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Unexpected Stories

Two Novellas

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Unexpected Stories

By: Octavia E. Butler
Narrated by: Robin Miles
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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This exciting collection presents two previously unpublished stories by SF legend Octavia E. Butler.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
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Short but punchy

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.

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Butler spotlights racism, resistance, compromise

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.

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Worth a listen

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.

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