Octavia E. Butler is known for the extensive ways in which she views the present and future, blending the realms using tonal depth and perception that requires the mind to pause and redirect how it knows dreaming and futurism. Instead, her characters and her worlds sit within the tension of what is, but isn’t as is. Where the concept of Blackness as power and whiteness as other is within itself an Afrofuristic concept.

In this short essay, she impacts the why behind predictions of the future and how her books are tellings of such things that well…have come to pass once her publication dates. I think it’s an in depth question that I would’ve wanted more context around and maybe that’s the point of the brevity…there is no answer and just the attempt alone is a signature of hope that maybe the future might look different, just maybe.

The artistry is spectacular and Manzel Bowman does a wonderful job depicting an ethereal feel to the text and the wonder behind the questions. Overall, it was a good quick read of essays about futurism and the why it remains such an important genre to write from within the Afro/Black perspective.