Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

I finished reading Oryx and Crake maybe a month ago. It was the only title on my challenge list that I'd been dying to read, but I'd picked this book up a few months ago and just couldn't continue to read it. But I tried again, and the timing was right. I've only read this and The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood, but she has quickly become one of my favourite authors in the way her stories develop, the character's voices, her style of writing - it's all very beautiful and I am in awe of her.

I find it very difficult to summarize the plot, so I leave amazon to do that for me:

In the beginning, there was chaos..." Margaret Atwood's chilling new novel Oryx and Crake moves beyond the futuristic fantasy of her 1985 bestseller The Handmaid’s Tale to an even more dystopian world, a world where language--and with it anything beyond the merest semblance of humanity--has almost entirely vanished.
Snowman may be the last man on earth, the only survivor of an unnamed apocalypse. Once he was Jimmy, a member of a scientific elite; now he lives in bitter isolation and loneliness, his only pleasure the watching of old films on DVD. His mind moves backwards and forwards through time, from an agonising trawl through memory to relive the events that led up to sudden catastrophe (most significantly the disappearance of his mother and the arrival of his mysterious childhood companions Oryx and Crake, symbols of the fractured society in which Snowman now finds himself, to the horrifying present of genetic engineering run amok. His only witnesses, eager to lap up his testimony, are "Crakers", laboratory creatures of varying strengths and abilities, who can offer little comfort. Gradually the reasons behind the disaster begin to unfold as Snowman undertakes a perilous journey to the remains of the bubble-dome complex where the sinister Paradice Project collapsed and near-global devastation began.

This is a very chilling and upsetting story about the uses and abuses of science in regards to genetics, which isn't a subject I'm very familiar with (and Atwood doesn't, thankfully, spend a lot of time on the actual science-y bits) but the disasterous outcome of the novel seems entirely within our reach.

Michelle's List updated

1. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
2. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
3. 1984 by George Orwell
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
5. Uglies by Scott Westerfield
6. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
7. Jennifer Government by Max Barry
8. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

I think this challenge came about just at the right time for me. As you can see from my list, I'm in the mood for dystopian literature! Apart from the three books on my list I haven't yet gotten around to reading (I own 1984 which is why I keep putting it off, I've just renewed Oryx and Crake from the library, and I'm having a hard time getting a copy of Uglies) I've also taken out from the library The Day of the Triffids and Feed. Based on earlier reviews, I'm trying to get copies of the Lois Lowry books as well as possibly giving Cloud Atlas another chance. Will I finish all these books before November? Possibly. I hope so. I'll keep you posted.

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

On a whim, I took out We from the library the other day. I wasn't sure I'd read it. I had this idea in my head because it's originally written in Russian and because I'd found it in the classics section, that it'd be difficult and dense read. I was mistaken. I finished this book in maybe three sittings and quite enjoyed it. It makes for a good precursor to reading 1984 which is still on my challenge list. I think the back cover says more about it than I can...

Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, Zamyatin's masterpiece describes life under the regimented totalitarian society of OneState, ruled over by the all-powerful "Benefactor." Recognized as the inspiration for George Orwell's 1984, We is the archetype of the modern dystopia, or anti-Utopia: a great prose poem detailing the fate that might befall us all if we surrender our individual selves to some collective dream of technology and fail in the vigilance that is the price of freedom.

Jennifer Government by Max Barry

I finished Jennifer Government last weekend. I wanted a title on my list that was sort of light-hearted and fun. My husband had read this book previously and he'd said it was funny and even though I know his reading style and mine are very different, I gave this book a chance.

I do like the premise of it... it's set in a near-future where America has taken over half the world and consumerism and marketing campaigns have gone wild. People take on their employer's company name as their surname and nearly everyone is employed and tax has been abolished which means public institutions like schools and the police have become corporate and reliant on funding either from a big business or on an individual basis.

It all begins rather grimly with a Nike marketing campaign for a new brand of trainers which sets off a complicated and sad group of events which really illustrate how little value is placed on human lives, on relationships and how greedy and self-obsessed this future has become.

Though I did find some parts disturbing in its accuracy, I found that the novel was a bit over-the-top, that none of the characters were likeable and the whole feeling of the book was that it was written by a man, for a man. I found there to be lots of unnessary violence and I wasn't too impressed with the dialogue. I struggled to finish the book but I don't regret the time I did spend with it.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Wednesdays are the days that Elliot goes to his grandma's house for the day, and I usually spend my freetime catching up on housework or laundry, but today was different. Today, I had The Road by Cormac McCarthy to keep me company. I stayed in bed all morning reading this haunting yet beautiful book. I could have wept, but I didn't. I almost couldn't. Here's what the front flap has to say:

A father and his young son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing but a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food - and each other.

I couldn't believe this heartbreaking world, set in a time after an unexplained catastrophe. With many forced to abandon their humanity to survive in this new world, a father and son try to get by and be 'the good guys'. Amongst all hopelessness and the surrounding devastation, this father and son cling to each other and their love for one another keeps them alive. Honestly, I can't recommend this book enough. Though incredibly disturbing in parts, this book had me gripped from the very first page.

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Originally this wasn't a book I had intended to read for this challenge, but I saw it at the library yesterday and decided to pick it up, just in case. I'm so glad I did.

Michelle's List:

1. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

2. 1984 by George Orwell

3. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

5. Uglies by Scott Westerfield

6. Jennifer Government by Max Barry

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

I finished another one. This time, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I'd been meaning to read this book for awhile, but I'd never gotten around to it until now. It's a fantastic book! And really powerful. It made me reconsider the amount of time I spend watching TV, it had me wondering if I really listen to the people I care about, it made me more aware of how little I am aware of current events. If ever a book made me really stop and think about my, then this book was it.

It's set in a future where books are banned and no one thinks for themselves in order to achieve happiness. No one listens to what other people have to say, everyone's lives are very superficial and based around silly nonsensical TV programmes. Life is very fastpaced and surrounded by noise and chatter and materialism.

The protaganist, Guy Montag is a fireman whose main responsibilites are to burn books and to burn the houses of people who still own books. He meets a strange girl who asks him unusual questions and helps him to realise that he isn't happy, he isn't in love with his wife, and this kicks off a very quick moving, scary novel.

I zipped through it really quickly, partly because of how interesting the subject was to me, and partly because of the style in which Bradbury writes which just forces the reader to continue. This is a very short novel, but I assure you, Fahrenheit 451 is one of those books that will stay with you long after you've read the last page!

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick

This marks my first book read for the Dystopian Challenge, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. I'm not entirely sure why I chose to read it, I've never really been interested in robot-type science fiction.

It was OK. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. It's the book that Blade Runner was based on, and while I know I have seen the film, I don't remember the details so I went into reading this book without much of an idea of what it was about apart from the fact that it was set in a dystopia. I hadn't read anything by Philip K. Dick before, and possibly this wasn't the best book to jump in from?

It's about a bounty hunter in a future covered in radiactive dust where having a live pet is the ultimate symbol of prestige and all animals are sacred, even spiders. People are encouraged to emigrate to Mars where they would be given an android servant. Some androids escape and try to live amongst humans on (what's left of) Earth. Rick Deckard is set the task of 'retiring' 4 such androids but questions the moral implications.

To be honest, here's where I get quite confused with the story. I understand that Deckard questions his humanity in killing the androids, especially after his encounter with a beautiful android, Rachel. But I didn't get the significance of Deckard's depressed wife, Mercerism, the 'chickenhead' character. Maybe I wasn't as involved in the storyline or the characters as I could have been, but it all just baffled me. The writing was easy enough to read, and I sped through the book quickly, but I didn't take in much of it unfortunately.