Oryx and Crake
Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey–with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake–through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.
Stats for nerds
26recommend
58mentions
51people
2007–2026years
50% recommend45% neutral5% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- If you want the druggy, high-concept, ersatz-reality version go with Philip K. Dick - namely The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, A Scanner Darkly, VALIS.
If you want the intellectual take go with A Canticle for Leibowitz (Miller), Oryx and Crake (Atwood) or Solaris (Lem).
If you want the 60s hard-science rooted societal outlook from an ex-Naval Engineer with strong views on gender roles, it's all about Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers etc..
If you want something to share with the young adults in your life, or simply some of the finest writing in the contemporary British YA canon, then Philip Pulman's magnificent homage to 'Paradise Lost' - the 'His Dark Materials trilogy' - cannot come more highly recommended. Usually categorised as 'fantasy', and heavily indebted to Milton and Blake, this represents a master-class in parallel-universe world building with its own take on a Steampunk Oxford and a number of other science fiction tropes.
- > Overall, I'd say the most accurate sci-fi I've ever seen, as far as predicting things, is the 1986 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie "The Running Man".
Best I can think of was a surprisingly sophisticated 1970 young adult book by John Christopher, which had a mid 21st century Britain run by a Brave New World style low key authoritarian surveillance state divided between overcrowded cities that had very modest use of technology like electric cars and "holovision" and well to do rural areas that have an Amish style renunciation of technology like cars (but really the continued existence of their society depends on tech). Particularly because it lampshaded all the sci fi that was coming out at the time by having a teacher tell the kids "we stopped spending money on the space programme because it was a waste of money"...
(Oryx and Crake is very good too, though the sequels lose a bit because it turns out all the cliches about the world outside their gated community are actually true...)
The Running Man was based on a psuedonymous Stephen King novel, FWIW
- To me it is more Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.
- Perhaps 'Oryx and Crake' by Margaret Atwood? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oryx_and_Crake). She calls it 'speculative fiction' so ...
- Stephenson's take on e-gold might offend some libertarians too! In all seriousness, as I recall it the weirdness about women was mostly in-character views of nerds whose perception of the wider world isn't necessarily supposed to be that reliable, and the male-dominated cast actually makes sense in context. There are other Stephenson books more likely to annoy people in terms of gender roles and digressions about liberals and universities...
But yeah, Stephenson isn't the author to start non-sci fans on (though Vonnegut fans might love Cryptonomicon and spot an influence or two). Atwood's Oryx and Crake is probably my answer to that, since it's classic near future sci fi disguised as literature. The first book is all about near future society and the implications of plausible tech, she just writes about the people in it and doesn't waste words describing the details of stuff they wouldn't know or how it actually works. And the subsequent books are cliche-trope heavy dystopic sci-fi and still probably doesn't feel that way to people who tend to avoid that stuff.
- >But... It does. 220lbs of methane per cow on average.
Already being captured for energy. VC funds are all over this
> I'm not saying I'm not in said "bug camp"
So you are saying you are in the bug camp, got it.
>but you're arguing that transport of plants, using fossil fuels, even remotely touches the amount of fossil fuels...[meat]
Hyperbole and no accounting. You have no idea. Scale production and see what happens. Have you any data to validate your assessment?
> grassland that could be significantly more productive
How so? Do you believe all grassland on earth should be appropriated for "best use" to increase productivity? Why would you believe that? Are you aware that allowing cattle to forage in forests helps prevent wildfires and enriches the soil increasing undergrowth and biodiversity. The practice is largely banned in state and national parks thanks to zealots of ecowarriors and bug campers.
>We don't need meat
What we need is trivial. We don't need cars or shoes or knowledge.
Meat can be considered a byproduct of an immensely useful material that lasts indefinitely, has been harnessed by possibly every culture to exist and has uses that every person requires.
Leather.
You need to read Oryx and Crake before you destroy the world.
