Yesterday I finished Imago, the final volume of Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy, and I don’t know what to think of it. I was prepared to praise the trilogy to the sky, for its phenomenal conception and superb writing. However, now I’m unsure. The book neatly tied off the storyline with a “happy,” Kumbaya ending, but my questions were unanswered, and I feel completely dissatisfied. The introduction of the Mars colony at the end of Book Two implied that it would be the focus of the third book, but it plays no part in Imago’s plot. The colony is an all-human reservation (like the Indian reservations in the U.S.) where people can breed freely. It is only one of three options offered to the human resistors. The other options are (1) mate with the Oankali and live on Earth or on the spaceship (a world in itself) until the time comes to leave Earth, and (2) continue to live on Earth in resistor villages, disease ridden and sterile.
Certain facts must be remembered. The Oankali, who are manipulative and deceptive, did not save the human race for any altruistic reason. They are “traders,” and we had something they wanted in trade. (It is interesting that this is an extreme extension of an idea pioneered by Clifford D. Simak in his 1958 Hugo-winning novelette, “The Big Front Yard.”) Also, the Oankali intend to suck the Earth dry of resources and then leave. That is why any humans who want to stay behind must be on Mars.
I see three possible interpretations: (1) the story is rosy propaganda for a collectivist viewpoint, (2) it is a dark allegory of the European conquest and enslavement of natives in the Americas, or (3) it is a standard alien invasion story, ingeniously presented with a positive gloss to conceal its savage irony. I have no idea what Butler intended. Maybe that is the whole point—just to make us think.
Now I have returned to John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee series. I’m reading the tenth novel, The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper. This has the slowest build-up of anything I have ever read, I think. I’m up to page 72, and the main plot has only just begun to emerge. Not complaining, just marveling at how MacDonald gets away with it (modern readers probably wouldn’t let him, but that’s another discussion).