Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chrysalis 4 | 1979 | Octavia E. Butler | Buy |
| 2 | The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection | 1985 | Octavia E. Butler | Buy |
| 3 | Foundations of Fear: Volume III: Visions of Fear | 1994 | Octavia E. Butler | Buy |
| 4 | The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women | 1995 | Octavia E. Butler | Buy |
| 5 | A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora | 2000 | Octavia E. Butler | Buy |
| 6 | Nebula Awards 35 (2001) | 2001 | Octavia E. Butler | Buy |
| 7 | Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine: 30th Anniversary Anthology | 2007 | Octavia E. Butler | Buy |
| 8 | The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction | 2010 | Octavia E. Butler | Buy |
| 9 | Crucified Dreams | 2011 | Octavia E. Butler | Buy |
| 10 | Ad Astra | 2015 | Octavia E. Butler | Buy |
| 11 | Sisters of the Revolution | 2015 | Octavia E. Butler | Buy |
Butler’s short fiction appeared in multi-author anthologies throughout her career. Her earliest anthology appearance was in Chrysalis 4 (1979), an original science fiction anthology series, around the same time she published Kindred. Over the following decades her stories were selected for year’s-best collections, academic anthologies, and themed collections focused on speculative fiction by women and by writers from the African diaspora.
The anthology A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (2000), edited by Sheree R. Thomas under the title Dark Matter, was a landmark publication that gathered science fiction and fantasy by Black writers and placed Butler in context with both her contemporaries and earlier writers working in the genre. The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction (2010), edited by Arthur B. Evans and others, is a standard academic text used in university courses on the genre.
Sisters of the Revolution (2015), edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, collects feminist science fiction across several decades and includes Butler alongside writers including Ursula K. Le Guin, Joanna Russ, and N.K. Jemisin. For readers who want to understand Butler in relation to the broader tradition of speculative fiction by women, it is a useful collection to read alongside her novels.