Nisi Shawl (ed.), Bloodchildren: Stories by the Octavia E. Butler Scholars. Carl Brandon Society, 2013. Pp. 442. ISBN 978-1-61138-237-2. $8.01.
Reviewed by Peter Kaptein (the first of two reviews of this title.)
Bloodchildren, an anthology being sold to raise money for the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Clarion Fund, is available only until June 22, 2013—Octavia Butler’s birthday—from
Book View Café for the price of $8.01 for the EPUB or Mobi e-book. Each of the eleven new authors has been a recipient of the
Octiavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship which enables writers of color to attend one of the two yearly Clarion writing workshops. A story by Octavia Butler herself brings the anthology to twelve. In
Bloodchildren you will find augmented people running faster than humanly possible, performing ritual dances to the rich and the clueless. You will find female, homosexual, Indian and black protagonists. There
is the occasional heterosexual male in two stories—and only one of them is white. You will find hunger. Demi-gods. Airships, monkeys and mutiny. Stories from the point of view of the dispossessed and the subjected. Stories about outsiders. Stories of magic, escape and slavery. Stories in outer space and on earth. Stories of loneliness and love. Eight out of the twelve stories in “Bloodchildren” are really close to amazing, but the anthology feels almost rushed in its release.
