Four Walls Eight Windows - copyright 1995 144 pages Book read in August 1998 Rating: 8/10  (Highly Recommended) Review by Aaron Hughes

       The best thing about this collection is that it prompted me to reread the Hugo- and Nebula-winning title story.  One of the pitfalls for a writer of color is that readers are quick to relate everything they write to the issue of race.  That's the mistake I made the first time I read "Bloodchild".  In "Bloodchild", the human race is dominated by parasitic aliens called the Tlic.  The Tlic use humans as hosts for their larvae, but the good news is they try to treat us kindly and the humans have a reasonable chance of surviving the process.  When I read this previously I assumed that it was supposed to tell us something about racism and slavery.  The second time through I was less distracted by the gruesome scenes, and was able to appreciate the other levels of the story, particularly the metaphor it gives for relations between the sexes.  (In her afterword, Butler confirms that slavery is not the focus of the story.)

       Even with my new-found appreciation for "Bloodchild" my favorite Octavia Butler short story remains the Hugo-winning "Speech Sounds".  In this story, mankind has fallen victim to a virus or other affliction that attacks the speech center of the brain.  Almost no one can read, write, or even speak, and society is crumbling quickly due literally to a failure to communicate.  In the way people valiantly cling to the hope that civilization can carry on through the crisis, "Speech Sounds" prefigures Butler's successful novel Parable of the Sower.  The story closes with one of my all-time favorite final lines.

       The other stories are also strong, if less memorable than "Bloodchild" and "Speech Sounds".  The best of the three is "The Evening and the Morning and the Night", in which a woman must come to grips with a genetic disorder that is dormant at present, but she knows will eventually cause erratic behavior including ultimately self-mutilation.  The remaining two stories are non-SF character studies.  In "Near of Kin", a woman who was raised by her grandparents confronts her feelings toward her parents shortly after the death of the mother she hardly knew. "Crossover", Butler's first sale, depicts a woman battling alcoholism and low self-esteem.  Two interesting essays about writing round out the collection.