Margaret Atwood, one of the most distinguished and interesting contemporary authors, is most definitely a chameleon. One moment, she is presenting crime in Alias Grace, the next minute, the historical epic in The Blind Assassin and then tackling speculative fiction with ease in The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake. But unlike it’s predecessor, it delves into a future obliterated by genetic engineering.

Jimmy aka. ‘Snowman’ is one of the only survivors of a biological disaster. He lives in uneasy harmony with the Crakers, a simple group of not-quite-human beings, that live much like an ancient tribe. Snowman exists in a world taken over by nature, struggling to survive against encroaching jungle animals.

Cutting between flashbacks of Snowman’s childhood and the present, Atwood pieces together the anatomy of an apocalypse. The thing with any Atwood novel is that no matter what she writes, her language and concepts are so damn interesting, it could be about pudding for all I care. She can write about the forest for a chapter in her etherial prose, and it is just as fascinating as the disintegration of the world.

She has an innate ability to ply fears of the present into nightmares of the future. Cosmetic genetic alterations become the prime resource of capitalism. For example, taking the chicken industry’s mistreatment of animals, she turns it into ‘Chickie Nobs’, a fast food company harvesting chicken from an animal which is all fleshy legs and no body, like a chicken sea anenome. (Trust me, you’ll never eat KFC again…)

The only fault was that I didn’t attach myself to the subsidiary characters. Snowman, yes. But Crake, his enigmatic school friend and Oryx, his love interest, appear almost like illusions. Perhaps she intended it this way. After all, for the majority of the novel, Oryx is a computer image.

But the book is well worth reading. Atwood on a bad day is better than most writers’ magnum opus. As a friend once remarked to me, ‘there is something to be said for an author who has a promotional photo with snowflakes on her head.’

Who should read this?

• People who are learning to write speculative fiction and want to know how it should be done
• Conspiracy theorists
  
• Medical professionals planning the apocalypse
  
• Above all, nerds
  

Reading Level
Moderate, although Atwood is easy to follow and the plot is intriguing.

Final Verdict
Atwood always delivers. Read it.