This is fresh air.

I'm Terry Gross.

In the new TV series, Kindred, a young black woman gets transported back in time from the

present day to the era of slavery.

The FX series, which is now on Hulu, is based on the novel by the acclaimed, late science

fiction writer Octavio Butler.

We'll hear an interview with her from our archive, but first we have a review of the

new series, which our critic at large, John Power says, nicely captures Butler's

knack for juggling painful realities and hope.

One of the most familiar scenarios in science fiction is the time travel plot, from HG Wells

and Philip K. Dick, to those episodes of Star Trek in which the Vane Glorious Captain

James T. Kirk gets shunted into the past and can't resist trying to change history.

Time leaps have been used in so many stories that you need real talent to make them original.

One person who had the talent was the late Octavio Butler.

The black speculative fiction writer, who, although she received a MacArthur genius grant

in 1995, has only recently begun to be fully appreciated as the visionary she was.

In her most popular novel, the 1979 Kindred, she put a searing spin on the time travel

story, shuttling her heroin back and forth between 1970's LA, and a pre-civil war plantation.

The book has now been turned into an ambitious new FX series by another MacArthur fellow,

playwright Brandon Jacobs Jenkins, who gives Butler's tale a twirl of his own.

The appealing newcomer Mallory Johnson stars as Dana James, a 26 year old black writer

who's just moved to 2016 LA in hopes of writing for TV.

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