The Year of the FloodA Novel
- Narrated by
Mark Bramhall
,Bernadette Dunne
,Katie MacNichol
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Avg: 5.0 (3 ratings)
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Audiobook Download Information
- Edition:
- Unabridged (Random House Audio)
- Length:
- 14 hours, 4 minutes
- File Size:
- 386 MB (11 files)
- Published:
- September 2009
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Review by Molly Young, eMusic
"Speculative fiction" is the term Margaret Atwood's prefers for her end-time fantasias — think of the America controlled by fundamentalists in The Handmaid's Tale or bioengineering gone sour in Oryx and Crake. The term works particularly well in her newest novel, The Year of The Flood, which is downright frightening in both its imaginative scope and plausibility.
The story, which retells Oryx and Crake, begins with a world decimated by plague and run by a nefarious security outfit named CorpSeCorps. The Waterless Flood — Atwood's term for the pandemic — has left few survivors to scratch out an existence among the ruins, among them a hippieish cult called God's Gardeners, who claim to have predicted the end. While picketing a gruesome fast-food chain named SecretBurger (rumored to grind human remains into their patties), the cultists rescue an employee named Toby from the abuses of her boss at the restaurant, a monster named Blanco the Bloat. Toby rises in the ranks of God's Gardeners and becomes a figure central to both the group's hierarchy and the serpentine course of Atwood's tale. Suffice it to say that the author's lyricism and storytelling panache are in full bloom here — a good thing indeed, considering the places she's willing to go.
Quotes from the Critics
"This is a gutsy and expansive novel, rich with ideas and conceits...." (starred review) - Publishers Weekly
"Atwood's villains are despicable, while her heroes are thorny, resilient, and contemplative, and their adventures are hair-raising....Atwood's mischievous, suspenseful, and sagacious dystopian novel follows the trajectory of current environmental debacles to a shattering possible conclusion with passionate concern and arch humor." (starred review) - Booklist Upfront
"Atwood knows how to show us ourselves, but the mirror she holds up to life does more than reflect--it's like one of those mirrors made with mercury that gives us both a deepening and a distorting effect, allowing both the depths of human nature and its potential mutations." - New York Times Book Review
"[Atwood] enchants us so convincingly that after her spell is over, the "real" world seems temporarily transformed. THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD is both a warning and a gift." - National Public Radio
"FLOOD's relentlessly fabulous inventions and despondent predictions become almost unbearable, espeically told in such gorgeously trenchant prose." - Time Out (New York)
"Canada's greatest living novelist undoubtedly knows how to tell a gripping story, as fans of THE BLIND ASSASSIN and THE HANDMAID'S TALE already know. But here there's a serious message, too: Look at what we're doing right now to our world, to nature, to ourselves. If this goes on..." - Washington Post
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