This is an excellent novel, if a depressingly horrible one - horrible as in it looks, pretty unflinchingly, at the compromises we will make with ourselves to endure. Dana has to do what she does, I can't think of any way around that (and I've tried!) but the appalling nature of the bargains forced on her - especially that to do with Alice - is terribly, compulsively readable.

I suppose that Kindred also says something about how existing on either side of slavery can warp an individual. Rufus as a small child was decent enough, but foist all that power on him and decency doesn't last long. I should feel sorry for what it made him, perhaps, but really he's the most hateful character I've read in quite some time... he evoked a genuine loathing in me.

This is the first book of Butler's I've ever read. It won't be the last.