Book Review: Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler

[juushika]

Title: Bloodchild: And Other Stories
Author: Octavia E. Butler
Published: New York: Open Road Media, 2012 (2005)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 150
Total Page Count: 204,275
Text Number: 603
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: This slim volume contains the seven stories and two essays that make up Butler's short work, with introduction and afterwords by the author. What Butler writes in her introduction is true: the works here are meant to be short. They lack the characterization and complicated interpersonal dynamics that are one of her hallmarks, giving their pagecount instead to the high-concept speculative ideas and thought experiments which are her other hallmark. It's a condensed form of Butler, particularly engaging for its brevity and as discomforting as always: the speculative as a tool for social investigation and commentary. The exceptions are "Near of Kin" and "Crossover," smaller vignettes, and the succinct personal essays, but these have their own value and the pacing slows only briefly. This is my last Butler book, and, sad as that makes me, it was a fantastic endnote.

Comments

[ambyr]

Have you read her posthumously published Unexpected Stories? (If you already posted and I missed it, sorry!)

[juushika]

I haven't! In fact, I hadn't even heard of it; it must not have been on the list of her work I was using. Thank you so much for mentioning it, because I absolutely want to read it too.