A long-out-of-print novel by legendary science fiction novelist Octavia E. Butler will be reissued later this year.
Grand Central will republish Butler’s Survivor in the summer, the press announced in a news release. The book has been unavailable for almost 50 years.
Butler, who died in 2006, is considered one of the country’s most significant authors of science fiction, best known for the duology that consists of Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. She published her debut novel, Patternmaster, in 1976; it was the first installment in the Patternist series, which continued with Mind of My Mind, Survivor, Wild Seed, and Clay’s Ark.
Butler disliked Survivor and let it fall out of print; older editions of the book have fetched high sums online.
The new edition, Grand Central says, “will include the short story ‘A Necessary Being,’ set in the Patternist universe, as well as contextual material from scholar Alyssa Collins,” a California State University, Northridge, professor.
Jules Jackson, managing director of Butler’s estate, said in a statement, “Together we have revisited the author’s well-known decision to leave Survivor out of print, coming to the joint agreement that to deprive readers of the ability to read any of Butler's works would simply be unjust and unfair. While Butler was incredibly prescient, she couldn’t foresee the massive rise in the popularity of her work—or the demand for a novel that had been published, but which she later didn’t think was good enough to meet her own high standards.”
The new edition of Survivor is scheduled for publication on Sept. 1.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
