Imago by Octavia E. Butler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Maybe I'll be in the minority by preferring the middle book out of the entire series, but the last one definitely puts everything in perspective. We start out from the purely human perspective in the first, the hybrid perspective in the second, and end with an entirely new perspective of a new Ooloi who now threatens the gene-line of the Ooloi, being the most alien out of all the bunch but with a singular interesting gift...

Of humanity. :)

Enough time has passed since the first book that history upon history has filled nearly all the human settlements with a fairly good case of fear and resentment... after all, these aliens have killed our original genome, preventing our having children except with their third sex. Is this, in the end, an alien invasion? Well, we did basically destroy ourselves off in a nuclear winter and they came along to preserve us, so a good case can be made on both sides.

All of this might be moot when the most human of the aliens comes along and fights for the rights of the last of the flawed species. Never mind that the Ooloi made Mars habitable for the remaining people and gave us back our normal reproduction... what is needed is a real push forward along lines that isn't so perversely paradoxical... Thank you, Mr. Heirarchy.

A very interesting tale... and I mean all three books, considered. I like the ambiguity and the deliciously Biopunk SF-ness. :) I heartily recommend reading all three books together.


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