Highly Recommended
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Octavia E. Butler is a novelist, and her short fiction is sparse in quantity but incredibly generous in it's quality. As in her novels, she has this ability to take you deep down into the dark depths of the soul, and show you things both strange and fantastic. Concepts and torments of everyday existence wrench your emotions and make you think, then re-examine, then ponder the very substance of what makes one human....
The eerie novella "Bloodchild" was first published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in 1984, and it grips you with fascination whether this is the first time you have read it, or the fifth. Butler has described this as her "pregnant man story", but it is far more than that. Exceptionally well wrought and filled with wonder and amazement, it won her the Nebula and Hugo Awards for the stark portrayal of what it is like to be a human valued chiefly for your reproductive capacity. Only this time, the child is not human, and the "parent" keeps mankind as a much beloved but still unequal partner.....
The rest of the fiction in this collection is of the same superb quality and each piece has an afterword that brings into perspective Butler's thoughts and inspirations. There is a bonus in two autobiographical pieces at the end of the collection on what she calls "the art, the craft, and the business of writing." Whether you are a reader, or a writer, these pieces should not be missed....
The stories are as revealing about the reader as they are about the writer; they expose your own prejudices, emotions and motivations-as those of the protagonist are revealed in the writing on the page.
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