in which people typically live for hundreds of years.

Shori and Wright accompany Iosif to his home, which is a compound filled with houses and people. Although Shori has no recollection of the community, everyone there is happy to see her and relieved that she is alive. Iosif immediately begins to answer Shori’s questions of who and what she is. He explains that she is Ina, an ancient race, and explains, “We have our own traditionsour own folklore, our own religions.” Similar to vampires of folklore, Ina must feed on human blood to survive, but they do not harm the human. They are taller and thinner than humans, with advanced senses. Ina live for hundreds of years and awaken only at night.

Iosif goes on to explain that each Ina selects specific people to feed on, and a human who agrees to live with an Ina will become that Ina’s symbiont. Once the symbiosis is formed, the symbiont can only be fed upon by his or her Ina, for another Ina’s venom would cause both Ina and human pain and sickness. The human provides the Ina with life-sustaining blood, and the Ina’s venom, in return, is not only pleasurable but also fortifies the human’s immune and circulatory systems, allowing the human to live four times as long as he or she normally would. Symbionts feel lucky to have been chosen; their Ina protect them, increase their lifespan, and shelter them and their families. Symbionts are free to carry on normal lives, but they must live with their Ina, for without Ina venom the symbiont will die. The symbiotic relationship between the highly developed Ina and humans is analogous to humankind’s relationship with the environment: Neither can live without the other, a warning Butler frequently issues in her novels.

Shori also learns from Iosif that she is a living Ina experiment. In her, her grandmothers mixed Ina DNA with human, African American DNA, giving Shori dark skin which allows her limited exposure to the sun and enables her to stay awake during the day. Iosif believes that the human DNA saved her life during the attack on the village. He informs Shori that the burned-out village was the home of her female relatives and their symbionts; adult Ina males and females live separately and come together only to mate. Iosif theorizes that Shori’s mother and grandmothers were killed in order to stop the experiments and to keep the Ina lines pure. Because Shori has lost her female family, she is permitted to live with Iosif and her male relatives until she is fully mature. She agrees and arranges for Wright and Theodora to join them. Iosif gives Wright driving instructions, and they agree to see one another in a week’s time.

When they return to the compound, they find smoldering rubble. Again, an Ina community has been burned and its inhabitants killed, and once again, the victims are relatives of Shori. As Shori and Wright sort through the ashes, Brooke and Celia, symbionts of Iosif and Shori’s brother Stefen, return home to find their community and families destroyed. Devastated and afraid, Shori, Wright, Brooke, and Celia head to a remote cabin Iosif owned in order to plan their next move in safety. Upon their arrival, however, the house is attacked and burned. This time the four fight off their attackers, killing a few, and flee. This third attack proves the theory that the murderers are after Shori.

Unaware of any other Ina, Shori questions Brooke and Celia, who tell her of another Ina clan, the Gordons, in Northern California. Shori befriends the Gordon family and learns more of her heritage and that of other Ina families. The Gordons invite her and her symbionts to live with them, and Shori sends for Theodora. Shori and the symbionts begin keeping watch during the day, when the Ina must sleep. As Shori is settling into her new home, the community is attacked. Her advanced senses of hearing and smell give the symbionts on guard plenty of warning, and they kill all but three of the attackers before any Ina or symbionts suffer serious harm. Shori and the elders bite and question the surviving attackers and learn that the Ina family responsible for the attacks is the Silk family from Pasadena, California. As suspected, they have attacked Shori and her families in an attempt to kill her and prevent any further experimentation, revealing that even an advanced society can be susceptible to ignorance and fear.

Once it is determined that the Silks have committed the murders, the Gordons organize a Council of Judgment meeting among members of seven ancient families, including both the Silks and the Gordons (Shori’s representatives). The meeting will determine the Silks’ fate should they be deemed guilty. As the families arrive at the compound, Shori learns more of her heritage as she meets distant relatives. During the council meetings, Theodora is found dead, an attack intended to harm Shori further. It is determined that Theodora was last seen with one of the council members, Katherine Dahlman’s symbiont Jack Roan, who has since escaped the grounds. Katherine, a Silk, is removed from the hearings and is placed on trial herself. During the trials, Ina prejudice is revealed when Milo Silk tells Shori, “You are not Ina . . . and you have no more business at this council than would a clever dog!”

Shori is able to continue with the relentless questioning, accusations, and insults made against her and her ancestors, while coping with the overwhelming guilt, grief, and physical pain of losing a symbiont, after a council member tells her to “remember your dead. Keep them around you.” The trials uncover a prejudice certain Ina have not only against mixing their DNA with that of humans but also against ethnic diversity and scientific progress. Through Shori’s strength, she is able to counter the bigotry and vows “to stop them from hunting me. To stop them from killing anyone else.” As the trial is ending, Shori finally receives the answers she has searched for and the acceptance and belonging she has craved; she declares in front of the council: “I am Ina.”

With Fledgling, Butler again produced a strong African American protagonist, a woman who is forced to take on more than any one person should have to bear. As in her other novels, Butler creates multilayered histories around her characters. In Fledgling she creates an entire race of people. Typical of Butler’s style, the author uses the race of Ina to explore racism and relationships and, in doing so, to make social commentaries. In general, Butler’s works serve to illuminate how some people misspend their lives and the effects of one’s choices on future generations. Fledgling is no exception, with Butler warning that not only is modern society susceptible to fear and prejudice born of ignorance, but also that it must work on improving and appreciating its symbiotic relationship with nature and the environment if the human race is to survive. Butler’s groundbreaking career was cut short when she died in early 2006 following a stroke.