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kstrong_74, January 2, 2011 (view all comments by kstrong_74)
I'm not the type of person who can join a book club. I don't enjoy enough books, or read often enough to keep up. However, if Margaret Atwood were to continuously write the Oryx and Crake series I would start a club myself. The Year of the Flood is a fabulous follow-up to Oryx and Crake. I grabbed this book the second I saw it on the book shelf, and read it within days.
Seeing the characters from a different point of view only made the story more believable and kept me longing for more.
I cannot wait until book #3 comes out.
If you have not started this series, and are a fan of Handmaids Tale, grab both Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood now. You will not be disappointed.
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Shoshana, May 31, 2010 (view all comments by Shoshana)
A dystopian "sidequel" to Oryx and Crake; that is, it recounts others' lives and actions that are parallel to (or intersect with) those of Snowman and Crake. While not as lyrical as the first book, it's still engaging, with vivid descriptions and lively characters. It takes the reader to the point at which Oryx and Crake ended, and a little farther. Although I found Snowman to be a frightened, passive schmuck in the first book, this was important to the joke of the narrative, to the extent that the climax could be a joke. Here, Snowman seems simply pathetic and confused, though arguably this is due to his delirium. The protagonists' stories are more intimate but seem less important and I found the book overall to be less engaging. This troubles me given that the first book was the men's experiences, while this one was the women's. Overall, the narrative seemed to fill in more details rather than add new, significant plot elements.
Reviews by Jeanette Winterson and Ursula Le Guin that were published in major newspapers included surprisingly big errors or misunderstandings of Atwood's plots. If these were poor writers or reviewers not familiar with speculative fiction I'd leave it alone, but with such luminaries behind the misrepresentations, I was troubled.
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Judith Squires, April 28, 2010 (view all comments by Judith Squires)
Thank you Margaret Atwood for following up on Oryx and Crake. Yet this great book is much more than a sequel because the introduction of Toby and God's Gardeners added a whole new dimension. A "work of genius" is no exaggeration to describe both Orxy and Crake and Year of the Flood.
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Elizabeth Grimsrud, February 20, 2010 (view all comments by Elizabeth Grimsrud)
I could not put this book down. The ties between Atwood's near-future world and our present world are compelling and chilling. I loved the way this novel interfaced with her previous book, Oryx and Crake. I'll be re-reading this one!
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Marie Angell, February 16, 2010 (view all comments by Marie Angell)
As always, I am in awe of Ms. Atwood's ability to weave an exciting tale with relatively light-handed social commentary.
"The Year of the Flood" is impressive in the detail of the society she created (although elements of our own are clearly present) and she raises important questions for us all without shoving anything down our throats.
The writing is elegant, the characters well drawn and engrossing.
Highly recommended.
All I ask now is for a sequel!
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Product details
448 pages
Nan A. Talese -
English9780385528771
Reviews:
"Staff Pick"
by Jill Owens,
A companion novel to Atwood's magnificent Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood conveys a very different perspective of the coming dystopian catastrophe. Darkly funny, incredibly believable, and surprisingly hopeful, Atwood's new novel is one of her very best.
by Jill Owens
"Staff Pick"
by Michelle M,
Margaret Atwood's haunting companion to Oryx and Crake will leave you hungry for another book in this "speculative fiction" universe. Written in the alternating voices of young and initially naive Ren and nostalgic but wounded Toby, the novel explores themes of ecology, disaster, relationships, and religion in a world that feels eerily familiar. Unlike Oryx and Crake, this story is told solely from the perspective of women. Atwood's fascinating prose marvelously explores social issues and human nature.
by Michelle M
"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"In her 2002 speculative novel, Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood depicted a dystopic planet tumbling toward apocalypse. The world she envisaged was in the throes of catastrophic climate change, its wealthy inhabitants dwelling in sterile secure compounds, its poor ones in the dangerous 'pleeblands' of decaying inner cities. Mass extinctions had taken place, while genetic experiments had populated the planet with strange new breeds of animal: liobams, Mo'Hairs, rakunks. At the end of the book, we left its central character, Jimmy, in the aftermath of a devastating man-made plague, as he wondered whether to befriend or attack a ragged band of strangers. The novel seemed complete, closing on a moment of suspense, as though Atwood was content simply to hint at the direction life would now take. In her profoundly imagined new book, The Year of the Flood, she revisits that same world and its catastrophe. Like Oryx and Crake, Year of the Flood begins just after the catastrophe and then tracks back in time over the corrupt and degenerate world that preceded it. But while the first novel focused on the privileged elite in the compounds and the morally bankrupt corporations, The Year of the Flood depicts more of the world of the pleebs, an edgy no-man's land inhabited by criminals, sex workers, dropouts and the few individuals who are trying to resist the grip of the corporations.The novel centers on the lives of Ren and Toby, female members of a fundamentalist sect of Christian environmentalists, the God's Gardeners. Led by the charismatic Adam One, whose sermons and eco-hymns punctuate the narrative, the God's Gardeners are preparing for life after the prophesied Waterless Flood. Atwood plays some of their religion for laughs: their hymns have a comically bouncing, churchy rhythm, and we learn that both Ren and Toby have been drawn toward the sect for nonreligious reasons. Yet the gentleness and benignity of the Gardeners is a source of hope as well as humor. As absurd as some of their beliefs appear, Atwood seems to be suggesting that they're a better option than the naked materialism of the corporations.This is a gutsy and expansive novel, rich with ideas and conceits, but overall it's more optimistic than Oryx and Crake. Its characters have a compassion and energy lacking in Jimmy, the wounded and floating lothario at the previous novel's center.Each novel can be enjoyed independently of the other, but what's perhaps most impressive is the degree of connection between them. Together, they form halves of a single epic. Characters intersect. Plots overlap. Even the tiniest details tessellate into an intricate whole. In the final pages, we catch up with Jimmy once more, as he waits to encounter the strangers. This time around, Atwood commits herself to a dramatic and hopeful denouement that's in keeping with this novel's spirit of redemption.
Signature Reviewe by Marcel Theroux. Marcel Theroux's most recent novel, Far North, was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in June." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Review A Day"
by Nisi Shawl, Ms. Magazine,
"Is it possible to prevent a planet-scale ecocatastrophe? What would the consequences of preventing such an event be? Would those consequences be acceptable? Iconic Canadian author Margaret Atwood has once again written about a distressingly near future in which mass murder may be the best way to save the world." (read the entire Ms. Magazine review)
"Review"
by Booklist (Starred Review),
"Atwood's mischievous, suspenseful, and sagacious dystopian novel follows the trajectory of current environmental debacles to a shattering possible conclusion with passionate concern and arch humor."
"Review"
by Kirkus Reviews,
"Another stimulating dystopia from this always-provocative author, whose complex, deeply involving characters inhabit a bizarre yet frighteningly believable future."
"Review"
by Library Journal,
"Another win for Atwood, this dystopian fantasy belongs in the hands of every highbrow sf aficionado and anyone else who claims to possess a social conscience."
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
The long-awaited new novel from the author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Blind Assassin, The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to Atwood's visionary power.
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