A review by outcolder
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

4.0

I enjoyed reading this, I guess I mean the prose and some of the characters. The plot was more of a mood than a plot, though, both the flashback plot, which at least has events, and the framing plot, which actually had some suspense. The black hat genetic engineering was ham-fisted, the animal-mixes like something out of a kid’s comic book, which made the thought experiment side of the sf also kind of weak. The Windup Girl, published four years after Oryx and Crake, is on similar ground but makes much more sense in terms of what would GreedHead BioTech Inc do if they could edit genes like we edit words. Somehow though it all comes together into a ... well, I can’t call something this disturbing “fun” exactly or “pleasurable “ ... but a great read and I already ordered part 2.

I almost forgot the pandemic! It’s more marburg/ebola than covid, but yikes! Man, I don’t want to die like that. Can we please get serious about global public health?