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I am never a fan of an author telling one’s readers what one was trying to accomplish when one set out to write one’s story, and I am even less a fan of an author telling the readers what one’s story means or doesn’t mean, so being faced with Octavia E. Butler’s afterwords for each story was not my favourite part of what was an otherwise strong cycle of her short works. But Butler, herself, is so amazing that her afterwords didn’t kill the experience for me (as I feared they would) and, once or
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I'd read most of these stories before - there's only a handful - but I'm reminded again of what a genius Butler was. She says in the intro that she's not a natural short fiction writer, which blows my mind, because these stories are exquisite. "Speech Sounds," "Bloodchild," and "The Evening and the Morning and the Night" are all among the best stories I've ever read: uncomfortable, uncompromising, and note perfect.
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I reread “Speech Sounds” for our real life book club discussion of Butler’s Wild Seed. It was for the short story “Speech Sounds” that Butler got her only Hugo and Nebula awards. In that story nearly all people have lost language, speech, and reason due to a world- wide disease.
“The illness, if it was an illness, had cut even the living off from one another. As it swept over the country, people hardly had time to lay blame on the Soviets (though they were falling silent along with the rest of t ...more
“The illness, if it was an illness, had cut even the living off from one another. As it swept over the country, people hardly had time to lay blame on the Soviets (though they were falling silent along with the rest of t ...more
Beautiful concept. I'd lovey writing to touch others and to be as beautifuls as Ms butlers.
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Not all of the stories were absolutely brilliant (I didn't have that much use for the writing advice), but the ones that stuck with me REALLY stuck with me. Engaging, enjoyable, interesting, intelligent, and very thoughtful = excellent science fiction. I was also intrigued by the range of sci-fi here, from plausible diseases and decisions in a reality much like our own, to alien invasions and to alien worlds.
To sum it up, I'm planning to hunt down the rest of her novels and read them ASAP. ...more
To sum it up, I'm planning to hunt down the rest of her novels and read them ASAP. ...more
Feminist sci-fi, what more could you ask for? Butler's style tends to the short & sweet, which has been a nice change--no frills, as if these ultimately bizarre premises are somehow everyday, imaginable occurrences. The two essays on writing were pleasant, but nothing new, and I think the final two stories felt almost instruction manual-ish, but the book is worth the price of admission for "Speech Sounds" and "Bloodchild" alone. Looking forward to reading Butler's novels.
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I mostly enjoyed the short "Bloodchild" for its explorations of power, authority, dependency, sacrifice and -- interesting in itself -- pregnant men.
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Jan 18, 2015
Amber
marked it as to-read
Apr 11, 2015
Lindsay
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Jun 15, 2015
Sonja
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Apr 13, 2016
Robert Dunbar
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Apr 14, 2016
Rick
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Oct 26, 2017
Ben
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