Fledgling, by Octavia Butler

Yay! I get to be first blogger in 2008.

The first Octavia Butler book I ever read was Kindred (fantastic), which then lead me to The Parable of the Sower, which was also a very cool book (although I never was able to get energized to read the follow up novel, The Parable of the Talents). The first (and best) female African-American author of science fiction, Butler writes science fiction novels that unflinchingly take on the issues of race, politics, gender, identity, and religion. She creates worlds that are not our own, but they are recognizable -- turns out the problems that dog us in this world are active in other worlds as well.

Fledgling is a vampire novel. A vampire novel! I can't tell you the last time I read a vampire story...maybe never, because really, who cares about vampires? Creepy night dwellers going around drinking blood, living forever...they don't seem real to me.

But last year, I got Courtney Dada to read Kindred, and she loved it, and then she went off and started reading other books by Butler, and then she brought this book to my attention. If I remember correctly, she said something like, "Oh, Ms. Fletcher. You HAVE to read this. It's SOOOO good." So one night I was at Borders with a gift certificate, and I thought, well, what the heck? I like Butler and I like Dada, so maybe I'll like vampires.

And I DO like vampires -- or at least I like Shori, a genetic experiment -- that is, a young, female, brown-skinned vampire whose dark skin helps her to tolerate the sun a little better and stay awake during the day -- who has been and continues to be the target of vicious attacks against her and her network of symbionts (humans who live in close, intense relationship with vampires, providing both blood and companionship). The novel opens with Shori broken and near death, regaining consciousness deep inside of a cave. She struggles toward life, slowly regaining strength but not her memory...and we learn along with her who she is and what has happened to her -- she is a vampire, an experimental brown-skinned vampire, and her entire family has been wiped out in a well orchestrated attack against the community -- her mother, her aunts, her entire female family of vampires and symbionts have been murdered, their property burnt to the ground. As she seeks to reconstruct her life, and build a new community of symbionts, she continues to be targeted, endangering the lives of the people around her. The book unfolds as we learn more about Shori, her family, and her enemies.

It was a tense and exciting read. It took me about three chapters to get hooked, but once I reached that point, I ended up reading until 3:00 a.m., and when I woke up again at 9:00 a.m., I read until I was finished. I liked it!

When I first started the book, I thought, "Maybe I could get this for my nephew for Christmas," but it didn't take long before I realized the book was far too sexual for me to give to a 13-year old reader. This is definitely for a mature reader -- nothing really explicit, but when a vampire feeds on its human symbiont, it is a very sexually charged experience -- and because symbionts may be male or female, an open mind would be best.