Octavia E. Butler: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations (The Last Interview Series)

I bought two copies one for my friend to read, and one for myself so that we could read it together and discuss it. Octavia Butler is an amazing author.!

Perfect gift for my husband who is a huge Octavia Butler fan. It was the only book I could safely buy that was about her that he didn't already own.

Octavia E. Butler: The Last Interviewand Other ConversationsI am so happy I read this book! Actually, I am happy and grateful. I first read Octavia Butler when my science fiction book club read Kindred a few years ago (we loved it but felt it was fantasy and not science fiction). I read her collection Bloodchild and Other Stories when I got it in a nebula award winning humble numbed and really enjoyed it. After that I would buy kindle editions of all of her series when the collected editions went on sale and I read and loved the Xenogenesis trilogy. But her other books stayed on my TBR shelf, getting passed over for newer things.So I was intrigued when I saw this collection of interviews with Octavia Butler on NetGalley - it seemed like a real sign from the universe.I have a secret to confess. I love afterwards/acknowledgments in books. I often (actually always) read them first because I love to know what an author was thinking when they wrote their book. So this collection was fantastic for me! It was like an entire book of acknowledgements!!! It helped me remember why I loved Ms. Butler’s writing and her way of thinking about the world. Since I finished this I’ve read Wild Seed and Parable of the Sower and I can’t wait to dive into the next Octavia Butler book on my virtual shelf. I highly recommend this book.

Octavia E. Butler: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations is a very well curated collection of recollections, interviews, and vignettes by/about/and featuring Octavia Butler. Released 19th Sept 2023 by Melville House, it's 192 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats.Octavia Butler was a powerhouse author and a brilliant human being. Her practicality and intelligence shine in these articles and interviews which span decades from her early career (1979 Thrust interview with Jeffrey Elliott) through a 2006 podcast shortly before her death. She is always articulate and well spoken and offers astute insights into human nature, speculative fiction, authors and the craft of creative writing, being a minority voice in an overwhelmingly white (at the time) field, and her lived experiences.This book is part of a series of Last Interviews with authors, cultural icons, writers, and musicians. The interviews included in this volume are arranged in roughly chronological order and give an interesting overview and some insights into ways her interactions changed over her career, or at least her interactions with interviewers. The introduction by Samuel R. Delany is warmly and respectfully written and adds a lot to the overall book.This is a short but vitally interesting collection for fans of the author, and would be a good choice for public or school library acquisition (along with the rest of the series), as well as for fans of the author's work and potentially for more formal classroom instruction.Five stars.

This collection of interviews provides great insight into the lives and works of Octavia Butler. I enjoyed hearing her speak with different interviewers and the different aspects of her life and work each interviewer focused on. If you are a fan of Octavia Butler, this text is helpful in providing further insight into her and what she was attempting to do in her work. Overall, I would highly recommend this book for anyone looking to learn more about one of the predominant scene fiction writers of our time.