The Year of the Flood by Margaret AtwoodA prequel to "Oryx and Crake" this book follows the pre-Flood years of two characters and the hazy period of time following. Frighteningly prophetic with our potential futures; genetic-splicing, environmental collapse in the face of better-efforts, clearly delineated caste systems this book is a peek into a frightening future just as "A Handmaid's Tale" did decades earlier.
This book freaked me out. Having just moved back to San Francisco, I was near finished. Grocery shopping with products labeled "organic" left me feeling uneasy. Walking through the Haight was a good backdrop for the pleeb-state sections of this book or the arcades of major Japanese cities.
Recommendation: re-read "Oryx and Crake" before or after. I'm not certain "Year of the Flood" works as a stand-alone. There are many references to animals and organizations that are explained in "O&C".
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Atwood portrays the breakdown of nature and society. The greed of corporations and their dangerous experiments with genetic engineering is a theme threaded throughout the book, although more directly addressed in Oryx and Crake. The privatization of the police force echoes the privatization of our military services and warns of abuse of such power. The world becomes lawless, with women used and abused, people murdered for their organs, and criminals hardened into violent brutes by the bizarre penal system.
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