Cav's Place

Stunning, but not in a good way, reading Oryx and Crake is like reading the damaged mind of a train wreck’s nevertheless doomed survivor as it replays the details while struggling to cope with his current impossible situation. It’s at times raw, often brutal, and depressing and frightening throughout. It should come with trigger warnings for those who already have eyes to see and a brain to think while at the same time, and for the exact same reasons, likely needing to be required reading for those who still believe in “solutions” which will allow mankind to continue on a more or less “business as usual” path.
What makes it worse for the former and “better” for the latter is that it doesn’t portray some distant future or require suspension of disbelief. Instead, it describes events which may well happen if we continue on our current path, mixed with some which already have or currently are happening, many of the former being a direct result of the latter. This isn’t merely a possible future, but, at least in part, a probable one at the moment, and not centuries from now but one which may well be mere decades away. In fact, some of the described “prerequisites” of the eventual outcome, even some of the worst ones, may become reality any day, and some already have.

The above mainly applies to about 80% of the book. Commenting on the last 20% would require a long piece which would stray even farther away from an actual review, so I’ll just say that Crake identified the problem, but the solution was an entirely different matter. Then I’ll return to the book itself and say that, while perhaps not necessarily good in terms of characters, action, pacing or other elements that would normally be analyzed, it’s definitely valuable. And while I didn’t necessarily like it, I definitely appreciate it. And it definitely remains stunning throughout, in more ways than one.

Rating: 4/5