Rating: 
Summary: Not-So-Guilty Pleasure
Review: I'm of two minds about Oryx and Crake. If you're looking for another Blind Assassin, you'll be disappointed. This is certainly not a layered literary genious nor an involving storyline on the level of The Blind Assassin. Oryx and Crake's future is a didactic, sometimes silly world where humanity pays for the lessons we aren't learning now. However, working within this stale dystopia realm, Atwood is still at her peak as a wordsmith. I compulsively turned these pages, reveling her her inventions, from her ludicrous hybrid animals (a Racunk, by the way, is a cross between a racoon and a skunk...how original?) to her pointed video game creations, where the worlds in the games are a grim parallel of the world in which we live.Any fan of Margaret Atwood will still love this book, for her voice is on every page. However, any fan of sci-fi will probably be disappointed, and anyone who's never read Atwood would not be advised to begin their journey here.
Rating: 
Summary: A FINE SHORT STORY EMBEDDED IN ACRES OF FLABBY PROSE
Review: Margaret Atwood's best novel was written over thirty years ago, and on the evidence of 'Oryx and Crake' and other recent work she is unlikely to surpass it. This is the tale of a maverick scientist, aided by media and advertising types with blunted sensibilities, attempting to improve human nature and social arrangements by taking the chance out of reproduction. The core of this book relates how Snowman, one of the last few unmodified humans on earth, and a participant in the recent catastrophe, makes a journey back to a deserted science institute in search of food, and what he finds there. These episodes raise the most poignant questions about our reliance on technology, even when it implodes; they are fine stuff and could probably stand alone. Then there are the other 300 pages; life before the catastrophe, recognisable as a rather gross satire on our own time, and datable by the appearance of a dotcom veteran to approx. 2030. Atwood works hard at the sheer accumulation of detail, but this is journalism in place of fiction. She tells us what there is, instead of showing us in the course of the story. The inner world of the characters is itemised in the same way; these people register what they see, experience appetites and sensations, and that is all. Atwood's protagonists are conditioned by the instant gratification war games and web porn that saturate the culture. Unfortunately, her prose recapitulates the same trashiness, which makes for some lazy writing. Some of it can barely be called writing at all. "Snowman thinks. What was he telling me. How could I have been so stupid? No, not stupid. He can't describe himself, the way he'd been. Not unmarked - events had marked him, he'd had his own scars, his dark emotions. Ignorant perhaps. Unformed, inchoate." These short-winded jottings belong to a writer's notebook, not a mature novel. Admirers of this book will be more impressed by its subject matter than its literary qualities. The author is not exactly anti-science, but she leans towards the non-experimental subdisciplines where there is most room for doubt and outright voodoo; climate change, evolutionary psychology. She appears to share the anti-human assumptions of some science writing about the hard-wiring of human nature and the irrelevance of history; pigs with a human cortex would develop certain human characteristics without going through aeons of social development. Experimental science comes off badly in this novel; her world has no beneficial genetic interventions beyond the purely cosmetic, and even these contain the logic of human extinction. While she deplores the profit motive in technology, the alternatives seem no more attractive; as a lesson in why scientists should stick to science and leave morality to the rest of society, Craik couldn't be surpassed. Atwood claimed recently on British radio that all of the biological inventions in her novel are based on reality. This is absurd, and I hope I heard misunderstood her. There are, thank god, no Pigoons or Chickienobs. Rabbits with green jellyfish protein would not glow in the dark; you'd have to shine an ultraviolet light on them. If she understands the point of the jellyfish experiments, she does not say so, for all that her brother is a neuroscientist. Atwood excites the reader's anxiety about science, and if that was her intention in writing it, then this novel succeeds. I could enjoy her pessimism and technophobia more if the scraps and patches of good writing were more sustained.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Dystopian Vision
Review: Atwood creates another dystopian world, far different than that of _The Handmaid's Tale_, but as frightening. Rather than writing contemporary characters, Atwood takes us to the not-too-distant future where the social classes are separated by location and science rules. Focusing her efforts on what might happen if "noble" scientists are allowed to have free reign with genetic engineering, Atwood describes a world overrun with human creation. And though the narrator is male, Atwood's voice comes through giving the reader plenty to think about regarding science, religion, and human nature.
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling story
Review: Atwood is a poet. This book, while not her best, is nonetheless a chilling, riveting story. Fans of The Handmaid's Tale will enjoy her return to sci-fi writing. Those who prefer Atwood's more traditional novels may not love this one, but even they won't be able to help being tranfixed by her craftsmanship.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, Strange, Unique, and More
Review: ORYX AND CRAKE is not a happy book but it is a delightful book. Although I enjoyed VERNON GOD LITTLE, it astounds me that ORYX AND CRAKE was only runner up for the Booker. Honestly, this quirky story is among the best I have ever read. I put it in the same realm of excellence as 1984, MY FRACTURED LIFE, FIGHT CLUB, and TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE. It is that good!
Rating:
Summary: Not the author's best
Review: Although the theme of this book was interesting, I did not enjoy reading it. I guess it was because I did not care for the characters much, and had some trouble suspending my disbelief. There was suspense, however, and humor too, and the ending wasn't bad.
The author describes a dismal world, some number of generations in the future. Everybody has died in a biological disaster, except for Snowman and some genetically modified humans ("Crakers") who look human but are not, and who play only a minor role. The story opens in this devastated near-future world, with Snowman living in a seaside dump.
The story is told in two threads, present and past. In the present thread, Snowman is a ragged drunk, scavenging for the remains of civilization's food and alcohol, and occasionally interacting with Crakers. He lives in a tree to avoid nasty genetically modified creatures like a "rakunk", a cross between ... you can probably guess. Frequently, he has disjointed memories from the "time before" it all went wrong.
The past thread relates how the present sorry state of affairs came about, and consists of flashbacks from Snowman's derelict present. The flashbacks start with his childhood as Jimmy, and go on to tell of Jimmy's youth, career, and involvement with Oryx, originally a child prostitute from southeast Asia, and with Crake, an obnoxious genetics engineer.
The flashbacks also tell about the corporate-police-state world in which the characters lived. There are "pleebland" cities, inhabited by impoverished lower-class types, who live outside the mainstream, upper-class corporate world of watch-tower-guarded compounds. There is no middle class, and biotechnology is completely out of control. (This I found very depressing.) Finally, the flashbacks relate how this insane world eventually went to hell and only Jimmy survived, the end of the "time before".
I could have rated the book as more worthwhile, given the genuine questions about scientific responsibility that it raises, if only I could have found the story more plausible. After all, there are two powerful defenses against runaway genetic engineering in our present day world. The first is the scientific community's awareness of the dangers, disapproval of recklessness, and exemplary professional honesty. The second is Government regulatory agencies for preventing corporate abuse. As time passes, these agencies usually get stronger, not weaker, in response to mistakes (BSE, SARS, etc.), the way the FAA strengthens regulations following plane crashes.
The only runaway scenario I can find plausible is secret Defense Department research in the interests of national "security", one reason why a great democracy should never tolerate a mendacious government. (But Dean Koontz has fictionalized that scenario in his classic "Watchers", and in his undoubtedly far-fetched thrillers "Fear Nothing" and "Seize the Night".)
The "Oryx and Crake" plot did not plausibly explain, for me at least, how the novel's unrestrained, corporate-police-state world evolved from our present day world, how powerful Government agencies allowed biotech corporations to gain so much power, even the power to execute bothersome employees. It was this omission that made it hard for me to suspend my disbelief.
A related problem, for me, was lack of reasonable meshing with positive human activities outside biotech. For example, NASA is a science organization doing very positive things for the future. It runs a continuously inhabited space station, whose inhabitants would not have died in the author's biological disaster. Two generations ahead, we'll not only have inhabited space stations, the way things are progressing we'll also have settlements on Mars or the moon or both (two live rovers on Mars at the moment!). Those astronauts would have survived too. Something could have been made of such positive prospects for the near future.
Otherwise the plot was good but not outstanding, there was suspense building towards the end, and the prose was very good and frequently humorous. And the two-thread narrative worked. But I thought this story was not the author's best. Perhaps something more cheerful next time.
Rating:
Summary: Fun and thought-provoking.
Review: Margaret Atwood has a fascinating way of taking an important topic from today's world and taking it out to her own enthralling end some time in the future. The result is typically a cautionary tale, and "Oryx and Crake" is no different, entertainingly warning its readers about the potential dangers of the genetic engineering that we are working on today.
That said, Atwood never forgets that in order to convey her message, she has to keep the pages turning to the end, which she does. "Oryx and Crake" begins with a bizarre end and then circles back, gradually revealing the events that brought us to the place we started.
Very good for fans of science fiction and for those who enjoy different authors' views of possible futures.
Rating:
Summary: Split feelings
Review: I commute a lot, so I listen to a lot of audiobooks. I got this from the library and didn't have very high expectations - my only previous experience with Atwood was the required reading of A Handmaiden's Tale for school, and (perhaps because it *was* required), I don't really recall baing very excited about it.
Oryx and Crake was a wonderful book to listen to. There were a few spots that were faltering, but overall it drew me in. The structure of the book too made it especially great for listening to - her going from present to past kept the interest level up. The imagery, the words themselves, it was just amazing (genius really in some ways) storytelling.
My only major complaint was how the book ended. I know that ending it with questions left was probably a good way to make it unforgettable, and to generate discussion, but after investing so much time in listening to it, it ending that way was a bit of a disappointing surprise.
I'm not really sure too how it would actually read. I've found that the books I mot enjoy listening to are ones that might be slow to actually read, e.g. Jeffrey Archer (his older, larger books), so some might find actually reading it perhaps boring in spots.
Rating: 
Summary: Not What I Expected
Review: I did not care much for this book. I know it has loud praising reviews galore, but for me it just didn't meet the hype. It's not a bad book, it's just not as entertaining as I expected based on the hype.
Rating:
Summary: Best of its Genre.
Review: Oryx & Crake is the best book of its genre. If you find Orwell's 1984 prose too clunky; Kafka's The Trial too surreal; and Huxley a little old fashioned; try this.
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