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    Imago
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    Imago
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    Imago
    Ebook308 pages4 hours

    Imago

    By Octavia E. Butler

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The stunning conclusion to a postapocalyptic trilogy about an alien species merging with humans—from “one of science fiction’s finest writers” (TheNew York Times).
     Human and Oankali have been mating since the aliens first came to Earth to rescue the few survivors of an annihilating nuclear war. The Oankali began a massive breeding project, guided by the ooloi, a sexless subspecies capable of manipulating DNA, in the hope of eventually creating a perfect starfaring race. Jodahs is supposed to be just another hybrid of human and Oankali, but as he begins his transformation to adulthood he finds himself becoming ooloi—the first ever born to a human mother. As his body changes, Jodahs develops the ability to shapeshift, manipulate matter, and cure or create disease at will. If this frightened young man is able to master his new identity, Jodahs could prove the savior of what’s left of mankind. Or, if he is not careful, he could become a plague that will destroy this new race once and for all.

    Readers of Ursula K. Le Guin and N. K. Jemisin will be fascinated by bestselling author Octavia Butler’s thought-provoking and compelling vision of humanity.
     This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.    
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateJul 24, 2012
    ISBN9781453263693
    Unavailable
    Imago
    Author

    Octavia E. Butler

    Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) was a renowned African American author of several award-winning novels, including Parable of the Sower, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 1993, and Parable of the Talents, winner of the Nebula Award for the best science fiction novel in 1995. She received a MacArthur Genius Grant and PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award for her body of work and was acclaimed for her lean prose, strong protagonists, and social observations in stories that range from the distant past to the far future.

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    Reviews for Imago

    4/5

    421 ratings15 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Third and final book of the Xenogenesis trilogy with another different protagonist to follow. Jodahs is approaching metamorphosis and while it seems it is destind to become male he is not drawn to either of his male parents but instead is spending as much time a it can with Nikanj its ooloi parent. So when metamorphosis finally occurs and Jodahs becomes the first ooloi construct and presents a real danger to everything around it until it can learn to control its abilities if it can. Exile to the Oankali ship was the suggesterd option if an accident like this ever occured but Nikanj manages to argue successfully for an exile to a remore part of Earth and so a small section of their family sets off into the wilderness after Jodhas' first metamorphosis is complete. Its five parents, paired sibling and two other younger children accompany Jodahs on his journey.Like the previous books in the series there are questions for the reader to ponder while never taking you out of the story that's being told. Using aliens to look at humanity and some of its traits has been a clever idea and handled very well. Like the other two books in the trilogy this one is easy to read despite some questionable morality on behalf of the main characters who you can still empathise with. Not having read any of her work previously this series has been an excellent place to start and I look forward to sampling some more in the future.
    • 5/5
      Another great if disturbing book by Octavia Butler. I love her writing style, understated and matter-of-fact. Her worlds are amazing, her aliens life-like. Their different way of thinking is disturbing, but also what makes the book so good.
    • 4/5
      The conclusion of the Xenogenesis series focuses on Jodahs, the child of humans, Oankali, and the sexless Ooloi. Many Resisters still do not believe that there are fertile humans on a new colony on Mars. On Earth the aliens and the humans with the Ooloi will merge to form a new race. However, despite the feelings of many Oankali, humans have been given the chance to reproduce on Mars and are trying to find all of the remaining humans and give them the choice: Mars or stay on Earth and become a part of a new race.
    • 4/5
      I discovered Octavia Butler by reading short story in Science Fiction Anthology.... love her work
    • 5/5
      Octavia E. Butler is an amazing writer. It doesn't matter whether or not I like the story she has written, when I'm reading it I'm not reading a book, I'm there in her world, totally transported. Imago is no exception. This is the third and final book in the Xenogenesis series (a.k.a. Lilith's Brood). There are a lot of very complicated relationships in this which are explained fully in previous books. I have to admit that I got a bit bogged down in them as they were re-explained at the beginning of this one. This is told from the perspective of Lilith's youngest offspring who is now 29 years old. Lilith, a human, gave birth to it, but she is only one of its five parents (note the previously mentioned complicated relationships). What was great about this story was the way it took things that humans do that you and I would find perfectly understandable and then took a step back to look at them from an alien perspective. Suddenly these rational human reactions seem completely irrational. After seeing through alien eyes for a while I came to totally agree with the alien perspective. It wasn't until several hours after I finished the book that I realized that if I were put in the position of these humans, I would probably have acted similarly--I would be a "resister" too! Totally awesome writing with a very imaginative story. My biggest complaint about this book is that it's too short!
    • 4/5
      This is the last in the trilogy and I have to say I'm a bit disappointed it didn't have a more 'definite' ending. I was really hoping for a epilogue, a kind of and then they left earth and sailed off into the wild blue yonder but instead it ended as if there could be another book written very similar to this one (and the 2nd book).It is kind of strange that she picked new characters as main characters for this book and then just had some cameos of the old characters. It makes it seem much like a classic trilogy and more like a couple stories set in the same world.Another strange thing about this is that she didn't ever explain again how the very complicated family structures work or how the aliens actually look. I read the first book more than a year ago so I couldn't really remember much of it.Writing was great, very readable like Stephen King but way more interesting and less gimmicky. Only one more Butler book to read and I will have read her entire catalog. Have to say I don't regret it.
    • 4/5
      Imago is a thought provoking and intriguing conclusion to the Xenogenesis trilogy, but I found the series less compelling as it progressed from book to book. The characters here are generally simpler and less sympathetic than Lilith was in Dawn. In part this may reflect the fact that several (including the protagonists in the second and third books) are a part-human, part-alien constructs struggling to find their identity. I struggled a bit with some of the human alien sexual content, not so much because it was weird, but because it just didn't ring true for me. And at some point the unrelenting violence and rapacity of the survivors of man became kind of boring. Still, the trilogy as a whole is well worth your time.
    • 5/5
      Jodahs, child of Lilith, who was thought to be a male is actually maturing into the first ooloi from a human/Oankali union. Jodahs finds a pair of human resisters who prove that some pure humans are still fertile. These humans may be his only hope to find successful mates, but they have been raised to revile and despise his species above all else. Fantastic conclusion to the trilogy!
    • 3/5
      a satisfying conclusion. i read these out of order, but the story still hung together well.
    • 5/5
      A great closing chapter to this story, I was eagerly awaiting a human ooloi contruct pov and it delivered!
    • 4/5
      Alternative civilizations fantasy sci fi is just not my genre, but now I have a big exception. Octavia Bulter. I read the first of this trilogy for last year's read harder challenge and picked up the next two in the last month. Her intricate and thoughtful construction is a wonderful reflection and insight into what being human means as seen through aliens rejuvenating a post-apocalyptic earth. The series is refreshingly not the typical (and predictably tiring) alien/invader battle narrative.
    • 5/5
      I'm not sure why, but it took me over a year to get around to reading Imago, the final book in Octavia E. Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy, after finishing the previous volume. I absolutely loved the first two books Dawn and Adulthood Rites; it's almost as if Butler wrote these novels with me in mind. The series is smart and sexy science fiction; it is possible to be read for pure entertainment value but more satisfactorily on a deeper level. The books were originally published separately between 1987, 1988, and 1989 respectively, but in 2000 they were released in a single volume called Lilith's Brood by Grand Central Publishing. I believe there was also an earlier omnibus called Xenogenesis, but if so it is out of print. The novels are relatively short so it makes sense that they would be collected together.Jodahs was an accident--the first ooloi, a third sex neither male nor female, to be born from a Human mother. It wasn't until Jodahs entered metamorphosis that the mistake was caught. A Human-Oankali ooloi was not planned to appear for several more centuries at least. Jodahs is either a fluke or the unintentional start of a new species, but either way is considered to be a danger to itself and the living things around it. In order to minimize the impact it has on its environment and still maintain some degree of freedom, Jodahs and its family choose exile in the wilds of Earth. There Jodahs must learn to control its abilities of genetic manipulation, both voluntary and involuntary, prepare for its second and final metamorphosis, and prove that it is not a danger. It is a daunting task and even with the support of its family, Jodahs may fail.Jodahs has a physical need, a hunger, to be with people beyond even the need the Oankali have. Its intense desire for acceptance and understanding make it a very sympathetic character despite its very alien mindset. The pain of being rejected simply for being what it is and what it never wanted to be is heartbreaking. The Oankali have no pretensions--they are not concerned with preserving Humankind, they are preoccupied with protecting Life. The ooloi are not the only thing that make the Oankali totally alien and Butler captures their strangeness marvelously. By telling the story through the eyes of Jodahs, who is different from anyone else, she is also able to explore the inherent strangeness and contradictions of Humans as well. And because the book is written in the first-person, Jodahs' observations and experiences with Humans, Oankali, and fellow constructs are acutely personal. I had forgotten how amazing Butler's work is. Just like the first two books in Xenogenesis, I absolutely loved Imago--it was sensual, emotionally charged, erotic, and disconcerting. Although Imago is the third book of the trilogy, it actually stands alone quite well. The ending does seem to come a bit suddenly (Imago is the shortest book of the three) but it was a very satisfying conclusion to the series. Understandably, some people are going to be uncomfortable with these books--they do have quite a bit do with interspecies sex and challenging gender conventions, after all. The Oankali are the unarguably the species that holds the power. The Humans can't help that they are physically attracted to the Oankali even while being repulsed by them. This conflict makes them dangerous as the Humans fight against the sense they are betraying themselves and their species. Even I as a reader felt simultaneously drawn to and repelled by the Oankali. Xenogenesis is a compelling and challenging work, a fantastic series, and one that I would highly recommend.Experiments in Reading
    • 4/5
      Some thoughts: A satisfactory ending to the trilogy, although the ending feels a bit too tidy. We do, however, never find out what happens to humanity; we only have the Oankali's prediction and they are never wrong. Well, hardly ever. The writing feels very stately; perhaps all the long, alien names help you read the book slowly. There's a little bit about gender and language: in, say, Spanish, where every noun is either masculine or feminine, it is hard to find a pronoun for a third gender. English has "it" which may be an unfair term to use (and the word isn't always used as a pronoun) because it seems to imply someone lacking male or female characteristics. The Oankali say that humans are hierarchical, a trait they developed even before intelligence, and therefore are doomed to self-destruction. I wonder if our need to divide people into "us" and "them" isn't also a factor. There is little about the day-to-day life of the people, but I suppose that's true of most stories.
    • 5/5
      The culmination of the Exenogenesis trilogy completes the examination of the three genders of this world: legacy humans who have managed to survive a deadly war on Earth; Oankali, beings who travel the universe to exchange gene material; and Ooloi, a third Oankali gender that breeds with the two others. Their habitats are Earth, with its country/spaceship of Lo ; Mars, where humans live alone in an atmosphere created for them by the Oankali; and now, new territory on Earth with the construct and birth of two human-Ooloi, Jodahs and Aaor. The Oolois' extreme sexual thrall to humans is startling here. Their possessiveness, though benign, edges into the territory they find objectionable in humans - their heriarchical nature. Unlike the other Oankali, Ooloi need only a human of each sex to mate - not an Oankali. Ooloi have amazing powers of healing every wound and genetic flaw of humans, but their obsessive nature is truly frightening. This series was already bursting with Butler's imagination in creating the Oankali and their world and their spaceships, but the ooloi/human construct is another giant step. It's a truly satisfying ending.
    • 5/5
      There is nothing that I can say in less than a few hours of fangirling that can accurately describe how I feel about this series now that I have finished it. If you like biology, science fiction, and anthropology then you will at least get something out of this series, even if you don't like it. I do like it though. The story peels out through layers over three books, and three major characters, and I love that approach. It allows the story to unfold, and allowed me to think long enough to understand the implications of the universe the story is set in. For example, how humans are the most intelligent species the Oankali have ever traded with, and how Oankali that find uninhabited planets would dissolve into organelles that would encourage evolution of new life on previously uninteresting planets. And how Earth life is like the Oankali in that they have organelles that we think used to be independent cells. It made me think, is Earth intended to be an Oankali dissolution from a long time ago that is not remembered? Just read the series, okay?