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List Price: $14.95Amazon.com's Price: $10.17 You Save: $4.78 (32%)as of 11/23/2009 11:03 EST
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780385721677
ISBN: 0385721676
Label: Anchor
Manufacturer: Anchor
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 376
Publication Date: 2004-05
Publisher: Anchor
Release Date: March 30, 2004
Studio: Anchor
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com Review:
In Oryx and Crake, a science fiction novel that is more Swift than Heinlein, more cautionary tale than "fictional science" (no flying cars here), Margaret Atwood depicts a near-future world that turns from the merely horrible to the horrific, from a fool's paradise to a bio-wasteland. Snowman (a man once known as Jimmy) sleeps in a tree and just might be the only human left on our devastated planet. He is not entirely alone, however, as he considers himself the shepherd of a group of experimental, human-like creatures called the Children of Crake. As he scavenges and tends to his insect bites, Snowman recalls in flashbacks how the world fell apart.
While the story begins with a rather ponderous set-up of what has become a clichéd landscape of the human endgame, littered with smashed computers and abandoned buildings, it takes on life when Snowman recalls his boyhood meeting with his best friend Crake: "Crake had a thing about him even then.... He generated awe ... in his dark laconic clothing." A dangerous genius, Crake is the book's most intriguing character. Crake and Jimmy live with all the other smart, rich people in the Compounds--gated company towns owned by biotech corporations. (Ordinary folks are kept outside the gates in the chaotic "pleeblands.") Meanwhile, beautiful Oryx, raised as a child prostitute in Southeast Asia, finds her way to the West and meets Crake and Jimmy, setting up an inevitable love triangle. Eventually Crake's experiments in bioengineering cause humanity's shockingly quick demise (with uncanny echoes of SARS, ebola, and mad cow disease), leaving Snowman to try to pick up the pieces. There are a few speed bumps along the way, including some clunky dialogue and heavy-handed symbols such as Snowman's broken watch, but once the bleak narrative gets moving, as Snowman sets out in search of the laboratory that seeded the world's destruction, it clips along at a good pace, with a healthy dose of wry humor. --Mark Frutkin, Amazon.ca
Product Description:
Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journeyâwith the help of the green-eyed Children of Crakeâthrough the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Like others have said, this is mostly back story. AT the end, where there was about to be a confrontation, the book simply ended. I checked this out at the library and am glad I didn't buy it.
Rating:  -
Over hyped, derivative post-apocalyptic hogwash.
This has been done much better by many other writers.
I wasted a couple of hours reading this book.
This book is exactly as uninsightful as the first hundred pages suggests.
Rating: -
This story centers around Snowman, the last(?) man on Earth. After a disease obliterates the world, he is the one left to pick up the pieces, including watching over the Crakers, a race of perfected people created by his friend Crake. The story is told is present and past terms, written like a biography in some ways as Snowman recounts his childhood and the ways he came to meet and befriend Oryx and Crake, two people who came to change the world.
Sometimes raw and disgusting (Snowman ... Read More
Rating:  -
This is an excellent apocalyptic tale written by a master. If you take the basic premise of the story - disease unleashed by the megalomaniac Crake it's been done before, many times but Atwood somehow makes the story fresh. Sole Survivor explores the country side and slowly rations out the why's and wherefores of what led up to this state of devistation. Nothing new, nothing that hasn't been told in countless novels and stories. BUT - in the capable hands of Margaret Atwood you get to live with the ... Read More
Rating: -
I felt compelled to write a review after reading some of the more negative reviews. I personally have read all of Atwood's books, and as such, one could definitely say I'm a fan. Most of the negative reviews seem to find Oryx and Crake tedious and convoluted in the beginning, but this is part of Atwood's style and finesse as a writer. I think if you can give yourself over to the experience, the story becomes MUCH more than a story. The confusion and struggle are part of the experience, which often ... Read More
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Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780385721677
ISBN: 0385721676
Label: Anchor
Manufacturer: Anchor
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 376
Publication Date: 2004-05
Publisher: Anchor
Release Date: March 30, 2004
Studio: Anchor