Bloodchild

Due to time constraints from impending deadlines this week I read a short story instead of the recommended novel, though it is by the same author. I understand this story was read in class, but I was absent on that Wednesday and so I've read it on my own time.

Bloodchild was to me, as the title might imply, just creepy overall. The concept of humans as hosts for parasitic grubs and the almost marriage of humans to their alien masters is just unsettling. Butler tries to reconcile the feelings of unease by echoing them in the narrator and having him reconcile with his alien mistress, with whom he had been raised. And yet, even with the alternative angle of this relationship being a romantic one, one cultivated out of love and tenderness, I can't get over the overall ickiness of it. Granted the one birth we see is botched, but the little red worms will still be in a host attempting to eat away at him regardless of whether or not he is sedated when they are removed. The whole idea of this story is to reevaluate our perceptions of love and relationships, the narrator accepts the egg willingly at the end knowing full well what will happen, and I like to think myself an open person in terms of those subjects, but this story is a bit too far for me to stretch at this juncture. Perhaps if man actually winds up as an incubation chamber for alien worms in a preserve on some planet somewhere I'll feel differently, but for the moment I'll stick with my reaction of ew.