Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake
Now, I know that I just finished saying that we need to read the classics - but might Margaret Atwood count as a classic writer, and her recent science fiction novels as themselves classics, already?
I loved The Year of the Flood, and I've seen and heard some wise people talk about that novel as well as Oryx and Crake. Possibly the worst academic conference paper I've ever seen was largely about these novels, too, so you don't get smarter just from dealing them, but that's true for Shakespeare and Aristotle, too, so I'm hardly worried about that.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I preferred Year of the Flood, which came out second but functions in part as a prequel to Oryx and Crake. The earlier novel takes place in the minds of people less damaged by the apocalypse that's occurred around them than Snowman/Jimmy, the protagonist for Oryx and Crake, so I'm probably responding positively to the more conventional narrative posture, but that's fine by me.
Multi-species animal splices, corrupt biotech corporations, class warfare organized around intraurban boundaries, truly posthuman human bodies: it's a wonderfully imaginative world that Atwood's giving us in the MaddAddam trilogy, disturbingly real in amongst all the fantastic elements.
So very excited for the third book, am I!
I loved The Year of the Flood, and I've seen and heard some wise people talk about that novel as well as Oryx and Crake. Possibly the worst academic conference paper I've ever seen was largely about these novels, too, so you don't get smarter just from dealing them, but that's true for Shakespeare and Aristotle, too, so I'm hardly worried about that.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I preferred Year of the Flood, which came out second but functions in part as a prequel to Oryx and Crake. The earlier novel takes place in the minds of people less damaged by the apocalypse that's occurred around them than Snowman/Jimmy, the protagonist for Oryx and Crake, so I'm probably responding positively to the more conventional narrative posture, but that's fine by me.
Multi-species animal splices, corrupt biotech corporations, class warfare organized around intraurban boundaries, truly posthuman human bodies: it's a wonderfully imaginative world that Atwood's giving us in the MaddAddam trilogy, disturbingly real in amongst all the fantastic elements.
So very excited for the third book, am I!
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