Product Description

Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners - a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, the preservation of all species, the tending of the Earth, and the cultivation of bees and organic crops on flat rooftops - has long predicted the Waterless Flood. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have avoided it: the young trapeze-dancer, Ren, locked into the high-end sex club, Scales and Tails; and former SecretBurgers meat-slinger turned Gardener, Toby, barricaded into the luxurious AnooYoo Spa, where many of the treatments are edible. Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda, or the MaddAddam eco-fighters? Ren's one-time teenage lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the CorpSeCorps, the shadowy and corrupt policing force of the ruling powers Meanwhile, in the natural world, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through a ruined world, singing their devotional hymns and faithful to their creed and to their Saints - Saint Francis Assisi, Saint Rachel Carson, and Saint Al Gore among them - what odds for Ren and Toby, and for the human race? By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most effective.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #689 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 448 pages

Review
Praise for Margaret Atwood: 'Margaret Atwood is one of the most brilliant and unpredictable novelists alive' - Literary Review 'Margaret Atwood deserves an adjective - Atwoodian - in recognition of her virtuoso wit and unmistakeable style' - Chicago Tribune 'Everything she forms in words has substance and weight' - Daily Telegraph

About the Author
Margaret Atwood is the author of more than thirty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. In addition to the classic The Handmaid's Tale, her novels include Cat's Eye, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy, and The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize. Her most recent novel, Oryx and Crake, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003. She was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature in 2008. Margaret Atwood lives in Toronto, Canada.

Customer Reviews

An Atwood Sequel
First of all, it should be said that this book is a follow up to Atwood's previous novel 'Oryx and Crake'. Howvever, this book could be enjoyed without reading 'Oryx and Crake' as it's focus is on other characters. Jimmy, Crake (here as Glenn)and a few other characters do feature in this book in lesser roles, but are not the focus. The revlelations at the end of 'Oryx and Crake' would be spoiled if you read this book first. Therefore I would suggest first reading 'Oryx and Crake'.

This is a very solid book that takes our focus to the pleeblands of Atwood's dystopian future world. The 'God's Gardener's' are a cult working against the pollution and over-use of the world's resources while awaiting the great 'waterless flood' that will engulf the world's human population.

Instead of following a single character, Atwood chooses to flip between two members of the cult, Toby and Ren. The story is always pushed forward, however, events are told from one character's perspective or the other. It's a strategy that works quite well and considering how 'Oryx and Crake' was written from a male character's perspective, it's quite welcome to have female perspectives. Atwood, as always, is able to deliver solid female characters that are believable and easy to relate to despite the bizare world she has created around them.

The story is written in parallel to the events of 'Oryx and Crake' and ends not too long after where that book left off. Since the characters are linked in quite strange and unexpected ways to the characters of 'Oryx and Crake', expect to see quite a few of your favourites from that book popping up here as well.

One aspect that I enjoyed less were the frequent sermons given by the 'God's Gardeners' leader, Adam One. These were given at the beginning of each new section of the book and explained the cult's festivals and many many saints giving Atwood the chance to throw in a few 'tongue-in-cheek' references and inject some humour. However, I found them a bit dull and found myself racing through them in order to get back to the story.

If you wanted to know just what happened to Jimmy in the closing paragraph of 'Oryx and Crake' you will be pleasantly surprised by this book. And since Jimmy pops in and out of this story as well, we get to see him from another perspective, that of Ren, the scorned ex-grilfriend!

The book gives the impression that this is not the end of Atwood's dystopia. Atwood has extended the number of characters at her disposal and another book would be quite welcome. I would certainly love to read some more!

While this book is not as far reaching as 'Oryx and Crake' had been, it is still a very good story and a very enjoyable novel. I certainly wasn't able to book the book down. If you didn't enjoy 'Oryx and Crake', perhaps you should give this one a miss, however, if you had an interest in it and want to read on this is a very welcome sequel (of sorts).

Margaret Atwood - The Year of the Flood
I think it would be wrong to say that The Year of the Flood is a sequel to the wonderful oryx and Crake; more, it is a sister novel (in more ways than one: as the first novel set two men trekking into a post-genetolyptic world, this one sets two women into it), which ends at roughly the same point. The two novels travel at right angels to one another and meet at a point.

A question I found myself asking all through this book was: what's the point of her visiting this again? I'm still not sure there is one. Apart from exploring the mindset and morals of "veggie-cults" in the instance of genetic dystopia (in this case the God's Gardeners cult who refuse to eat meet, preach an immenent cleansing "waterless flood", and sing hosannah's to all animal-life and its spirits), there's not much new ground covered here. If literature should be an exercise in illumination, there's not much new light shed here on anything the previous novel didn't cover. However: The Year of the Flood is still a wonderful book. I raced through it in just over a day. If you enjoyed Orxy and Crake, have no hesitation in buying this. If you didn't, then leave it on the shelf. If you've read neither, then you may as well begin with this one.

Atwood's writing is always a joy. The fun she has with words in new human landscapes is thrilling. And there is no doubt that this novel, while not thematically much different from the other, is an imaginative castle. It is clear that Atwood vastly enjoyed coming up with the God's Gardeners cult, imaginaing their rituals, morals, ways of communiating and believing. In fact, so much does that come through that I get the impression that that's the primary reason this book exists. That, and the fact that she feel so strongly about the issues within that she decided to tell us a second time.

I loved this book. As an clever entertainment, full of imagination, humanity and humour, it is probably much as good as you can get. Then, she normally is. We follow the two main characters' entry into the cult, their life within it, their eventual explusion as a result of outside forces, and then their eventual reunion in the decimated world. Their stories individually are fascinating, and the way they knit together is a wonderful example of pace and plotting.

You could argue that The Year of the Flood is superfulous, and you might be right, but that doens't stop it being great fun to read. I recommend this novel very highly. It is a very enjoyable read, and one that does not force you to consider the issues it stems from, but invites you to if you wish. Long live Margaret Atwood.

Theme and variation...
Having been so gripped by the ideas (and to a lesser extent the characters) in Oryx and Crake that I chose it as a set text that year for the A-level English Lit group I was teaching, it is like being given a present by Atwood to read The Year of the Flood now.

I am enjoying reinvigorating my understanding of and reactions to the ideas presented in Oryx and Crake and Atwood does add to those ideas here as well as repeat them: for instance, in The Year of the Flood we witness direct communication between a young Crake (Glenn) and the Gardeners (albeit obscurely), which gives us more of an understanding of Crake's motives than Oryx and Crake can do on its own.

Yes, this is an overtly political book, as most futuristic novels are; to those who think fiction should restrict itself to 'stories' without meddling in politics - are not all narratives inextricably tied to their social and historical contexts, whether the reader recognises them or not? Are not all important ideas political eventually? What makes this book important is that, like other dystopian narratives such as Brave New World, 1984 and even Atwood's own The Handmaid's Tale, it uses fiction as a screen on which to project our sometimes discordant values and gives us a chance to have a good look at them.