“Science fiction,” Butler writes, “has long treated people who might or might not exist – extraterrestrials. Unfortunately, however, many of the same science-fiction writers who started us thinking about the possibility of extraterrestrial life did nothing to make us think about here-at-home human variation.”

“Science fiction,” Butler writes, “has long treated people who might or might not exist – extraterrestrials. Unfortunately, however, many of the same science-fiction writers who started us thinking about the possibility of extraterrestrial life did nothing to make us think about here-at-home human variation.”

— Octavia E. Butler