Speech Sounds

I was just reading the July issue of Asimov's when I came across the "In Memoriam" for Octavia Butler. The memoriam noted that Butler wrote few short stories. Of those she published, Asimov's had only printed two: "Speech Sounds" and "Bloodchild." These two stories "brought her three of her four major science fiction awards."

As it so happens, I'd just read "Speech Sounds." Sure enough, it won her the 1984 Hugo Award for Best Short Story.

"Speech Sounds" was a terrific story to read- not in the least because the science behind the science fiction was linguistcs- one of my favorite fields! The pandemic in this story leaves survivors unable to read, write, or speak. But things don't really start to get creepy until we learn that certain individuals, more resistant, stronger, luckier than the other survivors, have managed to retain limited portions of their linguistic abilities. These rare individuals who can still read, or, as in protagonist Rye's case, still speak coherent sentences, form a hated segment of an angry population who no longer have the ability to let off steam verbally. Their anger has to be acted out in a very physical way.