"Oryx and Crake", Margaret Atwood

I read this after a recommendation from a friend. I have read Margaret Atwood before, The Handmaids Tale to be exact, but it was many years ago and much water has flowed under the bridge.

Lets start off with a controversial claim.  I think that Margaret Atwood has an awful lot in common with Ayn Rand.  Yes, Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged. If you believed in the political spectrum, you would likely position Rand to the right and Atwood to the left.  Lets be hones,t they would both be so far off the edges of the spectrum you would need special glasses with UV filters to see Ayn Rand, and Margaret Atwood would resemble the emissions of a red giant star.  What I mean is, you might focus on the differences between them and dismiss my claim outright, but they both have a very important feature in common when it comes to speculative fiction.  They are extremely negative.  To Ayn Rand the vast majority of the human race is capable of naught and are mere leechs that suck the blood of the talented. In the world of Oryx and Crake the world has been completely screwed up by man and the picture painted of mans final days is one filled with horrific images of society, it is in fact a society or place that bears very little resemblance to our own. There is no happiness for man in this book.  There is no understanding.  There is just a wanton destruction and callous disregard for the world that is not believable.

Now, there is a  place for negativity in fiction, especially science fiction, what better vehicle to explore the negative outcomes of things we are indeed doing.  But the fact is that given all the terrible things that do happen there are good things too.  Even with all the terrible people out there, there are more good caring people.

I am going to throw out another comparison.  There is a movie called Sideways, a comedy about two men on a wine holiday who get up to high jinks in the Napa  valley.  I hated that film for one important reason, there was not one single character in it who I liked, so I didn't connect, and hated the movie which won many awards.

I am the same here with this book.  The writing is often excellent, especially in the second half when the naval gazing finishes and it begins to move forward at a fair clip.  Some of the ideas are important and needed to be explored.  But like the movie mentioned there was nobody in it to like, nothing to conect to, it was negative and I hated it.

I can see that this author is beloved, if not revered, but all I could think was what a fabulous job a writer like Heinlein could have done with the theme, without painting the whole human race with the same brush.  Do not take my opinion on this author with anything beyond a pinch of salt, she is much loved.  But she does not get my vote.