Oryx and Crake

MaddAddam

Content Ratings

Moderate Romance

Snowman and Crake's shared obsession with Oryx is emotionally and sexually significant; references to child pornography in which Oryx appears as a young child are depicted as morally disturbing backstory; adult sexual relationships are described with moderate directness.

Intense Themes

Corporate eugenics, the commodification of human biology, child sexual exploitation as a global industry, and a single individual's decision to end the human species are sustained themes of profound moral complexity.

Moderate Violence

The novel climaxes with the revelation that the protagonist's friend engineered the extinction of humanity; corporate genetic experimentation on animals is depicted; violence is present throughout as background and in key revelatory scenes.

Synopsis

Snowmanâ€”apparently the last human being aliveâ€”watches over a community of engineered post-human creatures called Crakers and recounts how the world ended, revealing the story of his genius friend Crake who created a plague to reset humanity, and the enigmatic woman Oryx whom both men loved. A darkly comic, furiously inventive novel about biotechnology, corporate power, and the human capacity for destruction. The first volume of Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy.