When Shori attains consciousness, she has no memory of who she is, where she is, or what she is. She knows only the unrelenting hunger. It is satisfied at first by a surprisingly docile and self-sacrificing animal. Later, it is a human being who gets too close, who whispers words not of warning or fear but of hope. Alas, Shori does not have mind enough to ask what he meant by saying, “’Oh my God, it’s her. Please let her be alive.’” (pp. 339)
Later, wandering along the roads, she encounters another person. Wright is driving, sees her as little more than a kid, and stops to help her. It’s a decision that will forever change his life. Especially when Shori drinks his blood, unintentionally injects some of her venom into him, and makes him hers. Shori is not a child, not even human. Instead, she is a member of the ageless though sunlight sensitive Ina, known throughout human folklore as vampires, but they are more than mere villains and blood drinking monsters. They have a society all their own, a separate culture, and aspirations toward developing a version of themselves that can walk in the day. While the pastier versions cannot, perhaps Shori can since she has been modified at a genetic level, gifted with additional doses of melanin.
However, the head injuries that caused her amnesia and her need to feed were not accidental. As it turns out, the home she shared with sisters and mothers—the Ina split their living conditions based on gender as well as family—has been attacked. Shori is a sole survivor, and whoever was responsible for that deed will not rest until she joins them.
Is this some kind of plot in the Ina itself? Or are the hunters pursuing her simple humans acting on their own initiative, either as fearless vampire killers or possibly racist bastards? Shori is not sure, but she has plenty of questions. Some can be answered by her extended family, the Ina. Others will need to be asked of murderous humanoid agents. And even when she has the answers, there are hoops to jump through, tribunals to endure, and painful reprimands to swallow if she is to see justice done. However, Shori is nothing if not driven, and she will ask even the most improper and embarrassing questions necessary before she’s done. But she is more than a simple oddity, she is a possibility for future generations of vampiric Ina to walk in the sunshine. Of course, she will have to survive long enough for that to come true.
Octavia E. Butler claims to have written this final novel, Fledgling, as a palette cleanser from the dark Parable novels she penned prior. To relax from the writing process, she wound up reading plenty of vampire fantasy novels and these led her to wonder if she could write one herself. The book does not delve into the dark quite the same way as Parable of the Talents or Parable of the Sower did and certainly not in the way Kindred did. However, as fun as Fledgling can be, it also is not afraid to confront racism, speciesism, possessiveness, pride, as well as fears about both bisexuality and polyamory, and other negative qualities full on.
However, these topics are never approached with an eye toward the gratuitous. While some (or all) of these items will make us a tad uncomfortable, the author doesn’t stare too deeply into the dark while handling them. She is not interested in repulsing her readers with a catalogue of mankind’s evils. She invokes a few and leaves them for us to ponder while delivering an engaging story about self-discovery and self-awareness. Shori’s love for her people always pulls us back into better lit realms.
Ultimately, Shori is a clever point of view character. Coming to consciousness without memory of prior events in the opening pages of the book, she knows no more about the people, culture, or social mores of the Ina than the reader does. As she learns about the intricacies, the politics, and the maneuvering necessary to exist in this world, the reader is right there with her, processing the information in real time. Sure, there’s a brief bout of Shori having to look up contemporary vampire lore—and while Bram Stoker, Bela Lugosi, and other incarnations of the archetypal creature are brushed upon, ultimately, the research phase of the book is glossed through. Butler is well aware that her readers are likely to have this information already at hand. We might not all be experts, but we know some of the classical expectations: a fear of sunlight, crosses, sleeping during the day and night time activity, a need for blood, the ability to impart passion through the act of drinking the red stuff, a connection that forms between victim and vampire after enough encounters …
Some of the conventions remain, several are discarded, and Butler applies her own clever spin on the idea of vampires and what a secret society composed of them might be like. Butler’s strength is found in the way she indulges all these ideas—some big, some intimate, some subtle, and some loud—and constructs her plot to let us get a sense both of the world, Shori’s place in the status quo, and Shori’s opportunities in its future.
While Fledgling is not the first attempt to put an African American character front and center in either an urban fantasy or a vampire story, it is nevertheless one intensely concerned with the future of this particular society. Through Shori, we get a sense of how things will be shaped for future generations, whereas a more traditional urban fantasy series (such as Seressia Glass’s Shadowchasers) is predominantly interested in finishing off this new and immediate problem or further reaching series like Whitney Hill’s Shadows of the Otherside speculate at how things might change and grow in coming months or the next couple of years. Butler’s eye is always trained both at the present-day dramas as well as speculations involving more distant futures. That imagination is what gives Fledgling added heft and sets it strongly apart from its contemporaries. As much fun as Kim Harrison’s novels or Laurel K. Hamilton’s books can be, they don’t quite look too far ahead; the characters have a lot to do right now, and little time to get ‘r done. Shori is not so mired. Sure, she has plenty of things to address in the moment, but her very existence is what potentially opens up big news and changes in the Ina future. And those possibilities can engender larger than life hopes and fears.
It is a shame that Butler died before she got to her next books. Sadly, she passed in 2006 just after this novel’s release due to issues involving a stroke and/or head trauma. We have a handful of works when many a reader would prefer fifty or sixty volumes of quality prose and idea-wrangling. And the author left notes about possible follow-ups to her works, including one or more to this novel.
Still, as vampire fiction goes, Fledgling brings a lot to the table, exploring as it does all kinds of considerations and concepts. It’s a book that grapples with pride and love, with polyamory and bisexuality, with speciesism and race, with gender issues, with symbiosis, with biology and psychology, with memory and heart and hope and dread and yearning for satisfaction. It’s a smorgasbord of a story, well told and intricately plotted, and it has plenty to share and more to teach.
Will it ever be whispered in the same breathlessness as an epic like Kindred? Maybe yes, maybe no. The inaugural volume of the Library of America included that book as well as this one in its contents, along with a handful of novellas and short stories. So, perhaps the book’s reputation will grow over time. For now, Fledgling feels like it dwells in the long shadows of Butler’s other works. While it does not have the heavy subject matter that propels a novel like Kindred into academic settings, as a way to approach our own history, it’s nevertheless a well-conceived and playfully written exploration of the sorts of fiction that were popular decades ago without either talking down to the reader, adopting a haughty disdain for the genre, or giving us anything but an intriguing character study and textbook example of worldbuilding.
Makes me wonder what she might’ve done with werewolves if she’d had the chance.
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Fledgling is available in paperback, hardcover, eBook, and audiobook editions. As well, it is included in the Library of American hardcover omnibus edition, Octavia E. Butler: Kindred, Fledgling, Collected Stories.
Next, we will take a look at C. D. Kester’s blend of coming-of-age yarn and horror story, Trailer Park. It is available for pre-order in an eBook edition. Other editions are likely to follow.
“Parable of the Bloodsucker: Octavia E. Butler’s Fledgling” is copyright © 2024 by Daniel R. Robichaud. Cover image taken from the Grand Central Publishing paperback, released in 2007. Quote and cover image also taken from the LoA Omnibus editions, released in 2021.
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