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revdorothyl: missmurchsion made this (HellBound)
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Mourning Octavia Butler

posted by [personal profile] revdorothyl at 08:32pm on 27/02/2006
This is the first chance I've had to reflect on the news I heard driving to work this afternoon, that science fiction author Octavia Butler had just died at the age of 58 (which doesn't seem old at all to me, now!) after falling in her own home!

I think it was May of 2003 when I met Octavia Butler face to face at a Sci Fi convention in Des Moines, and there learned for the first time that she was an ardent "Buffy" fan (she was eager to learn where I'd gotten my "Spike & Buffy" Valentine T-shirt). She seemed so full of life and energy and intelligence.

She, who was never afraid to tackle race and gender in her own fiction, appreciated the stereotype-twisting and sheer 'humanity' of Buffy and her human and non-human cohorts, it seemed to me.

A major talent has been taken from us far too soon. Her passing should be mourned, even if you've never read her fiction, just because she was a sister BtVS fan and a woman of strength and humor and courage.
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posted by [identity profile] caille.livejournal.com at 02:42am on 28/02/2006
Her death is sending out ripples of acknowledgment and grief. I wish she was still here. The world was better when she was walking around on it, breathing its air, being with the rest of us. This is so untimely. I want to know what she was meant to write these next 20 years.
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posted by [identity profile] revdorothyl.livejournal.com at 02:47am on 28/02/2006
"This is so untimely. I want to know what she was meant to write these next 20 years."

Yes! It's so terribly untimely, and a loss to the human race, that so many more people who might have been touched by her presence and her future works will miss out.

I just heard the short version on NPR -- was it really just a fall in her own home that killed her? Just a stupid accident? Seems wrong in so many ways.
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posted by [identity profile] caille.livejournal.com at 03:02am on 28/02/2006
What I've read is that it was probably a stroke that caused her to fall. A neighbor child found her and summoned help. She was taken to an ER where it was determined that there was a brain hemorrhage of some type, but she couldn't be rescusitated, and OMG, I have just sounded out two words I've never been able to spell on the first try, and y'know, I don't care that much.
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posted by [identity profile] revdorothyl.livejournal.com at 04:06am on 28/02/2006
Thanks for the more complete info. I wondered if there wasn't more to it, but somehow, a stroke doesn't make her death make any more sense. It's all such a tragic waste.
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