Book Summary and Reviews of Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Oryx and Crake

by Margaret Atwood

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  • Published:
  • Jan 2003, 389 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

The first volume in the internationally acclaimed MaddAddam trilogy is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future—from the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments.

Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey—with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake—through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.

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1000 Books February 2026 Read: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
@NanK , Have you read Octavia Butler's Kindred? That one's also speculative fiction/time travel/historical fiction. I've read several of her works but that one's my favorite. @Gabi_J I hope you enjoy your scifi/speculative journey! A series I'd recommend is the MaddAddam trilogy by Margaret Atwoo...
-kim.kovacs


What are you reading this week? (8/28/2025)
@Brenda_D_Andre I literally just finished Alias Grace half an hour ago. I so love Margaret Atwood's books. My favorite was the Oryx & Crake series.
-kim.kovacs

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Towering and intrepid... . Atwood does Orwell one better." —The New Yorker

"Atwood has long since established herself as one of the best writers in English today, but Oryx and Crake may well be her best work yet... . Brilliant, provocative, sumptuous and downright terrifying." —The Baltimore Sun

"Her shuddering post-apocalyptic vision of the world ... summons up echoes of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess and Aldous Huxley... . Oryx and Crake[is] in the forefront of visionary fiction." —The Seattle Times

This information about Oryx and Crake was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid's Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number one bestseller and won the Booker Prize. In 2020 she published Dearly, her first collection of poetry for a decade.

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