Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [732]

Maybe Olivar is the future—one face of it. Cities controlled by big companies are old hat in science fiction. My grandmother left a whole bookcase of old science fiction novels. The company-city subgenre always seemed to star a hero who outsmarted, overthrew, or escaped “the company.” I’ve never seen one where the hero fought like hell to get taken in and underpaid by the company. In real life, that’s the way it will be. That’s the way it is. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 732

Note

Butler turning the genre’s own furniture over in her narrator’s hands: the company-city story has only ever imagined resistance, and Lauren reports that the real version is people desperate to be admitted. The double ending — ‘That’s the way it will be. That’s the way it is.’ — collapses prophecy into present tense.