Honestly, the thing that made me rate this one star was (apart from the story being gross) is Butler's afterword. She bemoans the fact that people think it's a story about slavery and tries to explain why it isn't. But you know what? When a story goes out into the world you lose control over it. You don't get to decide how people will view and interpret the story, how their own experiences shape the way they see the world. And to me this clearly was a story about slavery, abuse, manipulation and consent. You can only consent to something when you know what's about to happen to you, with all the details. That clearly wasn't the case for Terrans in this story who are caged and don't really get to decide how to live their lives.

I am in love of the short stories that are emotional, full of themes and meaning, creative and still highly relevant. While most of them are from the 70s and 80s they can compete with, and read like some of the, award winning SF stories of today. They combine world changing events with the consequences for and feelings of individuals, well known SF tropes (e.g. aliens, apocolypses) with highly creative twists to them, and are told so effectively. They are all a bit dark but never hopeless. The two essays about becoming an author were also really personal and stimulating and the afterword to every piece of writing gave context as well as more food for thought.