Bloodchild

This book follows a settlement of humans on an alien planet. The most interesting aspect of the story is that the alien planet is populated by intelligent lifeforms which are able to be political and have different worldviews. The main character is forced to accept the agreement, which is unfair and unconventional, but it was necessary for both to survive. The author seemed to want to depict a symbiotic relationship between an alien and human race.

Throughout the book we can see the immediate connection of childbirth and how it's a terrifying it can be. In our world childbirth is dangerous and painful for women, and children are usually hidden from this procedure. In the short story, the roles are flipped and the male is forced to take on the role of carrying an alien child. The author also wanted see what it would take for a male to have maternal feelings for the life in their abdomen.

I also see a connection to afro-futurism through the group of people in this book. The humans fled from their world, and came to this new world. I can assume that space travel to a new planet would cost a considerable amount of money, and I could imagine that only the wealthy and important humans were the ones who boarded this ship to this planet. As soon as the humans came to the planet they were enslaved and held on reservations. I believe this could be considered a role reversal, where the wealthy and in power are now second to an entire species. One could also go as far as to say this settlement of people could have been the ones who caused their world to fall apart in the first place.

This short story was an interesting one and I believe made the reader think more about the history of our world in respect to this short story. It's very important not to forget history, or you are doomed to repeat it, so the author was saying: "Here look this is your world's history from a different perspective." Sci-Fi shouldn't be something left to the white heterosexual men to write.