Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Pages: 374
Ages: 18+
Finished: Jul. 29 2009
First Published: 2003
Genre: dystopia, science fiction
Rating: 4/5
First sentence:
Snowman wakes before dawn.
Reason for Reading: Atwood has a new book coming out in September which, while not a sequel to this one, is set in the same world and could be called a parallel novel. So I decided I should read this one first.
Comments: Humankind has been wiped out as far as we know and Snowman lives in a tree, to keep safe from the genetically altered predator animals and is the guardian over the new race of genetically created "people". Snowman alternately tells of the life he leads now with the story of his past and how "the end of the world" came to be.
It is an incredibly realistic version of a possible future that really is frightening to think about. Science has become God and anything that it can do it will do. Society encourages s*xual pursuits, body altering procedures, mind altering substances, reality TV to the extreme and all this without any morals or ethics. Any crackpot who may raise such an issue is pooh-poohed with a wave of the hand and dismissed as an insignificant insect. This is a world that in many ways we can see our own world now easily becoming. Very scary stuff.
A powerful book. Written with Atwood's usual mastery of narrative. A real-page turner and time takes on a different dimension as you read and suddenly look up and notice *that* much time has gone by already. Written only 6 years ago now, this already has become a classic of the dystopia genre and a must read for serious readers of such.
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