Oryx and Crake

daltonlp writes "I haven't felt this satisfied after finishing a science fiction novel since Ender's Game. I waited some weeks to review it, to make sure I wasn't simply infatuated. Oryx and Crake is woven from a great many themes near and dear to SF, but it's primarily a retelling of the story of Adam and Eve--except in reverse (the world isn't beginning, but ending)." Read on for the rest of Dalton's review.

Oryx and Crake
author	Margaret Atwood
pages	374
publisher	Random House, 2003
rating	Worth reading
reviewer	Lloyd Dalton
ISBN	0385503857
summary	A retelling of the story of Adam and Eve--except in reverse. The world isn't beginning, but ending.

The novel is a mad scientist story, where humans play God for pleasure and profit. It's a last-human-left-alive story. It's a projection of a dystopic future, where all political and economic power is held by militaristic corporations.

Most of these themes have been explored before, and they're introduced in the first couple chapters of the book. But they're handled so well, I feel like I'm spoiling the reader's experience by listing them here. Never mind, read the book anyway. Maybe you've seen this stuff before, but you haven't seen it written like this.

The measure of science fiction isn't the uniqueness of its concepts--it's what the author can do using the ideas as tools. It's about how intensely a book can penetrate into the reader's imagination, and this is driven by a writer's talent (not the raw ideas).

Margaret Atwood writes stories that are deeply layered and voiced in an incisive, conversational tone. Despite its bleak themes, Oryx and Crake is far from depressing--it's mostly cheerful and upbeat, which turns out to be a fine way to write about obsession and love and revenge and the end of the world. Somewhat like Neal Stephenson, Atwood's writing doesn't take itself too seriously. It's chock full of wordplays and grimly humorous subtexts. The result is a book that works as both a dark comedy and an allegoric drama, but feels like a conversation between the author and the reader.

Some parts of Oryx and Crake approach horror--not blood & guts horror, but what someone from the 1700s might feel if a time traveler explained the basics of how nuclear weapons, school shootings and Internet porn work today. Atwood pulls very few punches when imagining the possible extensions of humanity's greed, lust, hatred, and cold-bloodedness. Her easy pace, artful characterization and humorous touch fully engages the reader's mind, and her willingness to shock takes full advantage of the open target. The result is a mental chill that takes a long time to fade.

It's not a perfect book. Even at 374 pages, some episodes of the story arc seem abbreviated. Some of Atwood's future visions seem a bit contrived, but this depends on whether she's going for humor, symbolism, shock value or sheer inventiveness on a given page. Most pages (including the following excerpt) are a well-stirred mixture:

"On day one they toured some of the wonders of Watson-Crick. Crake was interested in everything--all the projects that were going on. He kept saying "Wave of the future," which got irritating after the third time.

First they went to Decor Botanicals, where a team of five seniors were developing Smart Wallpaper that would change colour on the walls of your room to complement your mood. This wallpaper--they told Jimmy--had a modified form of Kirilian energy-sensing algae embedded in it, along with a sublayer of algae nutrients, but there were still some glitches to be fixed. The wallpaper was short-lived in humid weather because it ate up all the nutrients and then went grey; also it could not tell the difference between drooling lust and murderous rage, and was likely to turn your wallpaper an erotic pink when what you really needed was a murky, capillary-bursting greenish red.

That team was also working on a line of bathroom towels that would behave in much the same way, but they hadn't yet solved the marine-life fundamentals: when algae got wet it swelled up and began to grow, and the test subjects so far had not liked the sight of their towels from the night before puffing up like rectangular marshmallows and inching across the bathroom floor.

"Wave of the future," said Crake."

It's too early to tell if Oryx and Crake will earn Atwood the same acclaim as The Blind Assassin and The Handmaid's Tale. Regardless, it's a powerful book--unnerving, moving and well worth reading.

---

You can purchase Oryx and Crake from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

The Handmaid's Tale

... was mildly entertaining, but it came across like a low-wattage The Stand. Old-school King at his best could kick just about anyone's ass, including Atwood's. Maybe it's time I read Atwood again, just to see if she, unlike SK, has improved with age...

Must stop scanning headlines...

I fist read it as "Oxy and Crack" and wondered why Slashdot was running a story on drugs.

My thoughts

This book was quite a bit different than the usual Margaret Atwood novels and this is primarily because this is a work of science fiction. I did not particularly enjoy her other work from the science fiction genre, "The Handmaid's Tale". However, I understand that that book was one of Atwood's most popular works probably because it was a favorite among feminists. I doubt feminists would find much to relate to in this book unless it was how men have managed to finally screw everything up completely. I have never been much of a fan of science fiction but I admit that it reads better when a writer of Atwood's skills is the author.

This book starts out a bit confusing and left me unsure if I should re-read the first 20 or so pages to try and figure out what was going on. However, I soon found myself in the groove of the novel and was able to piece things together as I went along. I believe this is how Atwood meant it to be as she shifts back and forth in time. We begin with what seems like an armageddon scenario and, by the end of the book, understand how it came to be.

The author seems to have a fixation on how genetic engineering will be the cause of the fall of mankind. Essentially, the message is passed along that, if we create a health system that preserves us all, then we'll have to find some other way to destroy ourselves. (At least that's what I got out of the book). Along the way, Atwood has her usual keen insight to how we all interact with one another as well as how our inner thoughts seem to work. I admit that I was left wondering if I had missed a bigger theme but I was content with the one I detected.

To my knowledge, Margaret Atwood has never written a bad book although I never read her poetry or essays. Sometimes the story line isn't as interesting or absorbing as others but there is always a lot to pick up on along the way. This book got better as I kept reading but then it ended rather abruptly. I believe the author left it up to us to figure out the way it should properly end.

THE BALLS

You have a lot of balls for calling someone up on reposting from another source, when you did exactly the same thing not half-an-hour ago.

http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=91901& th reshold=0&commentsort=0&tid=186&tid=214&mode=threa d&pid=7903959#7904430

In my opinion, this kind of thing deserves banishment from slashdot.. and maybe bamboo spikes shoved under the nails.

Re:My thoughts

Hmm, maybe worth reading then.

On the "never written a bad book" front, I have to say that I found "The Handmaid's Tale" to be a bit of a misanthropic rant without much to recommend it - the "keen insights" are trite repetitions of stereotypes. That's why I was quite surprised by the comment in the main review, "Atwood's writing doesn't take itself too seriously". THT was so leaden, I'm surprised it didn't bust my bookshelf!

Off-topic - I have to say that THT isn't science fiction, in the same way as 1984 isn't science fiction. For some reason, any novel set in the future is automatically labelled "science fiction", regardless of the actual content. Ho hum.

Grab.

Atwood's best? Maybe, but maybe not.

Perhaps not. In terms of her use of language, form, depth of charaterisation etc. the 'The Blind Assassin' is technically Atwood's greatest novel so far.

But having read all her novels, I've got to say that 'Oryx and Crake' is my personal favourite. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this book, how engrossed I was with every word, and how moving, shocking and disturbing I found it. It's one of the best books I've ever read. It's one of those books that, once you've finished the last page, stays with you, and when you're not reading it you're thinking of it.

And it's one of those books that, when you finally close it, you so wish that you could've put your name to it yourself. It's an immense work of imagination. I finished it well over a week ago and still think of it. I found it extraordinary. The way Atwood evokes her distopian futuristic world in every detail and makes it come alive and breathe is quite incredible. I was hooked.

I was hoping it would be good but it far exceeded my expectations. The book's nightmarish vision of the future makes 'The Handmaid's Tale' look like a picnic, and while you're reading Atwood makes you live in that world, makes you feel what Snowman is feeling. What horror. Frighteningly, plausibly, brilliant!

I read this book.

I was disappointed because Oryx and Crake is uninspiring literature. Even on the level of just "story", I would opt for Jurassic Park for gripping narrative and vivid imagination. If I read Atwood, Golding, Grasse or others that I consider accomplished "literary" writers, I look for an aesthetic pleasure. Oryx and Crake just plods; there is little beyond the events and a few clever (and distracting) neologisms to carry one along. I wouldn't even take it on the plane for a good read.

Oryx & Crake

This is arguably one of the darkest dystopias I've read in a very long time. Atwood's genius lies in the fact she can take concepts in the present-day and extrapolate them to the furthest fictional limits without detaching from reality. If you think O & C is a brilliant book, go check out her earlier dystopia - The Handmaid's Tale. Oddly enough, her predictions in that book about America's future are starting to come true...

Good book

Though Atwood has said that she does not write science fiction, I believe that this book proves that statement to be misleading. To me this book is an excellent example of well-written soft science fiction. The story's somewhat disjointed narrative works well to evoke the narrator's jumbled memories of the events leading to the decimation of the human population. The character of Oryx doesn't seem very well fleshed out, and there is the sense that she just functions as a narrative jumping off point for the changing relationship between Snowman and Crake, but as a whole, the characters were still believable to me. Atwood doesn't describe the science used in much depth, and what she does explain is a bit questionable in places, but I found the story to be very effective and literate nonetheless. And the pigoons freaked me out.

Re:Good book

"Atwood has said that she does not write science fiction"

Science Fiction can't be good. This is good. Therefore it can't be SF. Its the same annoying argument that has English professors claiming 1984 and Slaughterhouse 5 are greats, while refusing to have anything to do with the latest Stephenson or whatever. Banksie must drive them up the wall.

Adam and Eve, but in reverse?

Um... if it's about the world ending, wouldn't that be closer to "Genesis" in reverse -- or just "Exodus"?
Just wondering what exactly Adam and Eve have to do with the world beginning. They're just the biblical story of the "fall from grace" of mankind, unrelated to the creation of the earth.

I hated it

I only finished the book because there has been a lot of discussion of it. I found it badly written, pretentious, technically unknowledgeable, ..., and pandering to the sexuality of 14 year old boys (lots of discussion of penises and the only female character is a child prostitute).

Re:I hated it

Given that the reviewer said "I haven't felt this satisfied after finishing a science fiction novel since Ender's Game", I'd say that badly written and pretentious was exactly the kind of book that he wanted to read.

An alternative....

I suggest "Memoirs of a Survivor" by Doris Lessing. When I read Oryx and Crane I really noticed the project that Lessing set out on in that book being 'tried on' by Atwood. Everyone focuses on 'Handmaiden' with Atwood (esp. knownothings), but her later stuff really is great. O&C might not rate though. It just felt like a riff on Lessing to me.

Available at Audible.com

I've had an audible subscription for three months now, but *THIS* book was one of the best I've heard so far. Shit, I picked up my iPod two years back solely to use for Books on CD and things like that, but it was too damn annoying to use until Apple licensed the Audible content and decided to allow you to pause the chapter and listen to music and then come back to the same pause in that file.

I picked up Ender's Game on Audible as well, and it was cool (I actually got more out of Speaker of the Dead in dead tree format) but it just didn't do it as well as this one did.

Great oration and it enhances the story instead of detracting from it (I've picked up serveral tha I got part of the way into the dead tree versions and had to stop because of workloads...and thought I'd finish them up on an airflight -- I can't read while in the air for some reason -- or one one of my many drives to Nashville lately...7 hours of mundate pushings of the gas pedal).

If you were ever interested in checking out these kinds of services, check it out...the only problem I had was there wasn't a real resolution to the book...it feels like a halfway end...it finishes the story of Crake and Oryx (characters in the book), while never finishing the story of the 'Snowman' -- the lead narrator telling the story of C&O, but far more interesting than it seems eiher of them ever were. Oryx is too one dimensional to care about as anything but a prop, and Crake is just...well, he too is one dimensional, but that is mainly from the narriation as opposed to his actual being. I just couldn't bring myself to caring whatever happened to Oryx, and Crake just projected himself too far into the future (especially since this is a latter retelling of the tale...hindsight is always 20/20) that his end of the story was told far before ya ever got the intimate details...no, the REAL story is about Snowman, and it was left unfinished.

Lets hope this is a big enough seller that Atwood feels like revisiting it soon and gives it a proper ending...

I have lent out Orxy and Crake so many times...

That I have lost track of who has it now. Atwood created a well defined near future. She made a mistake or two when it came to potential technologies, but her humans behave the way they should. If we could vote on the ranking of this book i would give it a 9/10.

Another Opinion

Personally I didn't like this book as much as the several others I've read by Atwood. I found the speculative premises simplistic and contrived, ignoring the complexities of ecology in favor of an essentially alarmist, naive presentation of The Horrible Dangers of Tampering with Nature!! This is increased by the use of this character of the catastrophe-inducing mad-genius scientist, when the real story of global ecology is our actions as a collective 6-billion strong (and still rising, falling sperm counts notwithstanding)

I didn't hate the book and found it a quick and reasonably compelling read, but it didn't really leave any lasting impression or make me feel like I had learned anything. I've generally liked Atwaters writing and in particular the Handmaid's Tale, so this particular opinion may be best judged by that taste. The book just seemed pretty slight to me, despite the end-of-the-world type premise. I'd say if you're an Atwater fan it's worth a read but if you dig on hard-science speculative fiction you'll probably be dissapointed.

Stop posting Amazon reviews, you dirty whores!

ACs are not smart enough to use 'dystopian' in a sentence, [amazon.com]

You AC whoring McWhores!

I loved the audiobook (O&C).

I listened to this audiobook earlier last year and loved it.

The narration was excellent. The book was like a fine candy to enjoy. When I was done, I was both satisfied and saddened to leave the characters behind. I would *not* like to see the book extended to a sequel; I think the enjoyable flavor of the book is dependent on being brief and ambiguous at the end.

This is absolutely one of my favorite titles. If you dig apocalyptic tales, ever played Wasteland on your computer, enjoyed the Mad Max movie series or read Snow Crash - you'll likely enjoy this book.

Don't get the link between Snow Crash and O&C? Consider the way that the enclaves transcend traditional government "social balance" to bring dangerous corporatism to the forefront. Another book that I would link in this area is Beggars and Choosers by Nancy Kress. Probably more for the focus on an era where humanity is more or less done and something else has taken over than for the "corporatism" angle.

I obtained my copy of the book from Audible. I've been a customer there for a very long time and have enjoyed so many audiobooks that if I can find an unabridged audio title, i'm more likely to select it than a text edition. I would invite you to check out Oryx & Crake as an audiobook, I think you'll find that audiobooks with this quality of narration are *more* enjoyable than the text-only editions. The measured delivery has a different and desirable effect on the imagination. It also tends to shorten roadtrips.

Currently I'm listening to the Dark Tower series from Stephen King, and reading eBook editions of the Heritage of Shannara series from Terry Brooks on the commuter train. Both audiobook and eBook reside in my Dell Axim PDA - one of the most useful functions of my PDA so far.

- Bill

worst character ever

That team was also working on a line of bathroom towels that would behave in much the same way, but they hadn't yet solved the marine-life fundamentals: when algae got wet it swelled up and began to grow, and the test subjects so far had not liked the sight of their towels from the night before puffing up like rectangular marshmallows and inching across the bathroom floor.

"Wave of the future," said Crake."

towlie [southparkstudios.com]

Its not Science Fiction!

Margaret Attwood doesn't write science fiction. When asked she said:

"No, it certainly isn't science fiction. Science fiction is filled with Martians and space travel to other planets, and things like that.".

She cannot risk it being science fiction because it won't be accepted as 'real' literature.

Stephen Baxter Manifold: Space

Im currently reading Stephen Baxter's Manifold: Space - It is a very interesting read, however I must say at about the half way mark, the book is very depressing when you look at the overall picture it has created.

I dont like depressing, the snow and ice does it well enough for me.

Also reviewed on k5.

I wrote this review of Oryx and Crake [kuro5hin.org] for k5 [kuro5hin.org] back in June of 2003. In a lot of Margaret Atwood's stuff, there's a theme where people try to understand/make peace with some inexplicable tragedy. At the end of Oryx and Crake, I felt like it wasn't clear why Crake decided to wipe out humanity; that may have been Atwood's intention.

Anyway, I'm happy to see something besides Flash Gordon science fiction getting reviews here.

That's quite an understaement

The novel is a mad scientist story, where humans play God for pleasure and profit. It's a last-human-left-alive story. It's a projection of a dystopic future, where all political and economic power is held by militaristic corporations. Most of these themes have been explored before...

The castaways struggled desperately to get off the island, but were doomed to failure in the end via some fatalistic misadventure. This theme has been explored before...

32 reviews!

Very Geeky Books [verygeekybooks.com] has links to 32 more reviews!

The best Atwood I ever read

Of course, I've read only this one [gearbits.com].

Author name in the parent article?

Is that too much to ask for? I'd like to know who wrote the book before I click on the review for it, frankly, so that I don't waste my time on a review of the latest Eddings or Goodkind claptrap.

Horrible ending

I too listened to the Audible.com version of this book and while I found the book to be okay, with a few memorable bits, the ending ruined the book for me. You have to read the entire book before you have the whole picture of "what happened" and then it abruptly ends, and I mean abruptly. Most books have peaks and valleys of the plot while things happen, tension is created, then resolved. There is none of that in this book. Within the first few pages we know/deduce WHAT happened to the world that ended it "as we know it", but the big tension of this book is that you don't know WHY until you are almost finished with the book. But there's no "climax", only information. And the final scene is not climactic or even particularly meaningful. Here, I'll tell you the scene, and knowing it does not in the least spoil anything. The final scene is the main character coming out from behind a tree and the author writes, "Zero hour. Time to go." but you have no idea what "zero hour" could mean, or where the main character is going, or even why, and the story just stops like the author hit some word limit. It is so open-ended that you feel cheated and like you just wasted all those hours. It's like somebody tore the book in half and you didn't know it until you hit the spot where there's nothing more to the book. This technique works okay for a short story, but not one that is 10 hours long. Don't waste your time unless you have a lot of time to waste and don't care about what happens at the end. You'll never know.

This is Margaret Atwood!!

Wait, Margaret Atwood is my grade 13 english (in Ontario in 1987) nightmare author - She's supposed to write real literature, not stuff that I would normally want to read. How can it be reviewed on /. ?

Is the reverse true? That Stephen King (who is discussed lots on slashdot) could have been one of the authors we had to read in english class? What dimension did I miss out on.

Unbelievable world-building

That's "unbelievable" not as in "I can't believe it", but rather "I don't believe it". Atwood's division of future society into insular, privileged enclaves and downtrodden, dangerous "pleeblands" (she gets a Tin Pen award for that poor neologism) is simply not believable. C'mon -- we're already well into an era when there are more ways to communicate than ever before. Yet the novel's privileged characters grow up with no contact with the other class? Please. Come back when you've got a realistic vision of social dynamics, Ms. Atwood.

The novel has some moments, I guess, but I just kept thinking questions like "has she played any computer games recently?" The ones in her novel sound straight from the future... if you're living in 1996.

As for her tin ear for neologisms -- well, read Greg Bear's Darwin's Children and compare for yourself. Mr. Bear (a science fiction writer) has a better grasp of evolving language than this so-called "literary" author.

This is one novel that had to be sold as "literary fiction", because any decent SF editor would have thrown it back for a rewrite or three.

fumbles the easy science

Snowman starves and lives in a tree even though the world is full of empty houses and the supermarkets are full of canned goods. To create a convincing science catastrophy it would be more fun if the basic science were not so obviously bogus. First, Crake would do what every creature does, destroy the creatures that
are NOT LIKE HIMSELF. Second, his utopian creation could never be anything other than a short-lived peaceful society because of basic Darwinian principles. The author should have read the basic (not difficult) books like Jared Diamond's Third Chimpanzee or, Robert Wright's Moral Animal.

The love triangle is unconvincing. The ending not coherent.
For a more entertaining end of humanity try Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos.

FYI, this book was reviewed in the bio-geeky prestige journal Science who have never before (in my memory) reviewed sci-fi. They screwed up choosing this one.
It's a subject though where there is lots of room for good authoring work.

Veni Vedi Vici

I went out and bought the book after seeing this topic. I read about 60% of it and it's very good stuff. A little bit short for my taste though.

Re:my opinion of 'Oryx and Crake'

Umm, you don't think its Science Fiction /because/ it has similarities to Fahrenheit 451?

Hmm...

Coincidence?

Hi! I find it interesting that googling for "Atwood deliberately mutilates words" comes up with a result in Google! In fact, those couple of sentences are ripped directly from this much more complete review [infinityplus.co.uk]. Nice try though!

Double Jeopardy

> Stand Back, I don't Know How Big This Thing Gets...

I'll take Canadian Literature for $1000, Alex.

What are "Things I Never Want To Be In A Position To Say To Margaret Atwood?"

Re:my opinion of 'Oryx and Crake'

Language of the Future in literature has always interested me, so I'm curious to see some examples of her literary "mutiliations and grotesqueries."

The greatest books that ever used altered/mutated language as metaphors for the state of humanity were 1984 and A Clockwork Orange. Something about "Ultraviolence" and "Doubleplusungood" strikes just how society has evolved.

How does this compare?

Re:my opinion of 'Oryx and Crake'

Interesting comment. Since the most free time I have during a week is on my daily commute, I listened to 'Oryx & Crake' on MP3-CD, and spelling, punctuation, and such oddities don't translate.

On the other hand, the reader is quite good, so I would recommend the audiobook version -- in exchange for the loss of print oddities you get the reader's inflection and tone which can contribute quite a bit to the meaning.

My only disappointment with Oryx and Crake was that the eventual ending seemed a bit abrupt. I wasn't sure why the book stopped at that point, specifically. Certainly the plot was complete, the world had been adequately filled out, you now finally understood everything that had happened; but you don't really get to do anything with this character that you now fully understand -- ready, steady, charge and ---? THE END.

An epilogue in the language of the Crakers was needed to wrap it up.

Re:Geez, Made Me Look...

" had to go all the way to the article to see it was crappy, misogynistic Margaret Atwood"

I'd be curious to hear your explanation of this comment. She's widely viewed as a feminist author, especially in light of The Handmaid's Tale.

Curious, but only for amusments sake, since the poster was obviously too much of a knee-jerk misogynist to look up "misandrist".

Re:b4574rd g04753 l1nk - m0d w4y w4y d0wn!!!!11

Yup it's a goatse link modded to (as of now) 3.

It's easy to verify, though. Rigth click on the post number, and open in a new window. Then resize the window so that it is really small. Then click the link within the post. That way, no blindness occurs.

Re:my opinion of 'Oryx and Crake'

Books are not literally burned in Oryx and Crake but digital convergence produces all the same effects described in Fahrenheit 451. So, when people exclaim that this is not science fiction, I must say, I'm inclined to agree with them.

What? It explores digital convergence and resembles Fahrenheit 451, but it's not SF?

I find myself rereading parts because I have to let the words sink in a bit

If you haven't already, read some Gene Wolfe. Is that not SF either because the author is creative with language? Is SF constrained to be flat colourless prose?