The Year of the FloodA Novel

Margaret Atwood

Rate It! Avg: 5.0 (4 ratings)

Summary

The Year of the Flood

By: Margaret Atwood

Narrarated by: Bernadette Dunne, Mark Bramhall, Katie MacNichol

BONUS FEATURE: INCLUDES ORIGINAL MUSIC WITH LYRICS COMPOSED BY THE AUTHOR

The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power. The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners—a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life—has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers . . . Meanwhile, 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 this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away . . .By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.

Sample Audiobook
Audiobook Information
EDITOR'S PICK // New York Times Best Seller
  • Edition: Unabridged
  • Author: Margaret Atwood (See All Books)
  • Date Released: Sep 22, 2009
  • Publisher: Random House Audio
  • Genre: Fiction & Literature, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Utopia & Dystopia

Total File Size: 386 MB (11 files) Total Length: 14 Hours, 4 Minutes

eMusic Pick

eMusic Review 0

Avatar Image
Molly Young

eMusic Contributor

09.22.09
Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood
2009 | Label: Random House Audio

A darkly lyrical end-time fantasia in the spirit of Oryx and Crake andThe Handmaid's Tale
"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.

Write a Review 0 Member Reviews

Please register before you review a release. Register

user avatar

If you loved Oryx and Crake

bbranum

like I did you will love this novel. It is not a sequel, but it does tie up some loose ends. It's set in the same world and is from the point of view of some minor characters in Oryx and Crake.

eMusic Features