The Best Books Like Octavia Butler to Read Next
October is Black Speculative Fiction Month, making it the perfect time to not only catch up with the works of Octavia Butler, but find new, inventive stories from similar authors. As the “Mother of Afrofuturism” many people consider Butler to be a prophet because her stories sharply intertwine intersectional identities with social issues, often in very prescient ways that feel ahead of their time. Butler has a way of challenging your worldview by turning it upside down in a speculative — and sometimes horrifying — parable that readers can never forget. If you’ve finished Butler’s catalog or if you want to find books that invoke her style, look no further than this list of Afrofuturism and Black speculative reads!
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Add to BookshelfBloodfire, Baby
by Eirinie Carson
After reading Octavia Butler, you may long for a grim, high-stakes generational tale. In her debut, Eirinie Carson follows a Black woman whose journey pulls back the curtain on the harsh realities of motherhood. Similar to Butler, Carson doesn’t romanticize the impact of giving birth. Instead, she leans into the fears and uncertainty of what happens to your mind and body after the baby comes home. Visceral, intimate, and deeply felt, Bloodfire, Baby is a familiar yet terrifying story of what happens when sleep deprivation manifests into madness.
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$30.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Lone Women
by Victor LaValle
Travel back in time to the American West, where a young woman named Adelaide Henry finds herself fleeing from California to the uncharted territory of Montana. Adelaide is in trouble and has nowhere to go and nobody to turn to. She carries a dark secret around in her trunk that she refuses to open because when she does, those closest to her suffer fatal consequences. When the government offers land in the Mountain State to homesteaders looking to cultivate the undeveloped land, Adelaide sees it as the perfect opportunity to start anew, but with every new threat she realizes that the secret she’s tried so hard to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.
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$12.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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This Cursed House
by Del Sandeen
Southern Gothic takes a sinister turn in this historical fiction, speculative mystery read that is perfect for fans of Kindred. When Jemma receives a job opportunity as a tutor with the prominent Duchon family of New Orleans, she leaves Chicago ready to settle into her new job and start anew. While the locals are nice, she can’t help but notice how people look at her and treat her when she mentions the Duchon family. While the Duchons are a Black family from Louisiana, they are light enough to pass as white, and they seem to look down on brown-skinned Jemma. And as Jemma unravels deeper and more disturbing secrets, she begins to realize that the Duchon family is stuck in time – figuratively and literally.
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Ours
by Phillip B. Williams
This sweeping speculative fiction is set before the Civil War in the Antebellum South and follows an elderly woman named Saint who has mysterious, ancestral powers that she uses to help slaves escape the horrors of the plantations. She brings the freed to a town of her own creation, a place called Ours. But this town is unlike other Black-founded towns in history. This town can only be visible to those invited, as the magic Saint possesses makes it invisible to outsiders. But as Saint grows older, her magic and memory begin to slip, allowing evil to infiltrate. Like Butler, Williams uses historical context to give ancestral gifts to those who have been oppressed.
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$22.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Out There Screaming
edited by Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams
Curated by Jordan Peele, this must-have anthology has assembled some of the most exciting voices in contemporary Black sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction. Featuring authors like L. D. Lewis, Erin E. Adams, and Tananarive Due, this collection of stories blends chilling urban myths with supernatural retellings as well as unsuspecting monsters that unfortunately walk amongst us. Like Butler, this anthology uses societal issues to create an unforgettable collection that horror, fantasy, and speculative book readers will enjoy. Even readers who are new to these authors will be immersed in alternative worlds, timelines, and portals where the impossible is indeed possible.
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$20.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Kin: Oprah’s Book Club
by Tayari Jones
Set in the South during the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement, two best friends — bonded for life because they both lost their mothers to different fates — find themselves on two separate paths as they figure out a way to get back to each other. Similar to the Parable series, Tayari Jones invokes a familiar Black spirituality that keeps her characters connected to their familial roots. This is a great companion piece to Kindred if you ever want to know what Dana’s life could have been like if she lived in the South.
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$32.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Beloved (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
by Toni Morrison
This American classic and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel was published in 1987 and Kindred was published in 1979. Both novels explore different aspects of Black women’s experiences in and out of slavery by invoking the spirits of ancestors and family members who are no longer with us. Morrison expertly uses folklore, spirituality, and collective stories that mimic Black Americana tales to create a story that is just as dark and grim as Kindred, if not more so, spellbinding readers for generations.
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$32.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Underground Railroad (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
by Colson Whitehead
When a talented author like Colson Whitehead blurs the lines between magical realism and speculative fiction, you get a literary masterpiece. He’s done exactly that in The Underground Railroad. Cora is a young, enslaved Black girl who wants to escape the horrors of the Antebellum South. Cora dreams of freedom, so when she meets Caesar, who is also fleeing, she decides to take up his offer to join him on the Underground Railroad. In this world, the Underground Railroad is a secretive network of actual tracks and tunnels that run beneath the tumultuous soil in the South. With unforgettable prose, readers are given a front-row seat to the intimate, oftentimes brutal reality of what one will do to be free.
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An Academy for Liars
by Alexis Henderson
One thing’s for certain, after reading the Lilith’s Brood Series, you will want to read more dark fantasy that gives you a visceral reaction. In this dark academia novel, Alexis Henderson takes readers on a twisted journey to Drayton College, a school of magic that teaches gifted students that the art of persuasion is the ultimate power. Lennon Carter’s life is falling apart. But when she gets accepted into the secretive academy, she discovers she possesses a dangerous skill that only a few have. But as Lennon continues her studies, she discovers more about the world she’s entered into and not everything is as it seems …
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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James (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
by Percival Everett
Here’s another Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that is a must-have for anyone who has read Octavia Butler. Percival Everett masterfully reimagines the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by centering the story around the enslaved Jim’s perspective. The dark parallels between Jim, who runs away to not be sold and separated from his family, and Huck, who fakes his own death to avoid the consequences of his father, find themselves crossing the Mississippi River together to find a solution and freedom. But they’ll soon learn that freedom comes at a cost.
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The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers
edited by Hollis Robbins and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Readers and fans of Octavia Butler understand the importance of culture and tradition as it relates to storytelling. This essential anthology, edited by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., illuminates exactly why understanding tradition is pivotal to society. This collection of works includes Black women writers whose voices have long shaped American literature even before they received their flowers. This volume is a perfect companion read for any Butler fan who wants to understand some of the writers who paved the way for Butler and the writers inspired by her. Readers will find it hard not to be inspired by this book.
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$24.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Afrofuturism
by Nat'l Mus Afr Am Hist Culture
When you search Black futures or Afrofuturism, you will always see Octavia Butler’s name. This beautifully illustrated book from the Smithsonian is the perfect gift for any reader who loves Afrofuturism visuals. This volume combines art, music, history, culture, and literature to present a historical depiction of the waves of Black art in America. This book also gives Butler’s work an academic, as well as, a public-facing context to ensure the information is accessible to readers. Another thing this volume does well is ensure that Butler is not an outlier in the scope of Afrofuturism but a central pillar of the Black tradition and imagination.
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$29.95Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Quarter Queen
by Kayla Hardy
One of many of Butler’s gifts was to make family bonds a difficult, yet necessary part of a character’s overall development. Kayla Hardy does the same thing when she dares readers to follow a young Black woman from Louisiana who inherited a power she didn’t ask for. The daughter of the powerful and feared Voodoo queen, Marie Laveau, Marie “Ree” Laveau the Second is nothing like her mother. But when her mother finds herself knocking on death’s door, Ree must find out all she can about her mother’s secrets to find a cure to save her life. Set in the mid-1800s, this lush and atmospheric story blends speculative magic and history that will enthrall readers.
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$30.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Beauty in the Blood
by Charlotte Carter
If you love Octavia Butler’s books but want something with more of a mystery setting, then this read is perfect for you. Charlotte Carter dives into horror with her multigenerational mystery in this unforgettable drama that will chill your bones. Beauty in the Blood follows Sarah, a successful lawyer who, since the death of her mother, fears that she is losing her mind. Simultaneously, another woman named Yvonne is trying to reinvent herself after years as a prison guard. But that is easier said than done when a former inmate appears demanding Yvonne’s help in finding the person who murdered her brother. But when the inmate also ends up dead, Yvonne takes on the role of the unlikely detective, who must solve who doomed not only the inmate and her brother, but also Sarah’s fate.
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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This Great Hemisphere
by Mateo Askaripour
Mateo Askaripour returns with an unforgettable speculative dystopian that will leave you second-guessing what you read. Sweetmint was born invisible, like many others in the Northern Hemisphere in the future. Sweetmint and those who are like her are considered second-class citizens. Despite all the odds against her, Sweetmint has graduated and does everything by the book. However, her life is turned upside down when she finds out that the brother she thought was dead is not only alive, but in trouble — accused of a politically driven murder. Now Sweetmint must rely on her wit and loyalty to guide her to save him. This futuristic tale combines sci-fi, mystery, and fantasy in an unforgettable story that readers will love.
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
