Margaret Atwood calls her ‘futuristic’ work ‘speculative fiction’, drawing a distinction between what she sees as a possible soon-to-be here future and the more distant extrapolations of traditional Science-Fiction. And Oryx and Crake, like The Handmaid’s Tale before, does indeed feel uncomfortably close, and real.

Influenced by the author’s own fears about the state of our planet and of our society, the book presents a dystopic view of what our world could be like 20, 30 or 40 years from now. The upper-class, represented mostly in the book by individuals and families working for large scientific corporations, live in protected and luxurious compounds that shelter them from external contact with the rest of society. This ‘rest’ lives in what is perceived by the elite as a dangerous and chaotic no-man’s land, whose boundaries and exact geography remain fairly vague. Global warming related catastrophes have become so common that the ‘compounders’ have learned to adapt by changing some of their traditions and habits, such as moving the students’ graduation date to February to avoid the scorching heat of June. One of these students is Crake and he has a plan for humanity. He wants to rid human beings of their shortcomings, which he believes are responsible for the problems plaguing the world.

Oryx and Crake is a magnificent book that explores not only the likely consequences of inaction in the face of deteriorating global environmental conditions but also the potentially dangerous direction of overzealous genetic research. As with Houellebecq’s The Possibility of an Island, Oryx and Crake capitalizes on the malaise that is plaguing our society, a feeling that many things are getting out of control, that we are responsible for them without understanding how to change this state of affairs. The feeling of slowly being overwhelmed and unable to catch up, leading to a misleading revelation that only something drastic can offer a way out. But whereas Houellebecq offers his drastic solution as a logical and necessary escape, Atwood depicts hers as the unfortunate result of human failures. Yet, she nonetheless manages to insert some beauty and temptation in it, drawing on a longing for a more primordial, innocent and nature-driven past (or future), a disturbing ambiguity that makes the experience of reading this book only more fascinating.