SOURCE: "Utopia, Dystopia, and Ideology in the Science Fiction of Octavia Butler," in Science-Fiction Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2, July, 1990, pp. 239-51.

In the following essay, Zaki discusses Butler's work as it relates to the genre of utopian and dystopian science fiction.

In an interview published in 1986, Octavia E. Butler stated that there was no "women's genre in science fiction." Women authors, she continued, wrote too many varieties of S[cience] F[iction] for their work to be labeled as one subgenre. Nor did Butler see herself writing utopian S[cience] F[iction]: "I've actually never projected an ideal society. I don't believe that imperfect humans can form a perfect society." I take issue with both of Butler's statements about her own writing. Like other critics of her work, I maintain that Butler is part of the post-1970 feminist and utopian S[cience] F[iction] trend which emerged when writers...