is right on the cusp of awakening her psychic powers (most people who are gonna become psychic have a transition around the 16-22 age rage)—and when she does, not only is she super good at telepathy, she also has the ability to control other telepaths. Which she does by accident, calling a cohort of six other extremely powerful telepaths from all across North America, who are then psychically compelled to gather in her cute suburban LA house.
What could go wrong.
Most of the novel's structure is spent flipping between each of these psychics, and they're all delightful, each illustrating some fun new quirk or weakness or cool-usage-of-psychic-powers. There's the psychic whose brother is a "latent", a psychic who's never been able to properly manifest or control his powers—which is a horrible fate; you're constantly picking up the thoughts and feelings of everyone around you, but you struggle to separate them and me, and you have violent seizures all the time. So this psychic moves to middle-of-nowhere Arizona with his bro, in a desperate hope that maybe they'll be able to live a quiet life out there. Then there's the psychic who can do healing with her powers, so she runs a lowkey grift as a charismatic "faith healer" preacher somewhere in New York: healing members of her congregation occasionally, taking their money always, but like, not too much, now. She just wants a nice house and some nice things and definitely no media attention. There's also the dude who just uses his powers to be the violent bully-king of a nothing town in central Pennsylvania. And there's a woman whose boyfriend beats her, because it turns out, even with badass psychic powers, you can convince yourself you deserve to be hit. (Oof, on that one.)
This book is more about more worldbuilding and nifty character vignettes than it is anything particularly plotty. The conclusion is so inevitable and has so few hiccups along the way that the narrative has no actual tension. But, that worldbuilding! (the creepiness of them slowly becoming more and more like a hivemind!) and those vignettes! Those, for me, were well worth the price of admission, and I had a lovely time. (Also there's only one Patternist fic on AO3? One?! I want like fifty more fics of "so uh what's it like forming an awkward unwilling impromptu commune with all your fellow psychics, like, are there any arguments over who gets to put their toothbrush in the clutch spot by the sink, also what does Rachel even see in Jesse because they jumped into the sheets with each other within twenty-four hours of meeting like that's some opposites-attract nonsense in a hurry"... Yuletide 2k21 here I come.)
The pitch: Mary is a young (18-20ish iirc?) biracial woman growing up in a poor LA neighborhood. She also happens to be the result of one of Doro's many experiments—Doro being this creepy immortal motherfucker with some busted-ass powers, and some blind determination to breed a superhuman race of telepaths, which involves a lot of awfulness and coercion and a very busy travel schedule on his part. (It's not like he's locking people in labs or anything; he's content to keep people on a long leash—but like, if you're a psychic, he's probably gonna knock you up at some point and then take the resulting kid away, that's just how it goes.)
At the book's start, Mary is right on the cusp of awakening her psychic powers (most people who are gonna become psychic have a transition around the 16-22 age rage)—and when she does, not only is she super good at telepathy, she also has the ability to control other telepaths. Which she does by accident, calling a cohort of six other extremely powerful telepaths from all across North America, who are then psychically compelled to gather in her cute suburban LA house.
What could go wrong.
Most of the novel's structure is spent flipping between each of these psychics, and they're all delightful, each illustrating some fun new quirk or weakness or cool-usage-of-psychic-powers. There's the psychic whose brother is a "latent", a psychic who's never been able to properly manifest or control his powers—which is a horrible fate; you're constantly picking up the thoughts and feelings of everyone around you, but you struggle to separate them and me, and you have violent seizures all the time. So this psychic moves to middle-of-nowhere Arizona with his bro, in a desperate hope that maybe they'll be able to live a quiet life out there. Then there's the psychic who can do healing with her powers, so she runs a lowkey grift as a charismatic "faith healer" preacher somewhere in New York: healing members of her congregation occasionally, taking their money always, but like, not too much, now. She just wants a nice house and some nice things and definitely no media attention. There's also the dude who just uses his powers to be the violent bully-king of a nothing town in central Pennsylvania. And there's a woman whose boyfriend beats her, because it turns out, even with badass psychic powers, you can convince yourself you deserve to be hit. (Oof, on that one.)
This book is more about more worldbuilding and nifty character vignettes than it is anything particularly plotty. The conclusion is so inevitable and has so few hiccups along the way that the narrative has no actual tension. But, that worldbuilding! (the creepiness of them slowly becoming more and more like a hivemind!) and those vignettes! Those, for me, were well worth the price of admission, and I had a lovely time. (Also there's only one Patternist fic on AO3? One?! I want like fifty more fics of "so uh what's it like forming an awkward unwilling impromptu commune with all your fellow psychics, like, are there any arguments over who gets to put their toothbrush in the clutch spot by the sink, also what does Rachel even see in Jesse because they jumped into the sheets with each other within twenty-four hours of meeting like that's some opposites-attract nonsense in a hurry"... Yuletide 2k21 here I come.)
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Fledgling I found p jarring because it was like "hey let's talk about assimilation and the commodification of Black women's bodies and how fucking creepy people are about prepubescent girls. By having a hopelessly naive amnesiac biracial vampire with the body of a 12-year-old whammy a bunch of adults into joining her harem." It was, uh... not my thing, but I have to admire Butler consistently just going for it, like, laying out her thesis in the most complicated and horny way. Very "THIS IS TERRIBLE but isn't it also HOT? Isn't it hot how terrible this is???"
...Anyway this one sounds possibly more my speed so I'll see if the library has it, ty for the review!
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Based solely off that review, I'd hazard that Mind of My Mind proooobably strikes a more even balance—while it's worldbuildy, I definitely wouldn't describe it as info-dump-y, and it feels nicely focused overall. Hope it's your jam when/if you read!
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i-i-i mean for the worldbuilding, sure. : P
(you have no idea how much i grinned at delight at your liveblog, knowing exactly how much that trope is your jam. >:) )
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