Bloodchild and Other Stories {second edition}

Friday Flashback: Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild and Other Stories

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia Butler (Open Road Media, $14.99).

If you’re already a fan of Octavia Butler, you won’t need to be told how good these stories are; if you’re not a fan, what are you waiting for? Go read them now.

The most famous is the title story, “Bloodchild,” which is a sort of “if men could get pregnant” tale—although in this case, the men in question have more in common with invertebrates.

That’s what’s so wonderful about science fiction. You can call someone spineless and it’s not an insult.

Also in this collection is ”The Evening and Morning of the Night,” a sort of pseudo-creation story (“and it was morning and show more evening, the first day” is from Genesis), but in this case, a hereditary disease brings madness and self-destruction.

And one of my all-time favorites, “Speech Sounds,” set in a post-apocalyptic L.A., where people can neither make nor understand speech—in fact, they can no longer recognize words. The gypsy bus driver puts up pictures of what he’ll take in trade for rides, and people who recognize language are suspect. It’s not an accident that this story was selected for a Hugo Award.

This collection also includes two essays on writing, ”Positive Obsession” and “Furor Scribendi,” as well as two previously uncollected stories, ”Amnesty” and “The Book of Martha.”

Bottom line: Whether she’s dissecting human nature by looking at aliens or making humans seem alien by questioning our assumptions, you won’t do better than Butler. show less

4.5/5

A stunning collection that shows some of the best writing from Butler that I've read to date. Butler has some of the best prose I know, but it's not the type that would dazzle anyone. It's much more due to her unique precision and economy of language that makes her works approachable, while at the same time letting a more seasoned reader marvel that no word is unnecessary or misplaced. Truly, I believe that Butler could write about a dull and amorphous ball of cells, and not only do so compellingly, but while somehow finding the humanity and emotion within. Several of these stories moved me to the point of tears.

Butler, who herself admits a dislike for writing short stories, is nonetheless more than capable of synthesizing a story show more down to it's most essential parts, stories that could easy be longer, novel-length works. It's impressive to read any collection and have an instinct to wish that the stories were longer.

The standouts in this collection, for me, were the tile story Bloodchild and Speech Sounds, both of which won awards when they were first published. What sets this collection apart though, is that while some of the stories didn't match these two in terms of quality, none of them dragged the collection down. None of them felt like filler, which seems to be an almost legal requirement for half of the stories included in any collection or anthology. show less

I am not much of a science-fiction fan. I chose to read Bloodchild and Other Stories because I had read somewhere that there was a short story in it, Speech Sounds, that imagines a society (due to a virulent disease) that has lost the ability for speech comprehension, along with losing the ability to read.

Being Deaf myself, I was curious how the late author Butler would have her characters communicate. Would they learn to communicate in Sign Language? Would Deaf people from all over be seen as wise people who could teach Sign Language?

The answers to my questions: No. Instead, these people are reduced to gestures and making incomprehensible sounds.

But, still, an intriguing premise. I was especially struck by how the MC in the story once show more had a library of books that she could no longer read. That would devastate me.

The other stories here (and there are also a couple personal essays) were mostly good. I especially liked The Book of Martha, in which God chooses an African-American woman (Martha) to take over his duties by coming up with a way to save the world from destroying itself by the people.

Would I read more by Butler? Perhaps I'll pick up Kindred at some point. I'm intrigued by the time-travel angle of that novel. Beyond that, I don't know. I do know that Butler is highly regarded in her genre. show less

“My last night of childhood began with a visit home.”

The short sci-fi/horror-lite story of the title, Bloodchild, opens thus. You know something significant, and probably not good, will happen. But at first, it’s a pleasant enough domestic scene: among the family, sipping a soporific but rejuvenating egg, snuggling against the velvet underside of someone’s (something’s?!) embrace.

The awareness of mysteries and taboos grows slowly, seeded by careful choice of vague but uneasy words: the need for one’s people to be “available”, concern about thinness, “choosing” an infant, living in the Preserve… And then there is a gross-out scene.

That leads to a choice. A dreadful choice, but a newly-informed one. And choice, show more especially about family, is the beating, bleeding, bloody heart of the story. A story of coming of age, adoption, family, sacrifice, symbiosis, improbable love, impregnation, and birth, against a background of enslaved refugees. And it challenges our primeval assumptions about gender.

Search Google images for fan art, and you’ll get more idea of exactly what it’s about. (Clue: it's not about birds or crocodiles. The picture above is a loose analogy.)

There’s an excellent profile of Octavia Butler: HERE. It includes pictures of some of her notes, of which this is my favourite, especially the final exhortation:


Butler certainly made me feel as if I’d touched, tasted, and known, and above all, to feel, feel, feel!

This fully deserves its prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards from 1985 and 1984, respectively. show less

In her introduction to the second edition of this book (which includes two new stories not in the 1995 edition), Octavia E. Butler admits that she is not great at writing short stories: most of them turn out to be part of a novel, and the ideas she wants to explore in her books don't fit the length of a short story.

What follows in the seven short stories and two essays that comprise the collection, however, are excellent works - mainly of science fiction - that explore all manner of life, whether it be human interaction with alien species or the results of a terrible genetic disease that causes people to mutilate themselves. The two essays delve into Butler's thoughts on writing, one autobiographical one that describes how she became a show more writer and the other her advice on writing. The pieces included span her writing from 1971 to 2003 and her afterwords sometimes explain the origin of the story or her unvarnished opinion of it. I haven't read enough of Butler's work to be able to say with any authority if this is a good starting point, but it does give you a flavor for the breadth of topics and genres she'll use to explore topics that interest her and inform her writing. show less

I don’t usually gravitate toward short stories, but I found this collection deeply engaging. Butler brings together some fascinating and imaginative concepts, each with its own unique twist, and the accompanying author’s notes add real depth by explaining her ideas and intentions.

What I especially appreciated was the balance between the creativity of the stories themselves and Butler’s candid reflections on her process and purpose. It made the collection feel both intellectually stimulating and personally revealing.

Overall, a powerful introduction to Butler’s shorter works - one that might even win over readers who, like me, tend to prefer longer fiction.

These stories will burrow into your brain like a grub into an achti carcass.

(Trigger warning for rape and sexual/reproductive exploitation.)

The truth is, I hate short story writing. Trying to do it has taught me much more about frustration and despair than I ever wanted to know.

Yet there is something seductive about writing short stories. It looks so easy. You come up with an idea, then ten, twenty, perhaps thirty pages later, you've got a finished story.

Well, maybe.

Don't let Butler's apparent distaste for short stories fool you; many of the stories collected here are shiny little masterpieces in their own right.

(...although I'd be lying if I said that I wouldn't also love to see several of the stories fleshed out into full-length show more novels; "Bloodchild," "Speech Sounds," and "Amnesty," I'm looking at you!)

The second edition of Bloodchild and Other Stories includes seven short stories (five previously published, two brand spanking new) and two essays (both reprints). While the essays offer advice to aspiring writers as well as insights into Butler's childhood ("Shyness is shit." might be the realest, rawest sentence in the whole damn book), the stories are that wonderfully creepy, complex, unsettling, and ultimately deeply profound brand of SF/F that I've come to associate with Butler: earth-based worlds characterized by rapidly crumbling dystopias, or alien societies in which the human survivors are forced into untenable compromises with their extraterrestrial saviors/overlords. Each piece is followed by a brief (but enlightening) Afterward penned by the author herself.

* Previously Published Stories *

"Bloodchild" - Faced with a dying planet and crumbling society, a group of humans fled earth, only to arrive on a planet already occupied: by the Tlics, an intelligent species of giant, segmented, worm-like creatures. After much warring that proved costly to both sides, the two groups reached a tenuous peace agreement: the humans would be given a home on the Preserve, but in exchange some settlers - men, primarily - would be "adopted" by Tlic families, ultimately required to carry and birth their young in a gruesome and sometimes fatal process. Against this backdrop, a boy named Gan must come to terms with his future servitude to family friend T'Gatoi, the Tlic government official in charge of the Preserve. Inspired by botflies, Butler describes "Bloodchild" as her "pregnant man story." (©1984; first published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.)

"The Evening and the Morning and the Night" - No miracle drug comes without a cost - at least not in the realm of science fiction. In "The Evening and the Morning and the Night," the downside to curing cancer manifests in the form of Duryea-Gode Disease (DGD), a debilitating and often fatal disorder that, at best, causes its victim to "drift" - dissociate from his or her surroundings, in a sort of fugue state. At worst, it causes aggression, usually in the form of self-harming behaviors. Sufferers may gouge out their own eyes, flay themselves alive, even cannibalize their own body parts.

Lynn witnessed these horrors for herself, when her parents - both afflicted with the illness - took her to a DGD institution as a sort of punishment for going off her strict diet - the only thing known to keep symptoms at bay. Like many DGD kids, Lynn's an overachiever - trying to cram as much into her unexpectedly short life as possible - but when she visits her fiance Alan's mother in an innovate DGD "retreat," she finds that her special strain of hereditary DGD is a gift as well as a curse. (©1987; first published in Omni Magazine.)

"Near of Kin" - In the wake of her estranged mother's death, the MC must come to terms with her unhappy childhood - and unusual parentage. Butler describes it as as "a sympathetic story of incest" inspired by the Bible. ("This was, of course, not exactly what my mother had in mind when she encouraged me to read the Bible.") A more contemporary, earthly tale, "Near of Kin" doesn't quite fit with the other stories, all of which have a SF/F bent. Even so, I found it an engaging read. (©1979; first published in Chrysalis 4.)

"Speech Sounds" - In a future dystopia, a mysterious and devastating illness has robbed many humans of their ability to use and even understand language - written as well as spoken. Nothing more than hairless chimps, humans have been reduced to communicating with grunts, gestures - and violence. On the way to Pasadena to search for her long-lost brother, Valerie Rye has lost everything: not just her husband and children, but her purpose in life as well teaching and writing). She connects with a mysterious stranger in an LAPD uniform - just another vestige of a forgotten past - long enough to lose him; and, in her grief and despair, discovers that her work isn't done quite yet. (©1983; first published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.)

"Crossover" - A factory worker is haunted by her disfigured jailbird lover. (©1971; first published in Clarion.)

* Previously Published Essays *

"Birth of a Writer" - In fragments and flashbacks, Butler shares her obsession with writing and her development as a (black, female, science fiction) writer. (©1989; first published in Essence.)

"Furor Scribendi" - "A Rage for Writing" offers advice to new and aspiring writers. (©1993; first published in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume IX.)

* New Stories *

"Amnesty" - Twenty years ago, a group of plant-like aliens known as the Communities landed on earth via a one-way shuttle, with no way to leave or return home. They quickly established "bubbles" in dry desert lands - 37 of them worldwide - and, like scientists with lab animals, they set about studying their strange new neighbors: humans. After several waves of abductions, much suffering and death, and a brief but decisive war (we lost), humans and Communities reached an impasse. Though they heralded a global depression, the Communities are exceedingly wealthy, thanks to the resources they're able to extract from deep within the earth's surface. In exchange for a handsome salary, select humans are given fixed-term jobs in the bubbles, teaching the Communities about human culture and allowing themselves to be "enfolded" within their employers - a powerful drug for humans and Communities alike.

Abducted as child and kept for twelve long years, Noah is one of just thirty people who are able to communicate with the Communities; in fact, she helped them develop their shared language. Now working as a Translator, it's her job to find new recruits to work in the bubbles. But with the prevailing mistrust of and outright hostility toward these alien invaders - and, by extension, herself - Noah's work isn't always easy...or even pleasant. Yet communication is vital to ongoing peace, so translate she must.

"The Book of Martha" - God tasks Martha Bes - a black, middle-aged writer of fantasy - with saving the human species from itself. Her answer is the only kind of utopia that Butler could imagine working: your own personal utopia that comes to you in dreams.

While all the stories are both enjoyable and thought-provoking, I preferred those planted firmly in the realm of science fiction; in particular, "Bloodchild," "The Evening and the Morning and the Night," "Speech Sounds," and "Amnesty." The exploitative extraterrestrials in "Bloodchild" and "Amnesty" are reminiscent of the Oankali who populate Lilith's Brood (and Noah begs a comparison to the titular Lilith); and Rye, the protagonist of "Speech Sounds," feels a distant cousin to Lauren Olamina of the Parables duology. This is classic Butler, alright, pared down to short story form. And it is glorious.

A must for Butler fans; those looking to diversify their shelves; and anyone who just plain loves great scifi.

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