Mind of My Mind.

BUTLER, Octavia E.

Item Number: 124843

Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1977.

First edition of Butler’s second book; the chilling “pre-sequel” to Patternmaster. Octavo, original cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “To David Good Reading Octavia E. Butler.” The recipient, David G. Hartwell, was the editorial and publishing force behind two key science fiction anthologies: Year’s Best SF and Year’s Best Fantasy. Butler was a contributor to his 1992 Foundations of Fear anthology, and would contribute her story Amnesty to Year’s Best SF 9, and The Book of Martha to Year’s Best Fantasy 4. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Jan Esteves. An exceptional example with noted provenance.

The second novel in the Patternist series, Mind of My Mind recounts the story of how the Patternist society originated. Set in Forsyth, California in the 1970s, it is the story of Mary, a young, poor biracial woman who, after accessing her previously latent telepathic powers, must fight her immortal father Doro to preserve the lives of the Patternist community. Butler's first published novel, 1976's Patternmaster, was the first book in this series to appear. From 1977 until 1984, she published four more Patternist novels: Mind of My Mind (1977), Survivor (1978), Wild Seed (1980) and Clay's Ark (1984).