"Bloodchild" seems to be decent effort, but too much was lacking and too much was added. The biographical prose was interesting, but...it somehow made the stories seem disconnected from each other. All well and good, we don't really need to know what motivates each story. Leave something to the imagination. The title story was too long, and it seemed to be very hard to get into; five years after I first purchased the short-story collection I STILL HAVE NOT read to the end of Bloodchild. And I have read everything Ms. Butler ever wrote, including "Survivor." The story about the alcoholic I "just didn't get," and the others were okay, but all in all, this book averages out as being not very engrossing. I applaud Octavia Butler for giving us short stories, but I wish they could have been more interesting.