Unexpected Stories cover art

Unexpected Stories

Two Novellas

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Thousands of incredible audiobooks and podcasts to take wherever you go.
Immerse yourself in a world of storytelling with the Plus Catalogue - unlimited listening to thousands of select audiobooks, podcasts and Audible Originals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Unexpected Stories

By: Octavia E. Butler
Narrated by: Robin Miles
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Buy Now for £7.99

Buy Now for £7.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

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This exciting collection presents two previously unpublished stories by SF legend Octavia E. Butler.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 Science Fiction

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Parable of the Sower cover art
Fledgling cover art
Kindred cover art
Wild Seed cover art
Braiding Sweetgrass cover art
Detective Tom Janssen Hidden Norfolk, Books 1-3 cover art
Flint cover art
Though Waters Roar cover art
The Reckoning cover art
As the Crow Flies cover art
Chosen People cover art
Through a Glass Darkly cover art
Adaptation: Book I cover art
Deverry: Books 1-4 cover art
Karma cover art
Jinn cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
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.

Short but punchy

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
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.

Butler spotlights racism, resistance, compromise

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
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.

Worth a listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
you're just getting invested and it's over. as always beautifully crafted realities, engaging characters and original stories as you can always expect with this author

over too soon!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.