The short story, Bloodchild, is the first I have read of Octavia Butler's writing and I sincerely hope it won't be the last. Olivia (of Olivia's Catastrophe) is right. Octavia Butler is an amazing storyteller! I spotted Bloodchild free on Amazon so snapped up the download and would recommend every other reader to do the same. At just thirty pages, Butler gives us enough of the alien essentials of her imagined world that I was able to understand exactly what was taking place. The Terran humans being the subjugated species and seen as little more than animals to the Tlic is especially relevant to me at the moment because it's Veganuary so the idea got me thinking about how different attitudes would be if humans weren't such a dominant species here on earth.