Mind of My Mind

Straight off of reading Wild Seed I read this, the second in the series, but it was such a disappointment compared to the first. Something just does not work with this book for me. I think it's the characters and the social setup. Honestly it felt like a take on a bad 1970s commune experiment, none of the people felt real to me, too many generic names and lack of personalities. I also didn't like how Doro and Emma were both basically lost as characters after so much good writing for them in the first book.

But then I looked and read the publishing history and I see this book was written well before #1, and that the whole series is jumbled up. That may explain some of the unevenness in tone. Ordinarily I prefer to read things in publication order but too late now.

Anyway there's some good in this book. Particularly Butler's strength in delving into alien variations on humanity, in this case how weird and upsetting a telepathic society would be. Also all the casual domestic violence she writes about is upsetting but feels true and an important foundation for her writing.