In 1982, early in Butler's career, black feminist scholar Francis Foster Smith summed up her critical reputation in Extrapolation: "Reviewers consider her a speculative fiction writer who is adequate, potentially outstanding, but at present neither particularly innovative nor interesting. However, Octavia Butler is not just another woman science fiction writer. Her major characters are black women, and through her characters and through the structure of her imagined social order, Butler consciously explores the impact of race and sex upon future society." Since then, Butler has apparently lived up to her potential. In 1995, the year that Bloodchild and Other Stories appeared, Butler won a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. Popularly known as the "genius" award, MacArthur Fellowships are awarded to artists and thinkers in all mediums who push the boundaries of their fields.

Butler is known primarily as a novelist and her formidable critical reputation has been won on the...