“As a writer of science fiction I was free to imagine new ways of thinking about people and power, free to maneuver my characters into situations that don’t exist…I’ve been told again and again that my characters aren’t "nice.” I don’t doubt it. People who must violate their long-held beliefs are rarely pleasant. I don’t write about heroes; I write about people who survive and sometimes prevail.“
– Octavia Butler quoted in Mixon, “Futurist Woman”