Oryx and Crake
by Margaret Atwood
Oryx and Crake is a book about a dystopian world where unregulated technology, science and profit motive ran wild. It starts with Snowman, a broken down human who sleeps in the trees and wears an old sheet for clothes. He is living at the edge of the sea near a group of strange bioengineered humanoids. He looks after these strange creatures and, in return, once a week they give him a fish. Eventually he realizes that he needs supplies so he decides to go to the ruined city to see if he can harvest anything from the wreckage.
As he heads towards the ruined city he tells his story of his past when he was called Jimmy. The world where he grew up was a gated and guarded compound owned by HelthWyzer a corporation that produces genetically engineered products such as pigoons, transgenic pigs, bred to grow replacemennt organs for humans. His best friend is a brilliant science student named Glenn. They play an online game called Extinctathon where Glenn becomes the character Crake. The adolescents discover online pornography, and Jimmy becomes enamored by a young girl who will later be known as Oryx. The compounds are closed areas where the educated elites live and work. The Pleeblands are the unregulated cities where the manual laborers, prostitutes, criminals and live
Crake, the name sticks, is fast tracked to the Watson-Crick Institute the most respected school for Science and Technology. Jimmy goes to a liberal arts college called Martha Graham Academy to study for a worthless degree in humanities to learn how to produce marketing as propaganda. He gets a job writing ad copy for AnooYoo which produces a variety of self-help products. He lives and works in the same compound. He finds his life empty and depressing.
Crake, has gone on to be the most prominent and respected genetic engineer. He comes to Jimmy and offers him a job. Crake has created BlyssPluss which is a super pill designed to give the people health and hapiness. In reality it contains a deadly virus. Jimmy’s job is to create a marketing campaign to promote BlyssPluss while being ignorant of the death it contains.
This is a fun and scary post-apocalyptic story. It is the first in a trilogy. In spite of the selfish human behavior and the overt profit over all mentality, it is a bizarre “what if” novel. The descriptions of the engineered plants and animals are creative and amazing. I love this book, I believe sci fi fans will too.