Octavia E Butler - Imago
Publisher – Headline
First Published - 1997
Price – £4.99 Kindle eBook
Child of the Earth and stars, Jodahs can shapeshift, heal the maimed, cure cancer ... and create contagion with every breath. The child is an ooloi, a being beyond gender, born with the alien Oankali power to mix pure DNA within its body. But Jodahs is also the first ooloi born to a human mother, and its destiny is unknown.
The futures if both humans and Oankali rest in one young being's successful metamorphosis into adulthood.
Jodahs can become a mad, living plague - or a bridge of peace. Its challenge is to reconcile its galactic heritage of gene trading with the rage of a people facing a terrifying dilemma. For human children will inherit the universe only if they lose all that makes them human.
So nearly two thirds of my way through Octavia Butler’s work and with Imago being the conclusion tot heir second series it is worth talking briefly about how Butler’s approach to a series is a little different to what I’ve been used to. I’m conditioned to expect that a trilogy will be three parts of a story and indeed Lilith’s Brood tells a story but Butler does remind us a series can be much more than one cast’s story but exploration of themes and perspectives and one I’d love other writers to play with such an approach in the future.
The finale of the series I was expecting was definitely what was hinted at in Adulthood Rites that the remaining remnants of humanity would be given their own place on Mars to try and show that this time self-destruction would be averted. Instead, the story focuses again on earth and his time another of Lilith’s children Jodahs another child of mixed human and Oankali parentage. Whereas previously we had Akin a male as the lead we here have the first new ooloi – the sexless gender that primarily exists to absorb and knit DNA. This provides a challenge to not just his own family but surviving remnants of resisters.
Once again Butler is really impressive at putting us In an alien’s perspective. The whole tale is told now from Johdas’ point of view as they grew up. Making us see Johdas as a child despite their unusual worldview makes the reader quickly sympathetic to them and keen to see them do well. In particular as we see that the Oankali themselves see Johdas as a potential aberration - something new to their species and yet a potential threat through no fault of their own. Jehad can as their powers are untrained accidentally hurt or change the body chemistry of anyone they meet and this is the story of Johdas learning both control and what they want from life. For a novel that I was expecting would be exploring humanity’s last chance we actually have a tale of someone trying to find love and a place in the world. Remarkably low key for the finale of a story but as we get to witness Johdas’ body transformations and even their ability to change DNA for ourselves this really is putting human readers in a very unusual alien headspace that not many books do well. By the end we get to see life their way and that is a huge achievement.
In some ways Imago repeats the plot of Adulthood Rites as Johdas finds themselves away from their family and meeting human resisters. In this case it’s unusually for Butler this time not a tale of imprisonment and someone in charge dominating another. This time the crux of the tale focuses on Johdas forming a consensual relationship with a pair of siblings who suffer a severe bodily deformity (as does the rest of their settlement). It’s quite interesting that we effectively see Johdas save a man who has something akin to leprosy and even at one stage saves people from certain death. Added to their wider abilities to change DNA and offer further hope to humanity that they may be able to have normal children bred again you could say Johdas takes almost a humble messiah like role finally uniting the two races now living on Earth – I can’t believe Butler isn’t making parallels to Jesus on purpose. At the same time I do admit that the use of siblings that Johdas plans to have procreate for future children feels for me uncomfortable – Butler does point out that humanity and it’s dwindling population has defaulted to what is incest but I’m not convinced this works and this again parallels some of the traits we see in the Patternist series where the focus is on creating new generations with good DNA and the morality of these issues tends to get brushed over. Butler isn’t saying incestuous relationships are good just saying this is how this world works but for me this doesn’t really succeed as an approach.
The low-key nature of the tale may be puzzling to readers and indeed at just over two hundred pages it’s not a very epic novel, but its success is that exploration of a perspective that is definitely not human as we know it. Looking across the series I think this is a tale of humanity being told you need in order to progress to let go of your humanity and ends on a quiet note of hope rather than pointing to the new age of civilization to come. From Lilith learning to cope with being the last human and acting as a reluctant bridge, Akin’s initial crossing of those boundaries and now Johdas offering something wholly new the series asks us what is humanity?
We see that the groups that refuse to mix with others, who don’t want to evolve, or change are turned into ever increasingly violent and dangerous groups heading for disaster. Those who start to remove their walls of prejudice get hope and find new definitions of life, love, and purpose. For me I finish the series thinking that if the Patternist series was very much focused on power and the dynamics of control then Lilith’s Brood is instead more focused on our definitions of human and the other - those we do not see as human and learning to look past physical or cultural differences to see common goals. Only by learning to understand those we other can we start to see ourselves change and progress too and I think that is a key lesson for all of us Which great science fiction excels at and this feels to cement Butler’s role in providing that.
