Of fantastic futures and imagined pasts.

• Author: Mujica, Barbara
• Position: Book Review

Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood. New York: Doubleday, 2003.

With Oryx and Crake, Canada's premier novelist returns to the Kind of chilling, futuristic fiction that distinguished her classic of the genre, The Handmaid's Tale. In the brave new world of Oryx and Crake, mom and dad have disappeared. Children are raised by "parental units." Natural food is scarce. Instead, people consume synthetic or genetically engineered products such as SoyOBoyburgers and Happicuppuchinos. The geniuses who create these new items live in closely guarded compounds run by meta-firms such as HealthWyzer and OrgansInc. There, the elite creates new forms of life, combinations of existing species such as wolvogs and pigoons that serve some scientific or commercial purpose. The rest of the population is relegated to the Plebelands, a rough, wild no-man's land.

Jimmy, the book's protagonist, grows up in the compounds. The unexceptional son of two exceptional scientists, he spends his time playing with high-tech gadgetry with his best friend, Crake. In this ultramodern, amoral world, children can amuse themselves by watching executions (electrocutions, hangings, beheadings) or pornography in all its permutations, including bestiality and kiddy porn. Crake is obsessed with a game based on extinct species. In fact, his name, which refers to a kind of marsh bird, comes from the game. While fooling around with Crake, Jimmy comes across a kiddy porn channel featuring a beautiful lithe girl, apparently from somewhere in Asia, performing a lewd act. Jimmy falls in love with the breathtaking creature, whom the boys call Oryx (a kind of African antelope).

The compounds are in fierce competition with each other for the top scientists. Guards prevent employees from leaving and housecleaners spy on their customers to make sure they're not selling secrets to rival compounds. When Jimmy's mother cunningly escapes, authorities hound Jimmy for information about her possible whereabouts. All Jimmy knows is that he misses her, even though he never cared much for her, and is particularly sad because she took his rakunk with him. (The rakunk is a newly engineered pet, part rat, part skunk, guaranteed to be clean, stink free and affectionate.) Crake thinks she may have discovered some of the compound's more dubious projects and joined up with some anti-establishment eco-terrorists.

Crake's own father was murdered by compound authorities when he discovered some classified secrets. In this "perfect" world of the future, all diseases have been eliminated and produces such as Nooskin even guarantee eternal youth. But with no illnesses, how can the medical establishment make a living? In order to keep doctors employed, compound scientists invent new diseases, along with the antidotes. Periodically, they release a new microbe in the Plebelands, and then allow doctors to cure the ailing populace, thereby keeping the masses dependent. When Crake's father threatens to reveal this procedure, goons eliminate...