Imago

Wow!

In all honesty, I struggled through the first few chapters of this book. But having listened to the first two books of the trilogy, I continued. Boy, was I glad that I did!
Once it got going it carried me away just like the others had. It was the perfect ending to the series.
I highly recommend this book! I would however, highly recommend that the trilogy be read in order.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

What an amazing trilogy!

Originally posted at: A Girl That Likes Books

First impression

What an amazing trilogy. I am so glad this was my first contact with the work of Octavia E. Butler, because I completely loved every book and the series as a whole. In this book we encounter Jodahs, another son of Lilith and her Oankali family; a construct. For the first time, a construct that is turning into an ooloi, the first one to come from human parents. Once again, Butler explores how we deal with the unknown and the changes this brings to everyone including yourself.

Final thoughts

I think I have never encountered and author that makes me question what identity really is like Octavia E. Butler with this series. Not only to what a human is, but all those little labels that we gather through our lives: male, female, foreign, normal, etc. This third book is off course not exception, and it comes in the form of a coming-of-age for the main character, Jodhas, who as it turns out, won't be male or female, since the ooloi are neither. First we see its own struggle it has accepting what he is becoming and at the same trying to explain to others so they will not only understand this new step in the Oankali-Human relationship but also so they will accept it and hopefully embrace it.

Once again, as in the rest of the series, the subject of xenophobia is discussed at large, except that in this book, is not just humans who are afraid, the Oankali don't know what to do with Jodhas, and fear what its presence might mean. I loved that she (Butler) shows so beautifully how the unknown is always scary, independent of our background, but that at the same time, we don't need to be afraid. Acceptance is always present in this trilogy, sometimes reluctantly, but always there.

Jodhas has this ability to modify its appearance to make whoever is around more comfortable, to adapt to others and I found this extremely interesting, as it cannot help but do it, most of the time it wouldn't realize this was happening until someone else pointed this out. This is something so common in relationships, we change a bit, not to much that we lose ourselves, but enough to reflect our new situation. The problem of changing so much that our identity is lost is also addressed, but I don't want to discuss it too much, as I fear it might give some spoilers.

I particularly enjoyed the feeling of family portrayed in the book. While sometimes it would seem like a more complicated structure, at the end it is always a net of support, with all of the members being woven together by love, expectations and belonging.

The other thing that the trilogy addresses in an impressive way is sexuality, and what it might mean to a person (or to an Oankali). What it might mean to feel and identify as male, female, both or neither and how others that might be more accustomed to a more black-and-white perspective would respond to this perspective being challenged. I can only say that Octavia E. Butler was a genius being able to put herself in the skin of so many issues and most importantly being able to transmit these feelings in her writing.

I would recommend this series to anyone seeking a brilliant sci-fi series with a lot of social subtext.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Good Ending to The Trilogy

This trilogy frames two major issues. The first is the self destructive nature of human life, and the second is our evolving relationship with our own bodies, especially issues surrounding gender. Butler gives us an earth already destroyed by humans in a final great war that leaves only a few survivors tottering on the brink of extinction. How are they to survive when the seeds of self-destruction are encoded in their own DNA? Their salvation comes from above in the form of aliens who collect and preserve humanity's remnants much as we preserve endangered species. Like us, they reintroduce humans into their former habitat, but in s doing so they intermix their own DNA with ours and create a new species with three different genders which all must come together nine order to reproduce. The story is really one of the seduction of human beings onto an evolutionary path that has a very different kind of future than we usually imagine for ourselves. Butler was a great writer, and the first book bowled me over. The second book challenged me to re-imagine he human condition, and the third swept me away into a very different vision of what we might become. Listeners who are looking for science fiction at its best, imaginative, challenging, and complex will love this trilogy and look for more of Octavia Butler's superb stories of about who we are and what we might become.

Aldrich Barrett was outstanding with the delivery of the story

9 of 13 people found this review helpful

Pretty Good Wrap-up

I was unable to develop an imersion of emotions to match those I felt from the first two books. Still, I really enjoyed the overall concepts. Only one "why didn't the aliens do..." which is rare in sci-fi.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Fascinating Tale

Butler wows us again with this incredibly timely epic into the depths of the human condition. With our current progress in human genetics, this tale gives narrative to a strange new realm in which many things are changing for our understanding of how out bodies and minds work. I enjoyed every bend of the journey. Thank you Ms. Butler.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Part of a great series - but not the best part.

Any additional comments?

I was a little disappointed that the book didn't continue the overall what will happen to the human species question of the first two books as much.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Butler's Trilogy Captures You Until the End

What made the experience of listening to Imago the most enjoyable?

The whole series had this ominous but riveting tone.

What did you like best about this story?

That is a loaded question. Throughout the series I kept picturing the Oankali and Ooloi tentacles and the variations of them.

What three words best describe Barrett Aldrich’s performance?

Monotone but effective.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The ending.

Any additional comments?

In most stories that talk about the end of the human civilization, one tends to root for resurgence of the human race. Honestly towards the end of this series, I felt torn. The fact that Butler outlines the reasons why Oankali think we won't survive on our own may be spot on.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Fantastic

After Adulthood Rites I was unnecessarily concerned! Imago takes a deeper dive into themes surrounding identity, disillusionment and “freedom”. We learn even more about the Oankali and their intentions.
The kind of symbiotic relationship the humans feared and the Oankali resisted seems like more of a possibility. And just like Lilith, her children play a huge role in bridging the relationship and communication gap between humans and Oankali! I adored this book!

A child of human and alien parents find a new way

One of my reading goals this year was to finished all of the fiction books that Octavia Butler wrote. This is the next to last.

Imago I think is a second tier Butler book. It is not bad. Butler is a good writer and creates intriguing worlds. This is not really complete series. It is set on earth, but an earth that an alien race has captured and rules. The alien world took over the Earth in the midst of a global war. The aliens capture the remaining humans and for hundreds of years kept them in stasis while they were studied and the earth was restored after the war.

In the first book of the trilogy the first humans were awoken and that started a forced breeding program to create new species. The aliens are genetic manipulators that go from world to world collecting gene samples and creating new species, mining and using up the worlds until they are bare hunks of rock and then moving on. Butler at times could be a bit to on the nose with her imagery.

The conflict of the trilogy is about participation of humans in this breeding program and the ways that the new ‘constructs’ impact both the humans and the aliens. The three books are about three different characters, the human mother, her first construct child and then this one about another of her construct children, the first construct that is a genetic manipulator itself. (The genetic manipulators do not have sex or gender, they are the conduit through which the different genders connect for procreation.)

As much as I like Butler’s writing and am intrigued by her ideas, her writing around sex is almost always disturbing. Sex is often not fully consensual. Here the humans are essentially made dependent up on the aliens. They cannot touch another human of the opposite gender without pain. They are essentially drugged to ‘love’ the aliens (or the particular aliens that are their mates). But they still retain the ability to understand their imprisonment/slavery. They understand that the only way they can survive is to be mated with the aliens, but it is a real choice between death and forced breeding slaves.

Imago has a conclusion, but the series feels incomplete. From what I read, there was plans for a fourth book, but it was never completed before Butler passed away. As a whole, I probably would just skip the whole trilogy. I do not think it really rises to the top of Butler’s game, although she always raises interesting ethical questions in her writing.

so good, absolutely loved it

great finale to an excellent series. Thoroughly enjoyed this. fun ride from beginning to end