Bloodchild

I wanted to do my response this week on Bloodchild by Olivia Butler. I was extremely intrigued by this story. Normally im not really pulled in with short stories. Honestly they are just not really long enough to develop good character structure, which is something that really pulls me in whenever I’m reading something. This story had extremely unrelateable characters. The human characters weren’t even quite “humanoid.” The thing that really gripped me was that Butler gave you bits and pieces of information that made me read on and find out what the hell was going on! The first thing that really intrigued me was the eggs. “Why are they drinking eggs?” “What type of eggs are they.” Then the read gripping part was as Butler started started describe one of the charcaters as having multiple limbs. I was confused. “Wait… It’s not human. DUH!” The story line is well constructed for a short story. It starts in a good place and ends at one too, making it feel complete. All and all it was well written, intriguing, and kept me on the edge of my seat.

As far as content goes, this is what really drew me in. This story is basically a futuristic horror story derived from a traditional and very common occurrence; birth. It is a role reversal world where woman dominate in a matriarchal society. Humans are inferior and typically male humans carry the young for the woman “aliens.” In the process of “birth” the men are cut open and sewn back together. While the method of operation is more primitive than in todays world the process is basically just a glorified C-Section on a man. Butler is basically poking fun at men as she goes on to describe how afraid the mean on this planet are of this process. She is making a statement that most women go through this at least once in their life and that our world today is still dominated by men. It is a complete gender reversal story about birth when you take out the aliens.