Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Original Cover

Description

Oryx and Crake (The MaddAddam Trilogy) is a 2003 novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, the author of her classics The Handmaid's Tale and The Testament. The book was first published by McClelland and Stewart. It was shortlisted for the 2003 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and for the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction.

Atwood has described the novel as speculative fiction and adventure romance, rather than pure science fiction, yet goes beyond the amount of realism she associates with the novel form. It focuses on a lone character called Snowman, who finds himself in a bleak situation. The reader learns of his past, as a boy called Jimmy and of genetic experimentation and pharmaceutical engineering that occurred under the purview of Jimmy's peer, Glenn "Crake". 

Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Jimmy, known as Snowman, before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey--with the help of green-eyed Children of Crake--through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. 

Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagination. With the same stunning blend of prophecy and social satire, she brought to her classic The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood gives us a keenly prescient novel about the future of humanity--and its present. Humanity here equals Snowman, and in Snowman's recollections, Atwood re-creates a time much like our own when a boy named Jimmy loved an elusive, damaged girl called Oryx and a sardonic genius called Crake. But now Snowman is alone, and as we learn why, we also learn about a world that could become ours one day.

Sequels

The Year of the Flood was released on 7 September 2009 in the United Kingdom, and 22 September 2009 in Canada and the United States. Though chronicling a different set of characters, the follow-up expands upon and clarifies the relationships of Crake with Oryx and Jimmy with his high school girlfriend Ren. Glenn makes a brief appearance. It also identifies the three characters introduced at the end of the original and finished the cliffhanger ending. 

The third book in the series, MaddAddam, was published in August 2013.

Adaptation

Darren Aronofsky's company Protozoa Pictures were developing a television adaptation of the entire trilogy, under the working title MaddAddam. In January 2018, Paramount Television and Anonymous Content announced they had won the bidding war for rights to Atwood's MaddAddam book trilogy.

About the Author

Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. She was born in Ottawa, Ontario, and currently residing in Toronto, Ontario. She has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, 9 collections of short fiction, 8 children's books, and 2 graphic novels, as well as a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. Her works encompass a variety of themes including gender and identity, religion and myth, the power of language, climate change, and power politics. Many of her poems are inspired by myths and fairy tales.

Atwood has won numerous awards and honors for her writing, including the Booker Prize, Arthur C. Clark Award, Governor General's Award, Franz Kafka Prize, Princess of Asturias Awards, the National Book Critics, and PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Awards. A number of her works have been adapted for film and television, increasing her exposure. She is a founder of the Griffin Poetry Prize and Writer's Trust of Canada. She is also a Senior Fellow of Massey College, Toronto. 

She is also the inventor of the LongPen device and associated technologies that facilitate remote robotic writing of documents.

Margaret Atwood

Review of other Books by Margaret Atwood:

The Handmaid's Tale

https://bookreviewsbyarti.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-handmaids-tale.html

The Testament

https://bookreviewsbyarti.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-testaments.html

Link to buy more books on amazon : 

https://amzn.to/3MF6Kij

Rating: 4.3/5

Author: Margaret Atwood

Publisher: Anchor

Publishing Date: May 1, 2004 (Reprint Edition)

Edition Language: English

Genre: Religious Leader Biographies, Literary Criticism & Theory, Genetic Engineering Science Fiction

ISBN-10: 0385721676

ISBN-13: 978-0385721677

Pages: 389