![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This short story collection is excellent! It includes five stories by Butler, who considers herself much more a novelist than a short story writer. The stories are all terrific: "Speech Sounds" won the Hugo for best short story in 1984, and "Bloodchild" won for best novelette in 1985, so that's pretty awesome. (I love crossing things off the Hugo list.) It also includes Butler's first published story, "Crossover".
The collection also includes two short essays at the end about writing and about how Butler became a writer. They're fun and very accessible, and someday I might like to photocopy them and give them to a class.
Another neat thing about this collection is that Butler writes a brief Afterword for each piece, in which she talks a bit about what inspired her to write it, what she likes about it, what she thinks is going on. That was really interesting too, to get a glimpse into Butler's own take on these works.
Overall, I was really reminded of Ursula K. Le Guin, and in my opinion that is rarely a bad thing. Like Le Guin's, Butler's stories are science fiction but are far more character driven than "hey cool a robot" driven. She uses the conventions of science fiction to explore what a human character would do or say in that setting. Also, I've read some of Le Guin's commentary on her own work and really enjoyed it, too. Butler and Le Guin were of roughly the same writing generation (at least from my perspective)--Le Guin is 20 years older, but they were both writing at a time when it was difficult for women to be writing science fiction. Butler, however, is one of the few black women to make a significant contribution in the field, which makes her work interesting and unique.
Overall, this little collection was an excellent introduction to Octavia Butler's works. I now feel inspired to read more!
Only downside: I got this book used, and the previous owner made lots of marginal notations and messy underlinings, in pen. If I ever do want to photocopy anything for a class, I'm going to have to buy a new copy, as I wouldn't want my students thinking *I'm* the idiot that marked up a book like that.
The collection also includes two short essays at the end about writing and about how Butler became a writer. They're fun and very accessible, and someday I might like to photocopy them and give them to a class.
Another neat thing about this collection is that Butler writes a brief Afterword for each piece, in which she talks a bit about what inspired her to write it, what she likes about it, what she thinks is going on. That was really interesting too, to get a glimpse into Butler's own take on these works.
Overall, I was really reminded of Ursula K. Le Guin, and in my opinion that is rarely a bad thing. Like Le Guin's, Butler's stories are science fiction but are far more character driven than "hey cool a robot" driven. She uses the conventions of science fiction to explore what a human character would do or say in that setting. Also, I've read some of Le Guin's commentary on her own work and really enjoyed it, too. Butler and Le Guin were of roughly the same writing generation (at least from my perspective)--Le Guin is 20 years older, but they were both writing at a time when it was difficult for women to be writing science fiction. Butler, however, is one of the few black women to make a significant contribution in the field, which makes her work interesting and unique.
Overall, this little collection was an excellent introduction to Octavia Butler's works. I now feel inspired to read more!
Only downside: I got this book used, and the previous owner made lots of marginal notations and messy underlinings, in pen. If I ever do want to photocopy anything for a class, I'm going to have to buy a new copy, as I wouldn't want my students thinking *I'm* the idiot that marked up a book like that.
