Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The Year of the Flood

Survival. Margaret Atwood’s new novel, The Year of the Flood, does something that I can’t recall her doing before: she reprises characters from a previous novel, and expands their story. Several of the characters from Oryx & Crake, (which I also rated with four stars in 2003), appear in the new novel, and the two novels merge pleasantly to create a more complete view of a future possible world. The Year of the Flood is a story of survival in a world devastated by genetic experiments gone foul, and a plague that wiped out much of the population. One group in The Year of the Flood is called God’s Gardeners, and the hymns that Atwood creates describe their beliefs and their world with humor and insight. A collaborator composed music for these fourteen hymns and they can be heard and purchased at www.yearoftheflood.com. Atwood’s writing is superb, the characters believable, and the future world she creates is a scary place.

Rating: Four-star (Highly Recommended)

Click here to purchase The Year of the Flood from amazon.com.

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