Oryx and Crake
The world has ended. One man remembers how. His brilliant best friend is the reason why.
The Architect of Extinction
Margaret Atwood's 2003 novel opens after an unspecified catastrophe has destroyed human civilisation. The sole survivor Snowman lives on the edges of a community of genetically engineered people called Crakers, mourning and remembering. His narrative moves between the collapsed present and a past in which he watched his friend Crake, a prodigiously gifted geneticist, grow increasingly convinced that humanity was a design flaw in need of correction. A science fiction novel that Atwood calls speculative because every element already exists in prototype.
Reading Oryx and Crake
Dread
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"Was it ever possible to go back? To undo what had been done?
"Margaret Atwood · Oryx and Crake
Atwood has consistently resisted calling the novel science fiction, preferring speculative fiction to signal that she only writes technologies that already exist in some form. She researched genetic engineering and pharmaceutical trials extensively.
The novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. It launched a trilogy completed with The Year of the Flood and MaddAddam. HBO announced plans for a television adaptation.