Wild Seed

 Wild Seed (1980) by Octavia E. Butler

Synopsis (from the back of the book); In an "epic, game-changing, moving and brilliant" (Viola Davis) story of love and hate, two immortals chase each other across continents and centuries, binding their fates together--and changing the destiny of the human race. Doro knows no higher authority than himself. An ancient spirit with boundless powers, he possesses humans, killing without remorse as he jumps from body to body to sustain his own life. With a lonely eternity ahead of him, Doro breeds supernaturally gifted humans into empires that obey his every desire. He fears no one--until he meets Anyanwu. Anyanwu is an entitity like Doro and yet different. She can heal with a bite and transform her own body, mending injuries and reversing aging. She uses her powers to cure her neighbors and birth entire tribes, surrounding herself with kindred who both fear and respect her. No one poses a true threat to Anyanwu--until she meets Doro. The moment Doro meets Anyanwu, he covets her; and from the villages of 17th-century Nigeria to 19th-century United States, their courtship becomes a power struggle that echoes through generations, irrevocable changing what it means to be human.

First things first--it's amazing how blurb writers can make one little mistake and change the plot of a book. Doro and Anyanwu are not chasing each other across continents and centuries. Doro sees Anyanwu, wants to mold her like he's molded countless generations, blackmails her--using her children as collateral, and then stalks her when she dares to leave him after a couple of centuries. Anyanwu does nothing but try heal and help her people--and while she bides her time under Doro's control, his people as well. She never chases him anywhere. 

Doro, for all his talk about how he wants to create better humans, is for all intents and purposes a destroyer--a user and an abuser. He abuses the vast power he has and, when a particular instrument (read any of his people) is no longer useful to him he destroys it. He can't leave it alone and move on--he has to get rid of it. As Anyanwu tells him (despite his protests to the contrary), he doesn't just kill to survive, he doesn't just kill because it's the nature of what he is. He enjoys it too much and he kills those that he has no need to. 

Anyanwu is a healer. It's who she is and what she must do. And it takes three centuries for Doro to begin to understand her...and to understand how much he and his people really need her. Not just the power she has, not just her ability to bear children with that power or variations of that power--but her and what she is and what she represents. 

This is a terrific book that tackles difficult topics--everything from slavery and free-will to gender and gender roles, from "civilization" versus "savagery" to what makes us truly human. Good speculative fiction has always addressed heavy topics and gotten away with it because it's been dressed up as alien and happening to someone or something far removed from the current day. Great speculative fiction can do the same thing and make it absolutely clear that this could happen to you--right now, today. Or maybe it happened to your ancestors and today is a result. Butler writes great speculative fiction. It may seem weird and far removed on the surface, but the story speaks to right now, today. ★★★★★

First line: Doro discovered the woman by accident when he went to see what was left of one of his seed villages.

Last line: She would not leave him.