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language: English
country: USA
year: 1989
form: novel
genre(s): science fiction
series: Xenogenesis, #3
dates read: 1.7.24
the difficulty I have with all of Octavia Butler’s work is that almost all of it begins from the premise that humans are fundamentally and irredeemably bad, and that this badness can only be changed by becoming something other than human. I had hoped, after the improvement of Adulthood Rites vis-à-vis Dawn, that Imago might move away from this, but if anything it doubles down.
where Akin recognized the necessity of human agency, Imago — told from the perspective of another of Lilith’s children, Jodahs, the first construct (= human-Oankali hybrid) ooloi — is a continuous series of human agency being willfully disregarded because the Oankali (and the constructs) know better, or believe they know better. Akin’s Mars colonization project is underway, but despite the Oankali consensus to allow the project to go forward in spite of their better judgment, the Oankali and constructs are unequivocal: humans are inherently, genetically hierarchical and because of this they will end up destroying themselves again.
Imago follows Jodahs through its unexpected metamorphosis into an ooloi, its just-as-unexpected mating with two fertile humans from a severely inbred resister community, and its return to that community with its also-ooloi sibling Aaor in order to find mates for Aaor, who will die without them. that is essentially the entire plot: finding interesting human mates for the construct ooloi. (and she disowned Survivor for having interspecies sex! at least it has a narrative aside from Alanna’s relationship with her Tehkohn lover.)
and in this we are right back to Dawn: Jodahs “seduces” its human mates with pheromones and an injected substance that dulls their resistance; Aaor does the same. when they go to the resister village they subdue the guards in much the same way, and their pheromones and demonstration of their healing ability eventually converts everyone to their side (more or less). (on which note: any physical disability is apparently a “deformity” that must be immediately corrected. the idea that someone might be content to be blind or D/deaf does not appear to have entered into Oankali consciousness, and no human raises this possibility.)
more explicitly than Dawn or Adulthood Rites, Imago makes it clear that Oankali’s or constructs’ mates quickly become biologically, chemically dependent on their ooloi. there is apparently a fairly brief initial period where this is not the case, but Jodahs neglects to mention this to its human mates, and when it reunites with its family even Lilith doesn’t say anything to them either until it’s too late. she at least has the grace to seem somewhat conflicted about this, but Jodahs is more or less unconcerned, and it doesn’t seem as if the novel expects us to regard this as a serious violation — after all, humans are bad and constructs are the only future.
oh, also, I don’t think I mentioned in my review of Adulthood Rites that the reason the Oankali refuse to put any fertile humans on earth is because in a few hundred years their bioengineered living settlements will have consumed all of the planet’s surface as they grow into living spaceships which will then depart, living the earth an empty, dead rock. neither the Oankali nor constructs have told anyone about this, except that Jodahs tells its mates. it’s unclear whether anyone else finds out; its mates don’t seem particularly bothered. our species destiny is the stars, I guess.
again we are told that human men are — apparently biologically — predisposed to reject ooloi because they are “possessive” and because they feel that ooloi are displacing them as the “rightful” penetrators. again there is no indication of the possibility that anyone might not be straight. the one perhaps-improvement on this front is the handling of Jodahs’s gender: the construct ooloi can change their shape, and appear to do so instinctively in response to the desires of potential mates, and as a result Jodahs presents variously as male-ish and female-ish to different humans over the course of the book. unfortunately, this is accompanied by the implication that humans have an innate genetic sexual desire for people who look similar to them (and also that heterosexuality is genetic).
Octavia!!!!!!
moods: dark, horny, tense