Ahead of their upcoming Roundtable seminar on the groundbreaking science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler’s final novel, Fledgling, we talked to acclaimed author Nisi Shawl — editor of the Library of America edition of Butler’s collected works — about creating plausible vampire stories, the prophetic nature of Butler’s writing, their close friendship, and much more.
How would you describe Butler’s work — and Fledgling in particular — to a curious reader who is new to sci-fi or horror?
Fledgling is a science fiction take on what is normally a horror trope: vampires. It’s about a biologically plausible model of a vampire, as opposed to somebody who’s upset by crosses and can turn into a bat. Most of what Octavia wrote was science fiction, with a couple of fantasies thrown in.
How does it differ from other vampire stories like Dracula or Twilight
Those are about supernatural vampires — creatures who sparkle like they’re covered in sequins. They’re totally implausible. Of course vampires don’t actually exist, but Octavia wrote one that came close to seeming plausible. I remember one time she and I were talking on the phone and she asked me, “What do vampires want?” This is the kind of question that writers ask each other. There’s no such thing as vampires — but if you’re writing from an empathetic point of view, you have to ask what vampires would want. I didn’t come up with the right answer for her. For her, the answer was that they would want to be able to go out in the sun. In the world of Fledgling, the vampire that Octavia was writing about — Shori — is Black. The genetic experiments that wound up giving her melanin helped her resist the sun. So she’s biologically Black — but culturally, she’s been raised as a vampire, not in the Black community at all. Most of the vampires in the Fledgling world — and in the vampire stories you mention — are very pale, European-looking people.
Fledgling was Butler’s final novel, and having edited the Library of America’s collected edition of Butler’s work, you have an intimate familiarity with it. How does it fit into the larger arc of her oeuvre?
It was a jumping off place for something new, which she unfortunately never got to pursue — she hadn’t quite done anything like this before. It has some similarities with Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, her two previous novels, in that it’s about one particular hero against all the odds.
Her work has taken on increased significance in recent years. She seems more and more relevant since she passed away. Why do you think that is?
We’re catching up with what she was thinking about. In science fiction, often people are writing about the present, but they’re also writing about the future — projecting and extrapolating how things might turn out. Her projections and extrapolations are coming to fruition — some of them not very happily. The trend toward privatized, militarized police forces, for instance. She foresaw the times that we’re in now. Maybe for this reason people who read her become, almost to the person, ardent fans. They return to her work again and again.
Who are some of the other writers who influenced her?
Samuel R. Delany was her instructor, and Harlan Ellison was a mentor to her. She loved his work. But a lot of her early work was influenced by comic books. That whole over-the-top aesthetic of superheroes and mutants absolutely colored her vision.
Butler is a monumental figure, and has taken on a nearly prophetic status for many of her readers in the years since her passing. But she was also a human being, and someone you knew personally. How has your friendship with Butler, the human being, affected your relationship to her writing?
The first time I met her was at a small science fiction convention. I had only read two or three of her short stories, so the first effect was to make me read everything. It wasn’t anything she said, it was just her presence. You used the word “monumental” — being in her presence was like walking around with a mountain. She was larger than life. I had my one fangirl moment when I met her, and after that I managed to treat her like a human being instead of a mythological creature. When I read her more deeply, I was not disappointed. The books were so beautiful and engaging.
What do you hope participants will take with them after they take this class?
I hope that the people who take this class develop a strong personal relationship with the story. Stories are never just what an author puts on paper. Stories are what happens when the reader encounters what the author puts on paper. I’m hoping that by examining and reflecting on Fledgling, they make the book more powerful for themselves and for the other readers who are part of the conversation.
Reading Octavia E. Butler with Nisi Shawl begins Thursday, February 16. Sign up today.