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Unexpected Stories

Two Novellas

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About this listen

This exciting collection presents two previously unpublished stories by SF legend Octavia E. Butler.

A Necessary Being precedes the events of Survivor, Butler's third (famously disowned) installment in her Patternist series, and includes characters from it, focusing exclusively on the Kohn, aliens who build their social hierarchies on the blueness of their fur.

In Childfinder, a black woman with the gift of identifying children with latent psychic ability refuses to share her skill with an organization of white telepaths.

©2014 Octavia E. Butler (P)2018 Recorded Books African American Anthologies & Short Stories Science Fiction
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Really great short stories, such a shame they were not fully fledged. Both very different but well written, gripping tales. They both leave you wanting to know what happens next…

Really great short stories.

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I only recently discovered that Butler died in 2006 which makes these stories, novellas, and novels all the more precious. With the most fertile of imaginations, she develops science, or fantasy, or speculative fiction that needs no reference to whizz bang gizmos, tech talk, or warp drives. These two stories, one much longer than the other, are about people, or more pertinently, peoples where accommodation or adjustment to change, resistance to injustice, and thoughtful right-doing predominate. Racism/tribalism/speciesism figure prominently as in all her books. But don't be afraid she might be preaching, she doesn't, not once, not ever because these characters are so rounded you feel like neighbours by the end. What a shame there will be no more.

Butler spotlights racism, resistance, compromise

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The challenge to the ideas and mores of the societies in the stories. Butler uses this trope many times in her books, but always to great effect.

Short but punchy

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For aid in navigation: this audiobook is split into 4 untitled chapters for some reason. The first three chapters are the novella ‘A Necessary Being’ and the fourth chapter is the short story ‘Childfinder’. This does not include the introduction or afterward that I have read are included in some editions of this, it is just the stories.

Worth a listen

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The second story is a bit too short to go anywhere but I really enjoyed the first one.

Loved the first story

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