Rating: 
Summary: Haunting!
Review: The book cover says the story will have you thinking long after you read it. That's true. It haunts you and forces you to think about our high-tech world and the consequences just a few large corporations can make. At first, I thought it was preaching the dangers of genetic engineering. As you read it, however, you see that it's only the backdrop to much more. This is a sci-fi book, make no doubt about it, and it's very futuristic. I hope she explores more in that genre, rather than the "relationship" books.
Rating: 
Summary: Oh Atwood aren't we clever
Review: Oryx and Crake's most enjoyable bits are its occasionally perfect corporate neologisms, such as the computer game KwikTime Osama, the college course in Relativistics and Advanced Mischaracterizaion, the company names Happicuppa and HelthWyzer, a dinner of Buckets o' Nubbins from ChickieNobs. But Atwood writes unnatural, clumsy dialogue unlike that heard in any North American family since the 50s. I don't believe I've been called 'son' even once in my life, but Atwood's less likeable men use it constantly, to the narrator's, and reader's, annoyance. The prose is remarkably unsubtle, as if Atwood has a real aversion to ambiguity, with the obvious point of a passage often closing it off like a door. The climax and denouement are obvious: a cypher of a man attempts to replace us with better humans, the media are satirized, Snowman wanders amidst the detrius and escaped engineered animals. Other than the language, I don't think there was anything new here - neither observation nor understanding, only a polite and bloodless nightmare for the academically inclined.
Rating: 
Summary: Swift lite
Review: Although this novel is often compared to the Handmaid's Tale, it is not as dark as that novel. The horror of the apocalypse is somewhat leavened by a humor I did not find in the other two Atwood books I have read, Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace. Her humor is reminiscent of Swift, though Atwood does not have the Dean's bite; thus the title of this review, Swift lite. For example, the ChickiNobs monstrosities both horrify and amuse. ChickieNobs are bioengineered "chickens"--chickens crossed with anemones. They are basically chicken breasts on a stalk with an open maw at the top into which high protein food is dumped. During the end-times, an animal liberation group, God's Gardeners, releases them from captivity to somewhat hilarious effect since the ChickieNobs have no feet or legs, nor even the nominal brain of a normal chicken. I enjoyed this book quite a bit. The only drawback for some readers may be the Robinson Crusoe moment at the end in which Snowman discovers he may not be the sole remaining homo sapiens on the planet. Atwood leaves the result of his discovery unresolved, thus the book may feel incomplete and unsatisfying. I am still puzzling out the ending myself, but I do not think the ending was necessarily inappropriate.
Rating: 
Summary: Huh?!
Review: Some fans of Atwood will be sad to hear that Oryx and Crake is my first attempt at a complete novel by the author. Sad because this WAS -- I've since given up on the author -- such a bad introduction to a writer I've been hearing quite a bit about. Yes I have gripes. Most can see that Atwood isn't in her element here. At all. Atwood may have done some research, but not enough to convince me she knows what she's talking about. All's we get are the very lay criticisms of technology, supported vainly by the sprinkling of high school-level lab terminology. The themes in the book are totally unimaginative. I had expected more of an author of her repute than to come up with trite details like a 'snat'. I just found it all very tiresome, her going on about technology gone wrong. Don't we read this in the news enough? Growing an organ in a pig's body, Ebola splicing and oh, like whatever! How can this woman grudge the cut and paste of characters and plots in Negotiating with the Dead, and then be guilty of it herself here? I don't understand, and frankly don't care anymore. I remember reading somewhere, before I got my hands on Oryx and Crake Atwood's comment about Sci-Fi being "talking squids in outer space". If her complaint there was that (science) fiction fails her because it is just too ridiculous, may I say that Oryx and Crake certainly failed me because it is totally boring. Not only the themes, but the narration. I remember after a few chapters of 'Jimmy', I was hoping some new voice would be introduced. But no. The chapter before had ended with Jimmy, and began with Jimmy in the next. Oh come on! I was into about a third of the book then, and that was when I was beginning to give up. It's one thing to have an omni-present and omniscient narrator, but there's just something about Jimmy that fails to attract me. I mean, Trollope's The Way We Live Now had a more engaging narrator over more pages! Don't read this please, save your time go do the dishes or something.
Rating:
Summary: Dreams and Nightmares
Review: Certain scenarios have become standard fare, almost cliches, within the science fiction world. The end of civilization, indeed the death of man himself, due to his constant meddling with the environment, other life forms, and his own germ plasm have been envisaged many times before. This book remains a cut above most earlier attempts, as it adds a very believable human face to the disaster, ties it to both man's dreams and his nightmares, and wraps it inside a potent love triangle. From the beginning of this book, where we meet Snowman, possibly the last true human, living in a tree and dependent on the half-human Children of Crake, till the very end of this book, where the full horror of the situation is clearly exposed, there is a sense of inevitability to events, a clear line to its envisioned world from the headlines of today. As Snowman tells his tale via flashbacks to his own past, a picture is developed of technology both fighting and aiding the deleterious effects of prior technologies. From the global warming induced drowning of the coasts and the collapse of world's resources abilities to feed an ever-growing population, to terrorist and greedy corporations designs of new diseases and environmentally harmful crosses of various animal species, each element piles on to background structure. In the foreground we follow Jimmy (Snowman's original name) and his childhood friend Glenn (Crake) as they go through school and find jobs as part of the elite, those whose mental abilities make them employable by the movers and shakers of the world, the genetic research laboratories. During their joint exploration of the internet, they run into Oryx, a child prostitute, who will eventually figure prominently in their lives. Crake is a very interesting character, a super-genius who keeps his own emotions hidden, sometimes even from himself, as he first conceives of and then implements the idea of designing a better human. A human who is not subject to wild emotional swings of love, who will not have the need to defend property as he will live on grass and sunshine, who will be carefully isolated from any contact with violence-causing ideas such as 'God' and 'mine'. But Crake is not immune to being human himself, and is in fact dependent on others, primarily Oryx and Jimmy, which is really his flaw. Jimmy is the perennial follower, but when forced to take charge, his actions become the final lynch-pin in the ultimate disaster and his tales the beginning of a new mythology. Oryx is the ultimate woman, fully caring and giving, perhaps too much so, without the ability to turn others to a line of action of her choosing - but perhaps she never wished to. These characters grew on me as I learned more about them, as each had characteristics I could see in myself, different parts of a mirror. The power of this book lies in the dynamic between the dream and the practical, between the intent and the result, between the giving and receiving of love. There are several layers of meaning and symbol buried within its fairly conventional story, layers that built an emotionally powerful edifice in my mind, an edifice completed with the last scene of this book. Sad and depressing, with little room for hope, a well depicted portrait of man as he is, unvarnished. --- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
Rating: 
Summary: An Engaging Cautionary Tale
Review: The book introduces us to Snowmanm, a futuristic Robinson Crusoe who lives in a tree on a beach brimming with civilization's debris. A plague decimated the earth's population and he is the last human being alive. He is also the surrogate parent to human prototypes called Crakers, creatures with green eyes who eat grass. In a hostile environment full of genetically spliced creatures, he attempts to survive; as he looks for food and supplies, he provides a disjointed narrative which unravels the past that brought him to his nightmarish present. He used to be known as Jimmy, the son of scientists employed by a biotech company. A cataclysmic event killed off the world's food supply and most food forms were genetically engineered. Science and industry reigned supreme, and the world was divided into the Compounds--strictly controlled self-contained biospheres--and the Pleeblands, where everyone else lived. Abandoned by his mother, Jimmy befriended a new kid named Glenn who has lost his father. They played computer games like Extinctathon where Glenn is known as Crake; one time they entered a porn site and saw a young girl whom they would later know as Oryx. Jimmy languished in a low-level job after college until he was rescued by his genius friend Crake, who became project head for a big biotech company. It proved to be a fateful reunion which precipitated the tragic events that altered human existence. Margaret Atwood is a prolific writer who has penned several literary works. Here she weaves a cautionary tale that is frightening for being so plausible and familiar. Although Jimmy is her first male protagonist, she is able to speak in his voice convincingly. Unfortunately, the other characters are not as well defined. Her prose is engaging but pales in comparison to the outstanding The Blind Assasin, which won her the Booker Prize. In spite of its flaws, I still enjoyed Oryx and Crake as the dystopian fantasy that succesfully makes you wonder whether we as a species are engineering our own demise.
Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking title of intimate proportions
Review: Evidentally, Margaret Atwood wanted to express her views on the current state of the world as well as provide a protestation/warning against where she viewed that world heading. Yes, as it's been stated in both the Amazon.com review and the same of the readers, she obviously speaking against the hyper advancement of technology (especially that of genetics) and the more ethical/cautionary glance we should take of it, but as well (if not especially) the sociological dynamics we are seeing today. To be blunt, the scenes she describes of open violence and murder/suicide and execution that are shown on commercial television for entertainment struck me as a left handed barb at the Fox television network itself. The spectacles of executions in the deserts of China, suicides where death is proved by a hired doctor, etc. are exactly what can be found on various websites that I'm sure more than enough readers here are familiar with. Along with the before said protestation, Atwood has evidentally done some research into this and delved into that world beyond what the more easily found and free of charge websites offer. Thankfully, it's a world that hasn't quite achieved this stage of desensitivity. Her note to this is in the vein that the Internet is here, is a viable channel of entertainment, hence look at what can be had; as well as already is available. Sound obvious, but usually, the common person wants to dismiss this place as fairtale. Excellent work on an excellent, if somewhat wry, novella on pretty viable perception of the world over.
Rating:
Summary: Go ahead, try to put this one down....
Review: I started Atwood in the poetry section and quickly jumped to her fiction. Starting with A Handmaid's Tale, I rapidly read everything I could get my hands on. But, Oryx and Crake will be my most favoured of them all. When I turned to that last line, I had expected more, not because the ending was abrupt, but because I wanted more.
Yes, like the other comments, I agree this book is very complex, more than her norm. Its rather refreshing to see the intensity of the intertwinded relationship between Jimmy, Thickney, and Snowman come together in a series of flashbacks. I started Atwood in the poetry section and quickly jumped to her fiction. Starting with A Handmaid's Tale, I rapidly read everything I could get my hands on. But, Oryx and Crake will be my most favored of them all. When I turned to that last line, I had expected more, not because the ending was abrupt, but because I wanted more.
Yes, like the other comments, I agree this book is very complex, more than her norm. Its rather refreshing to see the intensity of the intertwined relationship between Jimmy, Thickney, and Snowman come together in a series of flashbacks.
This is a very intense, mood-affecting novel. The creation of life, the damnation of the Homo sapiens sapiens and their rebirth move flawlessly throughout Jimmy's world.
This novel is a wonderful companion piece to Brave New World. I have enjoyed Atwood's pieces throughout, but this is defiantly better than I could have even pictured. This is a very intense, mood affecting novel. The creation of life, the damnation of the homo sapiens sapiens and their rebirth move flawlessly throughout Jimmy's world.
This novel is a wonderful companion piece to Brave New World. I have enjoyed Atwoods peices throughout, but this is definatly better than I could have even pictured.
Rating:
Summary: Thought Provoking, Yet Flat and Undeveloped
Review: Atwood's latest tome weighs heavy on several issues that have vexed the public conscience over the last few years: genetic engineering, intellectual classism/discrimination, globalization, and the consequences of biological warfare. While Atwood does an admirable job of presenting a biological warfare "The Day After", replete with "Planet of the Apes" images of technology subsumed by nature, this novel does not evoke nearly the response that some of her previous novels have for me. All too often, the novel would wend its way down one path and stop, disjointed, abandoning some thread that supposedly would reveal greater insight into the main characters, their motives, and their relationships with the outside world. I felt that throughout the novel, Atwood was close to helping the reader better grasp the novel's themes and characters, but came up short as a result of incomplete characterization. Altogether a very interesting novel - creating a technological Adam and Eve crossed with Cain and Abel imagery makes for interesting discussion, as do the ethical ramifications of "playing God". Atwood always comes up with interesting stories; I'm just used to better development from an author of Atwood's caliber.
Rating:
Summary: A new classic, ranking with 1984 and On the Beach
Review: This book leaves me speechless with wonder, horror and fear and.... and even a little hope. Things have not gotten this bad yet but they easily could. We still have the chance to prevent the destruction of the world as we know it. But....if we keep sticking our heads in the sand like ostriches we could all become dodos, crakes and oryxes. This book is beautifully written, deeply clever, shocking and disturbing but also relieved by the levity of wry humour. In my opinion it is no less than a masterpiece--- a call to action in the vein of apocalyptic/dystopic classics like On the Beach, 1984 and Brave New World. Right after reading it I signed on to volunteer for the Howard Dean Presidential campaign, I had to do something immediately. Thank you Ms. Atwood for your courage to write this life-changing novel.
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