Bloodchild and Other Stories

I absolutely loved this book of stories. Octavia Butler is an incredible writer and a master of sci-fi. Each story is followed by a few words from Butler, and it's amazing to be able to read her thoughts about the writing process right after taking it in. The book features 2 essays, "Positive Obsession" (1989) and "Furor Scribendi" (1993). As a writer, a reader, and a patron of the arts, these essays have been deeply motivating not only for my intellectual pursuits but also for my dedication to life and for honoring my goals. You won't regret picking this one up.

Bloodchild is a collection of short stories by the famous science-fiction writer Octavia Butler. The problem with short story collections is that they are usually a mixed bag, populated with mostly mediocre stories speckled with a few stinkers and a few gems. Well, I am happy to report to you that Bloodchild is not like that at all. Every single story in this collection is captivating, intelligent, and written in a style that is clear and accessible without losing any of its sophistication. What really struck me about Bloodchild was the sheer emotional impact of each story. Because each story is such a perfect little world, and because the characters are so well realized, every story really packs a punch. I put down the book between each story, incapable of doing any real thinking because I was so blown away by what I had just read. I think the effectiveness of the stories comes from a mix of excellent writing and characterization and the way Butler uses those characters to explore complex ideas. One of Butler's strengths is in never letting her work become preachy or one-sided. Butler's ideas are as complex as her characters, and that makes her stories resonate in a very real and powerful way. Usually, this would be the part of the review where I would tell you which stories were my favorite and which ones to skip, but I can't really do that with this collection, because they are all absolutely worth reading. I believe that Butler's most famous stories are Bloodchild and Speech Sounds, both of which are in this collection and both of which are absolutely mind-blowing. Bloodchild actually left me speechless and shaking by the time I finished it. Her other stories are more subtle, but are still incredibly well-written. There are also two essays included in the book, my favorite of which was Positive Obsession. Since I bought the updated version of the book, I got an extra two stories on top of the original five stories and two essays. If you are going to get it, I recommend getting the updated version, because the two added stories are both very good, especially Amnesty. In all of the stories Butler's characters are absolutely convincing, and her story-telling is so smooth that you never need time to get adjusted to the story, even when you are dropped right in the middle of the action. That is, to me, a sign of a great writer. I know this review is vague, but that is only because Butler's stories are so good. I don't feel like I need to speak for them, and I'm not sure that I could even if I wanted to. If you want intelligent stories with concise yet vivid writing and realistic characters, then Octavia Butler is absolutely the writer for you. Rating: 5 stars Vivid writing, engaging plot, convincing characters, and intelligent world building. Highly recommended.

Bloodchild and Other Stories was my introduction to Butler’s writing, and it reflects a masterful (and masterfully-thoughtful) writer. This collection features every short story — and two essays — that Octavia Butler wrote between 1971 and 2003. At just over 200 pages, that’s not many, and she herself admits to not being a writer or fan of short stories in her comments. ### ‘Bloodchild’ (1984) I should find the title story, ‘Bloodchild,’ cheesy, with its insect-like aliens and technological magic: It’s steeped in old-fashioned sci-fi cheese without ever getting drowned in the magic and wonder writers like Bradbury relied on. [N.B. This review features images and formatting specific to my book site, dendrobibliography: Check it out here.] ‘Bloodchild’ is about a future where humanity has come under the control and protection of a space-faring species most akin to preying mantises and spiders. They’re benevolent, but still very clearly in charge. Humanity is, coincidentally, an ideal host species for the Tilc’s larva; human families live on vast preserves, and are free to live as long as they supply one child per family as an N’Tilc — a host of Tilc larvae. This is an uncomfortable story, and infinitely imaginative. Humanity is conflicted about this — it is a sort of slavery, after all. The hosts form close bonds with their Tilc partners, but the host process is violent, painful, gory, and can easily lead to the host’s death if they’re not careful. ‘Bloodchild’ never quite focuses on that, however. This story is all about the bond of human boy and his Tilc partner; in forming a loving relationship despite the requisite pain and suffering. ### ‘The Evening and the Morning and the Night’ (1987) ‘The Evening and the Morning and the Night’ continues the first story’s excellence, introducing a genetic disorder that causes unpredictably violent and suicidal behavior in those affected by it. Society, being how it is, punishes those born with this genetic disorder, pushing them to the outskirts of society much as our culture silently does with special needs individuals (which, of course, exacerbates their condition, turning the violence into a cycle). Like ‘Bloodchild,’ this story is required reading. ### ‘Near of Kin’ (1979), ‘Speech Sounds’ (1983), and ‘Crossover’ (1971) The original edition of Bloodchild and Other Stories only had three more stories, all shorter and less consistent. ‘Near of Kin’ and ‘Crossover’ aren’t sci-fi, and are brief moments in the lives of fragmenting families: In ‘Near of Kin,’ a young woman goes through her mother’s belongings after she passes away. She reflects on her poor relationship with her mom, and of her better, if timid, relationship with her living uncle — who, it’s suggested, is her dad. ‘Crossover,’ Butler’s first-published story (1971), follows a young, miserable woman struggling with an abusive boyfriend, a miserable job, and thoughts of suicide. These two aren’t bad, but didn’t leave much of an impression. ‘Speech Sounds’ is a fairly standard mid-’80s post-apocalyptic story. The world’s social order has broken down after a virus causes every living person to either lose their ability to speak or read/write. Each group — speakers and readers — is led by jealousy and trouble communicating, leading to a plot straight out of the Road Warrior. This story, about a young woman who makes a fleeting acquaintance with someone not awful, is exciting, yes, but the apocalypse was never believable, and, like the page-count, the characters are in and out of the story too quickly to be memorable. It’s rare that I can get into short stories as it is, and these three, while good, remind me more of every other short story writer I’ve had trouble getting into despite accolades (Ray Bradbury, Amy Hempel). ### ‘Positive Obsession’ (1989) and ‘Furor Scribendi’ (1993) The two essays that closed the original ’95 publication of Bloodchild, ‘Positive Obsession’ and ‘Furor Scribendi,’ include stories from Butler’s life as well as advice to aspiring writers. Her writing background is fascinating, publishing sci-fi at a time when Samuel Delany was the only accepted black sci-fi writer. Octavia didn’t have much in the way of role models or family encouragement: Black women shouldn’t write, especially genre fiction. Her writing advice that accompanies her flash-biography is simple: Keep writing, keep trying — become obsessed. Butler intentionally shuns the garbage of the self-help industry to get her message across: There’s no talent — nothing innate in respected writers — there’s only their obsessions that drive them to try and try again. These two short essays may be far more valuable than any self-help book or guide for writers. ### ‘Amnesty’ (2003) Butler’s return to short stories is stunning, with both ‘Amnesty’ and ‘the Book of Martha’ being some of the most intellectually- and emotionally-demanding work in the collection. ‘Amnesty’ is a marriage of classic sci-fi tropes, careful characterization, and damning social commentary. An alien civilization has landed. Like in Ted Chiang’s ‘Story of Your Life,’ the Communities landed quietly in the world’s deserts, barely interacting with us as we’re studied from a distance. People have been abducted — never with any nefarious intent, though some have suffered simply due to communication issues — and slab cities have been erected around the Communities. The Communities are peaceful, each individual actually a population in itself of plant-like entities, minds working as one. The story revolves around a former abductee interviewing candidates from outside the Communities to work for the Communities. As the interviewer, she gets a number of questions about why she is working for the species, and her reasoning is the meat of this story, relevant particularly to political events in 2017: After her abduction, Noah was kidnapped by her own government and tortured for years. They didn’t understand the Communities — rather feared them — and wouldn’t believe that she wasn’t an agent working on the aliens’ behalf to harm mankind. Mankind, embroiled in heated competition with itself, is hardly prepared to handle an alien species which, they assume, must be after the same thing. It’s a cycle of fear and hatred, and Noah felt no choice in escaping persecution. What the Communities offer her is a home: She’s no longer welcome among mankind, tainted by this alien experience. Octavia Butler’s gleamed more truths about humanity than most of us ever could. ### ‘The Book of Martha’ (2005) The final story Butler ever wrote, ‘the Book of Martha’ is another bombshell on the reader’s feelings. The idea is simple (and even cliche): God meets with Martha in her dreams. Martha’s an everywoman figure, rising from nothing to moderate success. S/he asks for her help in shaping humanity’s future, in helping dilute anger and hatred and religious persecution in favor of a paradise. The rest of this story is their conversation, their debates on how her varying ideas would help or harm the vision of an earthly paradise: Who would benefit, who would suffer. The only way to benefit everyone — hopefully — they realize, is through that individual’s dreams. ‘The Book of Martha’ offers an interesting thought experiment, and it’s surprising that a philosophical conversation with the self makes for as entertaining a story as this is. --- Short stories rarely appeal to me the way novels do, but Bloodchild and Other Stories is an excellent introduction to Butler’s writing. Her ideas are brilliantly creative, her social commentary sharp, the empathy of her characters deep — I can’t wait to move on to her other work.

I feel it is a terrible sin of omission on my part that until now I have never read any works by Octavia Butler. I mean, sure, everyone has their gaps in their reading history, where there's an author here or there who you've always meant to get round to reading but just haven't. But Butler has been a glaring hole in my reading - until now. She freely admits in her introduction to this short story collection that novels are where her heart truly belongs, but this is a good way to delve into her writing, a gentle starter with the main course ready and waiting to follow, if you will. There are seven stories and two essays in this collection, kicking off with the award-winning title story. Bloodchild is a complex story of interdependent relationships, with humans being used as hosts to nurse the infants of an alien species, but at a cost. There are questions of what one is willing to exchange in order to survive, issues of abusive relationships and personal sacrifice, all heady topics swirling within the confines of a short story. Award-winner that it is, though, personally I prefer another story in the collection, The Evening and the Morning and the Night. It's a story of a society where a drug created to cure ailments such as cancer has after-effects, with the descendants of those who took the drug affected by a condition which can cause them to "drift", losing touch with the society around them and slipping into dangerous psychosis. Told from the perspective of the children affected by this disorder, as they face a future which seems inevitably to slip towards madness and death, it's a deeply poignant tale of how society deals with those it cannot cope with, and what happens to those individuals themselves - whether they can carve out their own future in a world that offers them none. These two stories stand out above the others, but there's still plenty of great reading to be had in the collection. There's no binding theme - though a recurring focus is on issues of biology and illness. One nice feature is that each story has notes after it with the author detailing her thoughts on the tale. For example, she addresses the fact that many think Bloodchild is about slavery - it isn't, though talk in the story of selling people hints that way. It's more complex than that, though, and very much worth discovering if, like me, you've been lagging behind on exploring Butler's work.

I truly enjoyed this collection, the very first and the very last ones being my favorites. Definitely looking forward to reading more of Octavia E. Butler's work.

I had a "Bloodchild" nightmare the other night, so that bumped this work up in my TBR queue, hoping to find perhaps a happy ending. Not really, but then there weren't really UNhappy endings, either. Butler's stories challenge the mind - what price would humans pay to have a colony on another world where giant insectoids were the dominant species (Bloodchild)? What if a drug that cured cancer led to unexpected side effects in the offspring of the descendants, a really horrific disease that led to self-mutilation and murder? How about a worldwide virus that robbed humankind either of the ability to speak, or the ability to read, or both (but not the memory of being able to do so)? Brilliantly written, the stories totally drew me in, and a wonderful bonus in this edition is that there is a short afterword by the author to each story: here's what I was thinking, here's what I based X on, here's where this train of thought led me. It's almost as if we get to discuss the stories with the author herself, which is great since Ms. Butler has since passed and we CAN'T ask her in person. There are also two autobiographical sketches about the author and her personal writing journey. Sci-fi and fantasy were long the domain of white men, and here's this writer who was not only a woman, but a BLACK woman, leaping into the field and winning Hugos and Nebulas. (She also experienced the usual writer drought of many rejection slips and LONG gaps between sales.) Brilliant, haunting stories, this book is a classic that everyone should read.

What is particularly nice about this edition of collected stories is that it includes a brief note from the author after each story—the conception she was exploring when she wrote it. From these one gets the sense of how speculative fiction works—essentially a “what if” inspired by an observation or interesting information. There are a variety of pieces, including two essays on writing, but the majority pose a situation for the characters, whether the result of alien arrival or a disease with extreme consequences, in which they have to cope with change and the unknown. For the reader, the challenge is grasping these imagined realities and, perhaps, thinking of how oneself might respond.

I've always loved Octavia Butler's writing and was delighted when I discovered this collection of short stories by the author. I was blown away by the power of her words and the architecture she employed to explore themes of disease, both mental and physical, as well as the scientific view of the world and it's inhabitants, as a biological organism. I especially appreciated the author's reflections that were presented after each story. These brief notes on intention and motivation gave me insight as to what the author meant vs what I experienced when I read the story. Ms. Butler was a pioneer for women in a genre dominated by males in science fiction. Being a black woman is icing on the cake as Butler's writing is (yes I'm using present tense) more engaging and revealing, than many contemporary science fiction writers of today. Although many of these stories were written years ago, themes of evolution, invasion, immigration, and sustainability are even more relevant today. Ms. Butler was a genius!

Uszkodzony egzemplarz :(

Ms. Butler’s stories stand on the shoulders of the giants of 50s, 60s and 70s sci-fi, and adds incredible depth, sensitivity and a much-missed point of view. Terrific reading.

I’m sad to say I have only just discovered Olivia Butler’s fiction. Some of these stories were astonishing, in that themes which are so familiar to us in 2022 were written so long ago, when these concepts were original. Her writing is beautifully lucid and her scientific foundations are well researched. Her aliens, alternative worlds and challenges to humanity are wonderfully imagined. On the whole, I much prefer these short stories to the novels, where I find the number of unfinished sub-plots frustrating. A great place to begin with this underrated author.

I adore this author. The stories are amazing in their inventiveness and yet maintain a very real sense of possibility. Included in this collection are a couple of essays she wrote about writing. If you are an aspiring writer those alone are worth it.

Un livre étonnant d’originalité, à laquelle je m’attendais pas., car l’auteur est peu connu. J’apprécie beaucoup aussi la qualité de la prose, inhabituelle dans le domaine de la science fiction; ce qui fait qu’on lâche difficilement une histoire une fois entamée. Bref, je recommande absolument!