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Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
Oryx and Crake
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3.97 80
"In the beginning, there was chaos..." Margaret Atwood's chilling new novel Oryx and Crake moves beyond the futuristic fantasy of her 1985 bestseller The Handmaid’s Tale to an even more dystopian world, a world where language--and with it anything beyond the merest semblance of humanity--has... show more
"In the beginning, there was chaos..." Margaret Atwood's chilling new novel Oryx and Crake moves beyond the futuristic fantasy of her 1985 bestseller The Handmaid’s Tale to an even more dystopian world, a world where language--and with it anything beyond the merest semblance of humanity--has almost entirely vanished. Snowman may be the last man on earth, the only survivor of an unnamed apocalypse. Once he was Jimmy, a member of a scientific elite; now he lives in bitter isolation and loneliness, his only pleasure the watching of old films on DVD. His mind moves backwards and forwards through time, from an agonising trawl through memory to relive the events that led up to sudden catastrophe (most significantly the disappearance of his mother and the arrival of his mysterious childhood companions Oryx and Crake, symbols of the fractured society in which Snowman now finds himself, to the horrifying present of genetic engineering run amok. His only witnesses, eager to lap up his testimony, are "Crakers", laboratory creatures of varying strengths and abilities, who can offer little comfort. Gradually the reasons behind the disaster begin to unfold as Snowman undertakes a perilous journey to the remains of the bubble-dome complex where the sinister Paradice Project collapsed and near-global devastation began. This, Atwood’s 11th novel, confirms her as one of our most contemporary novelists. Darkly humorous and icily prescient, Oryx and Crake shows a writer deeply concerned with the stark moral issues facing the human race, and accords a glimpse of a future that lies all too uneasily within reach. --Catherine Taylor
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Format: paperback
ISBN: 9780770429355 (0770429351)
Publisher: Seal Books
Pages no: 443
Edition language: English
Series: MaddAddam Trilogy (#1)
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Community Reviews
Joelle's Bibliofile
Joelle's Bibliofile rated it
4.0 Atwood At Her Best
With Oryx and Crake, the first book of her MaddAddam series, Margaret Atwood delivers a dystopic (but not completely hopeless) depiction of Earth following a catastrophic mass extinction event. The novel opens with an introduction to Snowman, a survivor whose story will be revealed through flashback...
Cynically Speaking
Cynically Speaking rated it
3.5
This is the first Margaret Atwood novel I've read. The MaddAddam series keeps raising its head on many sites I frequent because I read a lot of dystopian fiction. I blame William Gibson's "Neuromancer" for my inclination to this genre (and cyber/techno punk). I will save for another day a my thoug...
Lindsay's Book Log
Lindsay's Book Log rated it
5.0 Oryx and Crake
This book is kinda really depressing but really amazing. Atwood describes this book as speculative fiction and I totally agree (and thus it's really depressing). Okay how do I explain the plot of this book without giving to much away. Snowman leads and teaches the innocent Crakers following a ca...
Read All The Things! Reviews
Read All The Things! Reviews rated it
5.0 Oryx and Crake
This is one of my favorite novels ever, and it’s the first book in one of my favorite trilogies ever. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve read it since it came out. I’ve been in a reading slump recently, so I picked it up again because I knew that I would enjoy it. I still love it as much as I di...
Sarah's Library
Sarah's Library rated it
3.5 Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam Trilogy, #1) by Margaret Atwood
26/12 - I found this a little bit tiresome to read for at least half the book. It wasn't until we started to see what had happened to bring about the apocalypse that I really got interested. And then Atwood finishes it just as a really exciting and mystery-revealing scene was about to happen, a bit ...
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