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List Price: $26.95Amazon.com's Price: $17.79 You Save: $9.16 (34%)as of 11/21/2009 03:55 EST
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780385528771
Edition: First Printing
Format: Deckle Edge
ISBN: 0385528779
Label: Nan A. Talese
Manufacturer: Nan A. Talese
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 448
Publication Date: September 22, 2009
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Release Date: September 22, 2009
Studio: Nan A. Talese
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Book Description
The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power.
The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners--a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life--has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.
Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers...
Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away...
By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.
Margaret Atwood on The Year of the Flood
 I’ve never before gone back to a novel and written another novel related to it. Why this time? Partly because so many people asked me what happened right after the end of the 2003 novel, Oryx and Crake. I didn’t actually know, but the questions made me think about it. That was one reason. Another was that the core subject matter has continued to preoccupy me.
When Oryx and Crake came out, it seemed to many like science fiction--way out there, too weird to be possible--but in the three years that passed before I began writing The Year of the Flood, the perceived gap between that supposedly unreal future and the harsh one we might very well live through was narrowing fast. What is happening to our world? What can we do to reverse the damage? How long have we got? And, most importantly--what kind of "we"? In other words, what kind of people might undertake the challenge? Dedicated ones--they’d have to be. And unless you believe our planet is worth saving, why bother?
So the question of inspirational belief entered the picture, and once you have a set of beliefs--as distinct from a body of measurable knowledge--you have a religion. The God’s Gardeners appear briefly in Oryx and Crake, but in The Year of the Flood, they’re central. Like all religions, the Gardeners have their own leader, Adam One. They also have their own honoured saints and martyrs, their special days, their theology. They may look strange and obsessive and even foolish to non-members, but they’re serious about what they profess; as are their predecessors, who are with us today. I’ve found out a great deal about rooftop gardens and urban beekeeping while writing this book!
Another question frequently asked about Oryx and Crake concerned gender. Why was the story told by a man? How would it have been different if the narrator had been a woman? Such questions led me to Ren and Toby, and then to their respective lives, and also to their places of refuge. A high-end sex club and a luxury spa would in fact be quite good locations in which to wait out a pandemic plague: at least you’d have bar snacks, and a lot of clean towels.
In his book, The Art Instinct, Denis Dutton proposes that our interest in narrative is built in--selected during the very long period the human race spent in the Pleistocene--because any species with the ability to tell stories about both past and future would have an evolutionary edge. Will there be a crocodile in the river tomorrow, as there was last year? If so, better not go there. Speculative fictions about the future, like The Year of the Flood, are narratives of that kind. Where will the crocodiles be? How will we avoid them? What are our chances? --Margaret Atwood
(Photo © George Whiteside)
Product Description:
The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power.
The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners—a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life—has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.
Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers . . .
Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away . . .
By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Once I figured out that Atwood was essentially retelling the same story as that of oryx and Crake from a different viewpoint, I lost my desire to finish the book. THere was simply very little suspense left for me when I figured out that I already knew what had happened and how the book would end. I actually LOVED the world which Atwood created in Oryx and Crake, a sort of modern dysutopia where the corporations own everything and provide for everyone who falls within their unit but where those ... Read More
Rating: -
i loved the idea of the book and characters. however i can not stand the way she jumps from time to time. the characters go back and forth thru their lives and its grating. also dont care for the way she ends the book which she seems to do with all her books i have read so far. love the ideas but she doesnt seem to give anything close to a conclusion maybe this is so we will buy more of her books? overall it could happen. will read more of her books.
Rating: -
I buy into the strong feasibility that is an undercurrent of most of Margaret Atwood's novels. They are parables, cautionary tales that are just real enough to take seriously. This one started slower than most, but by the end I was racing to find out what happened. The fact that is it part of the puzzle that was Oryx and Crake only adds to its appeal. You have to read both. The ending is alluringly oblique, just more evidence that Atwood is a writer who entertains you and makes you think.
Rating: -
This is a great story. Atwood is great at mixing sci-fi and personal drama. I like it.
Rating: -
As a male, you would think I would get sick of Atwood beating me over the head with a lead pipe every other year, but I keep coming back for more. I found this book a bit tedious at times--I am not sure why some of the material was necessary to advance the story. I started to lose a little patience and say to myself, "Get to the point." That being said, I believe the book is worth the reader's time. Atwood fans will love it, most will like it, while others will endure it. All things considered, ... Read More
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Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780385528771
Edition: First Printing
Format: Deckle Edge
ISBN: 0385528779
Label: Nan A. Talese
Manufacturer: Nan A. Talese
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 448
Publication Date: September 22, 2009
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Release Date: September 22, 2009
Studio: Nan A. Talese