Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant and fascinating
Review: I've read almost all of Margaret Atwood's books and I find her a magnificent writer. Oryx and Crake is enthralling, terrifying, ingenious. I was unable to put it down, and would sometimes lie awake at night thinking about this future world she portrays. Utterly fantastic.
Rating: 
Summary: Not my favourite Atwood but still memorable
Review: Well, I couldn't put this one down, but at the same time I can't really say that I enjoyed it. What a bleak, miserable and pessimistic future Atwood envisions. Scientifically complex and literally complex, Atwood is raising the all important question of "what if the scientific tools that we have today are misused, and how far down the road do we have to go before things start to go terribly wrong?" I'm a big fan of Atwood's work, but I have to say that this novel is not one of my favourites, although I DID read The Handmaid's Tale years ago and absolutely loved it. Those who say that Oryx and Crake is a science fiction novel are missing the mark; it's actually speculative fiction - taking a world that is familiar to us now and hypothesizing an incredible outcome. Atwood raised lots of issues in this book - genetics, and gene splicing, sexuality, popular culture, environmental destruction, the existence of god, STD's, diseases, globalization and the fate of human societies. This is not a "heavy" read but certainly a provocative one. I found the preamble with Snowman's encounter with the Crakers a little tedious, but the story really gets going when we start flashing back to Jimmy and Crake. I really liked the way Atwood keeps giving you hints throughout and keeps you wondering what actually happened to society, and how Snowman ends up in this situation. The scenes when Jimmy goes to work in the Compound are chilling in their realistic detail and it's the sort of story that gives you bad dreams at night!This is a good read, but a very depressing vision of our future! Michael
Rating:
Summary: Read it...that's a must!!!
Review: I've never read any of Atwood's books before but I've read plenty of science fiction. Usually others depict the future as having complex technology, androids, etc but this book is quite different. I like how her future is more of a "improvment in DNA" kind of future. Well this review is pointless but all I can say is, this is different from any book I've ever read and I've enjoyed it tremendously. :)
Rating:
Summary: STARK AND FRESH
Review: Simply put, I loved ORYX AND CRAKE! Despite Atwood's grim futuristic plot of 'science gone mad' I found it difficult to put this book down. The first person narration of Snowman (Jimmy) jumps between the present (a bleak world existing primarily of him and the Crakers) and the past (events leading up to the destruction of humanity) as the details of the plot are uncovered. I most enjoyed Atwood's fresh writing and awe-inspiring imagination. Although I am not a fan of the science fiction genre I loved reading about Snowman's interpretation of the end of society. Of course ORYX AND CRAKE contains many cautionary tales against gene splicing, corporations, and the power of the Internet (why aren't there any 'happy' books of the future?). Despite Atwood's bleak and dark vision of the future there is much to extract, as science can't eliminate human love and desire. The relationships between Crake, Jimmy, and Oryx are mysterious and convoluted and I wanted to learn more. I appreciated Atwood's ability to tell this tale without filling in all the details for the reader. Much is left to the reader's imagination and I wasn't annoyed by this at all. Without risking giving away anymore of the plot I will end this review by stating that I was left greatly satisfied by ORYX AND CRAKE. I remains a gem on my bookshelf.
Rating:
Summary: Not my favourite Atwood, but still memorable
Review: Well, I couldn't put this one down, but at the same time I can't really say that I was entertained by it. What a bleak, miserable and pessimistic future Atwood envisions. Scientifically complex and literally complex, Atwood is raising the all important question of "what if the scientific tools that we have today are misused, and how far down the road do we have to go before things start to go terribly wrong?" I'm a big fan of Atwood's work, but I have to say that this novel is not one of my favourites, although I DID read The Handmaid's Tale years ago and absolutely loved it. Those who say that Oryx and Crake is a science fiction novel are missing the mark; it's actually speculative fiction - taking a world that is familiar to us now and hypothesizing on an incredible outcome. Atwood raised lots of issues in this book - genetics, and gene splicing, sexuality, popular culture, environmental destruction, the existence of god, STD's, diseases, globalization and the fate of human societies. This is not a "heavy" read but certainly a provocative one. I found the preamble with Snowman's encounter with the Crakers a little tedious, but the story really gets going when we start flashing back to Jimmy and Crake. I really liked the way Atwood keeps giving you hints throughout and keeps you wondering what catastrophe actually struck society, and how Snowman ends up in this situation. The scenes when Jimmy goes to work in the Compound are chilling in their realistic detail and it's the sort of story that gives you bad dreams at night! This is a good read, and also a very depressing vision of our future! Michael
Rating: 
Summary: O.W. Toad Jumps the Shark?
Review: I was very excited about this book, noted the release date, was first on the library's list to get it. I am a tremendous Margaret Atwood fan and have thought often of her poem "The Loneliness of the Military Historian" since 9-11, so I went into this book with great expectations. The first many pages did not disappoint. Throughout the book, there are passages where Atwood is up to her usual snuff, wonderful, unexpected, sly. Unfortunately, throughout the book there are also wooden sections that read like she let an untalented undergraduate at the document to add a few paragraphs. The sections of the book dealing with Snowman in his decaying present are excellent. The sections where we go back to see how Jimmy came to all this range from witty to just plain poor. They read like filler. Like expositionary bones left as markers while writing the Snowman story. Like she meant to come back to them and write them better later. After a few especially prosaic segments, it occured to me that it's entirely possible Atwood's daughter has reached college age and that this book was completed in a hurry so that the tuition bill could be paid. Who knows (or cares?) if that's the case? Whatever made this book be pubished in this condition, it's a dang shame. I hope that work of this quality isn't what we'll be seeing from Atwood in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Jack and Jill is is Not
Review: Keep reading - this is not your usual Margaret Atwood story line, or is it? A brilliant and illuminating novel about a possible future for a world that has come to worship at the altar of technology. The story has considerable tension in it to keep the reader glued to the book to see what comes next. Above all, this is a book about "words" and the beauty of language lost. Atwood flavors her grim vision of the future with the spices of words no longer in the vernacular, creating an intense paella that is immensly satisfying and yet somehow shot through with loss. Atwood exhibits her marvelous sense of story and language in this book, leaving the reader running for a dictionary of ancient words to reintroduce them to everday talk. Words, lost or unrecorded, die a death, unmourned.
Rating:
Summary: Beach Reading at Best
Review: I have purchased and devoured each and every one of Atwood's novels. I've always seen her on a different level than most authors -- with a style that is introspective, poetic, and intitmate. Something was missing with "Oryx and Crake" that I couldn't put my finger on. Although the story is interesting and easy to follow- it is hard not to compare it to Handmaid's Tale. Why does it seem as if Atwood has succombed to her publisher's wishes to create another creepy picture of the future-- and churned out the story within days? With "Handmaids Tale", the drama and beauty of the story lay within the lack of details that the reader had concerning the world outside. The story was so much more than the fate of the world. With "Oryx and Crake" , nothing is left to the reader's imagination. It seems at times as if Atwood under estimates her reader. The plot and actions of the characters are obvious and predictable. I kept waiting for the suprise and unfolding of the character's psyche that is such an Atwood trademark. I was disappointed as I read the last page of Oryx and Crake and realized that I had just read an average Science Fiction/Medical Suspense story found on any grocery store book rack
Rating:
Summary: A radical departure from Atwood's previous novels
Review: Atwood's latest and strangest novel is truly unlike anything she has previously written, and readers of Atwood's other novels may find themselves flipping to the front, checking to see if her name is really on the title page. Like "The Handmaid's Tale," which was also set in the future, "Oryx and Crake" describes a dystopic tomorrow-land--but there the similarity ends. Featuring an uncharacteristically sparse prose and an abundance of scientific content, Atwood's bitingly satirical and hauntingly apocalyptic novel seems heavily influenced by science fiction novels of the last three decades, even while it recalls such classics as "Frankenstein," "Brave New World" and especially "Robinson Crusoe." "Oryx and Crake" is technically a single-character novel; "Snowman" (or Jimmy) is the surviving human after a cataclysmic global disaster. He serves as a mentor of sorts to the strange yet harmless "Crakers," who have been so genetically altered that they resemble humans only in their basic appearance. Their blandness is so thorough that neither Snowman nor the reader can tell them apart. Through a series of flashbacks, Snowman describes his closest friends Crake and Oryx and their role in bring the world to its present state; and he mockingly details his attempts at elevating them to the status of gods for the new species. Atwood doesn't really develop these two characters; instead she (through Snowman's eyes) presents only the basic, painful "truth" behind a new Genesis mythology. The novel, one could argue, depicts a second character: the scientific community. Through extrapolation (one might say exaggeration--but I'm not so optimistic about industrial self-control), Atwood projects into the future the topics of today's headlines: anthrax, genetically modified foods, cloning, gene splicing, weapons of mass destruction, the overuse and abuse of psychiatric drugs, Internet porn, SARS, ecoterrorism, globalization. On a lighter level, she also skewers the moronic corporate brand names flooding the market these days: anyone who thinks her inventions are far-fetched should consider such mind-numbingly lame (and inexplicably popular) trademarks as Verizon, ImClone, MyoZap, Swole, Biocidin, and Rejuven-8. "Oryx and Crake" may well fall short of some readers' expectations for "a Margaret Atwood novel." But judged as an entry in the genre of science fiction, it's a powerful and visionary masterpiece.
Rating: 
Summary: The Crakers weren't all they were cracked up to be.
Review: I have been a fan and avid reader of Ms. Atwood's since the mid-80's, and have read most of her novels. I eagerly waited for Oryx and Crake, and raced through it in less than three days. It had all the hallmarks of an Atwood novel: dystopian future nightmare; silly (but not unthinkable) product names; characters with multiple lives and secrets. But it was missing the most important hallmarks of an Atwood novel: it just wasn't entertaining or engaging on a par with her previous works. Perhaps the fact that it was set in a future that is entirely possible given today's environment, or that we're surrounded by SARS and anthrax scares, but I just did not find it frightening or illuminating. The scare that is the backbone of the novel isn't scary enough. The character's secrets weren't that secret. The horrors of pornography weren't that horrible. The ability for one person to create global cataclysmic chaos is a bit far-fetched. The Crakers weren't all they were cracked up to be. All in all, I was disappointed. Ms. Atwood has made a career of postulating tales that are "out there" enough to disturb you, but not so far out there that they are impossible or pure science fiction. What I found wanting was more of a leap to the range of "out there". This would be an excellent "introductory" novel to Ms. Atwood's writing, but serious fans shouldn't thrash themselves if they don't rush out to get it. Wait for the paperback (better yet, borrow it from your library).
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