Thursday, October 27, 2022

Imago (Xenogenesis #3) by Octavia Butler

Imago is the third and final installment in the Xenogenesis trilogy from Octavia Butler. I have adored the first two books, so let's see where this goes. 

In this book, we switch perspectives again to another child of Lilith (our main character in Dawn) named Jodahs. Jodahs is another construct (child of both Oankali and humans) and at the start of the novel he is a child who has not gone through metamorphosis, but it is presumed he will be male. However, he becomes an ooloi, the neuter Oankali.  Actually, neuter isn't quite right because ooloi are integral to the mating process, but ooloi aren't male or female, so the pronoun it is used. Anyway, young ooloi can be dangerous, so Jodahs and its family are cast out into the woods until Jodahs can figure its shit out and adventures ensure.

I thought this was the weakest of the three books and it didn't leave me with big, giant questions the way the other two books have. I will say that I think the gender issues brought to the forefront in this book were really prophetic when you consider the 1989 publication date. But, to be honest, I don't think those issues are big enough to merit the inclusion of this book in the trilogy.

There are still issues of colonization and cultural imperialism, but I thought the second book did that better. I think I would very highly recommend the first two books of this series and then you could probably skip this one, although I imagine if you make it through the first two books, you'd want to finish. Ha! It's not a bad book, but it's not nearly as well done as the other two.

3/5 stars


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5 comments:

  1. Jenny10/27/2022

    Yes, pretty interesting this book raised these gender issues back in 1989! I still want to read the first book in this series- it's on my TBR.

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    1. NGS10/27/2022

      The first book is quite good! Highly recommend!

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  2. Jenny10/27/2022

    Oh, and a question- I'm still looking for books for my son (I want to give him a few sci fi/ fantasy books for Christmas so he can find some new authors he likes.) Do you think this would be good for a 20 year old boy (man? ack!) I know the main character of the first one is female but it doesn't seem like this series is geared toward either gender. Let me know what you think.

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    1. NGS10/27/2022

      Yes, the first book in this series would be a recommend for me. I would also recommend Jade City by Fonda Lee (that's also the first in a trilogy) and Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, which is a sci-fic classic I recommend for a lot of young men. Just as a wild card, I also think the main character of The Martian by Andy Weir makes it a great intro sci-fi book, but some readers might find his math/science thought process a bit too much. (I will always recommend ROTE and Murderbot for anyone, but I think you probably have enough recs at this point.)

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    2. Jenny10/27/2022

      Thank you!!!

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