I love short fiction, and Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it. I’ve considered promising to review a short story every day, but that’s a lot of pressure. And while no one will fault me if I miss days, I’ll feel guilty, which will lead to not posting at all. So better to stick to a weekly post highlighting a couple/three stories, as I’ve done in the past.
First released in e-book form in 2014, Unexpected Stories collects two previously unpublished Octavia E. Butler stories discovered among her papers after her untimely passing in 2006. I finally read the book, in the beautiful hardcover edition released by Subterranean Press, in February of this year.
“A Necessary Being” takes place in an alien culture that is based on societal caste and skin coloration. The Hao are revered and installed as rulers of each tribe/village, often whether they like it or not. If a tribe is lacking a Hao, they are willing to kidnap one from someplace else and torture/mutilate them to keep them from escaping, which is what happened to Tahneh’s father, the Hao of the Rohkahn. Tahneh has been unable to produce a Hao heir, so when a Hao named Duit and his companions stumble into their drought-ruined domain, a plan is put in place to keep this Hao from returning to his own people. Butler’s deft interplay of the conflicting wants and needs of Tahneh, Duit, and the people who surround them is absolutely wonderful and thought-provoking. There are no absolute good guys or bad guys here – the antagonist is the moral conflict, if that makes sense. In other hands the reader might be guided to take Tahneh’s side over Duit’s, simply because we are introduced to her and get a feel for her quandry first, but Butler makes sure that we understand and feel for Duit’s situation just as much as Tahneh’s. The story really touches on how societal blinders (“this is the way it’s always been,” “these are the things we need and our needs come first,” etc.) can sometimes keep us from seeing a path forward out of danger and into relative safety. Sometimes complacency is deadly and the ability to change is what enables us to survive.
The author herself described “Childfinder,” the second and much shorter story in Unexpected Stories, as pessimistic, and I can’t really disagree with her. Set in a bleak near future on Earth where The Organization recruits kids with potential for psionic ability, main character Barbara has left the Organization to find the pre-psionic kids The Organization doesn’t want – which means low-income kids of color. The story starts with her encounter with one such kid, and we can see that she really cares about their development and that they don’t get lost or chewed up by a system weighted against them. Of course, The Organization comes looking for her, understanding what their former employee is up to – and Barbara has to make a hard, one might even say brutal, decision. We see the immediate effect of that decision, but never get to see the long-term results. However, the quotes that bookend the story do imply that it doesn’t go as well as Barbara hopes. This is a much darker story than “A Necessary Being,” and yes, it feels pessimistic. It also leaves me hoping for more “Barbaras” (regardless of gender) helping low-income and other marginalized youth in our own world.
Unexpected Stories is available in e-book. Subterranean Press’s limited edition hardcover is currently sold out.