Survivor by Octavia Butler -- book review

Survivor (c. 1978) is only the third novel published by Butler, and it has not been reprinted (by Butler's choice--apparently she wasn't satisfied with it.) It is listed as a book in the Patternist series, but has little in common with the other books in the series. Survivor is not about Patternists or Clayarks; it is about a the interactions among the residents of an off-world planet and a group of humans who are Missionaries, and who live apart from the Patternists and Clayarks.

Survivor begins a little confusingly, but once underway, it tells a compelling story. As the book opens, Alanna is returning to the Missionaries after two years as a prisoner of the Tehkohn. Alanna is half-Asian, half-Black and had been surviving alone among the wild humans inhabiting the Earth during the years of the Clayark plague. Alanna is a "wild human" who was adopted as a young teen by Missionaries. The Missionaries who adopted Alanna were waiting to emigrate from Earth to carry humanity to the stars, and to escape the Clayark disease. The Missionaries are humans with strong religious beliefs (similar to fundamentalist Christians). They lived in a kind of compound, where they defended themselves against Clayarks and wild humans. Their emigration off-world was funded by Patternists, anxious to keep the human gene pool alive.

The Missionaries have traveled to a world with two "species" of sentient beings. The Tehkohn and the Garkohn. It is not clear that these are really two separate species. They may in fact be two races of the same species or two tribes of the same species. They have many things in common, but one major difference. The Garkohn are addicted to a kind of fruit--meklah--that grows in the valley where the Missionaries settled after their ship landed there. The Tehkohn consider meklah addiction both a weakness and a kind of weapon (used by Garkohn against Tehkohn prisoners of war.) Both the Tehkohn and the Garkohn are covered in fur that can change colors, much like a salamander. Additionally, the color changes are used in communication and to "classify" members of the tribes. The more blue there is in the base color of a Tehkohn or Garkohn, the higher their status. The rarest and highest status of all is the pure blue Hao, considered by both groups to be natural leaders and bringers of good luck.

When Alanna was taken prisoner, the Missionaries still believed the Garkohn to be their friends, but during her absence the Missionary leader (Verrick, Alanna's adoptive father) discovered the problems inherent to meklah addiction and became suspicious of the Garkohn. Alanna, meanwhile, had become a member of the Tehkohn tribe since her capture, and seeks to set the Missionaries free from their Garkohn/meklah thrall. She also wants to return to the Tehkohn tribe and her husband, Diut, the Tehkohn Hao. The story is told in alternating (Alanna, Diut, & Verrick) voices and through flashbacks.

I'm not sure what Octavia Butler had against this book, but I think it's well worth reading, and one of her more compelling narratives. Survivor is out of print, and it's difficult/expensive to find a copy to purchase, but hundreds of public libraries own copies, so it is relatively easy to borrow a copy by interlibrary loan, if none are available at your local library.