#125 in Science fiction
Bloodchild and Other Stories
- 208
- Pages
- about 4 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Bloodchild and Other Stories” is a compact, excellent way into Butler’s work: a handful of stories and essays, each followed by her own afterword. The title story, about humans raised as hosts for an alien species, is the one some readers single out, fascinating and disturbing at once, with “Speech Sounds” close behind. Others note that not every piece is equally polished, though the afterwords make even those a lesson in how a writer works.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Bloodchild and Other Stories is the only collection of science fiction stories and essays written by American writer Octavia E. Butler. Each story and essay features an afterword by Butler. "Bloodchild", the title story, won the Hugo Award and Nebula Award. It was first published in 1995. The 2005 expanded edition contains the additional stories "Amnesty" and "The Book of Martha".
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.5 across 196 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 57% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Science fiction average of 7.8. That is how 8.2 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.7 | 9 | 5% |
| Hardcover | 8.4 | 187 | 95% |
Frequently asked
How long is Bloodchild and Other Stories?
It has 208 pages — shorter than 92% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Science fiction — with scores between 8.1 and 8.2, closest to this book.
