MaddAddam: Book 3 of The MaddAddam Trilogy Author: Margaret Atwood | Language: English | ISBN:
B00BRUQ3PS | Format: EPUB
MaddAddam: Book 3 of The MaddAddam Trilogy Description
A New York Times Notable Book
A Washington Post Notable Book
A Best Book of the Year: The Guardian, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, The Globe and Mail
A GoodReads Reader's Choice
Bringing together Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, this thrilling conclusion to Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction trilogy points toward the ultimate endurance of community, and love.Months after the Waterless Flood pandemic has wiped out most of humanity, Toby and Ren have rescued their friend Amanda from the vicious Painballers. They return to the MaddAddamite cob house, newly fortified against man and giant pigoon alike. Accompanying them are the Crakers, the gentle, quasi-human species engineered by the brilliant but deceased Crake. Their reluctant prophet, Snowman-the-Jimmy, is recovering from a debilitating fever, so it's left to Toby to preach the Craker theology, with Crake as Creator. She must also deal with cultural misunderstandings, terrible coffee, and her jealousy over her lover, Zeb.
Zeb has been searching for Adam One, founder of the God's Gardeners, the pacifist green religion from which Zeb broke years ago to lead the MaddAddamites in active resistance against the destructive CorpSeCorps. But now, under threat of a Painballer attack, the MaddAddamites must fight back with the aid of their newfound allies, some of whom have four trotters. At the center of
MaddAddam is the story of Zeb's dark and twisted past, which contains a lost brother, a hidden murder, a bear, and a bizarre act of revenge.
Combining adventure, humor, romance, superb storytelling, and an imagination at once dazzlingly inventive and grounded in a recognizable world,
MaddAddam is vintage Margaret Atwood—a moving and dramatic conclusion to her internationally celebrated dystopian trilogy.
From the Hardcover edition.- File Size: 2004 KB
- Print Length: 418 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0385528787
- Publisher: Nan A. Talese (September 3, 2013)
- Sold by: Random House LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00BRUQ3PS
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,754 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Dystopian - #88
in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Post-Apocalyptic - #95
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Dystopian
- #64
in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Dystopian - #88
in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Post-Apocalyptic - #95
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Dystopian
I've been a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction since I first read EARTH ABIDES when I was in high school. I've probably read them all, to greater or lesser degrees of enjoyment. It's rare to find such a novel written by a literary great - a George Orwell, or an Aldous Huxley, or a Cormac McCarthy. Or a Margaret Atwood. Her HANDMAID'S TALE is one of my all-time favorites, and I gobbled up ORYX AND CRAKE when it was released in 2004. MADDADDAM is the third in what has been called Atwood's "MaddAddam Trilogy," and it concludes the story began in ORYX AND CRAKE and continued in THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD.
The story begins just as YEAR OF THE FLOOD ends - Toby and Ren have rescued Amanda from the vile Painballers who had kidnapped her, the two villains have been tied to a tree for safekeeping, Snowman (guardian of the so-called "Children of Crake," or "Crakers") is gravely ill from an infection, and the gentle Crakers are singing their strange songs. What happens in MADDADDAM is mainly Toby's story, and Zeb's story, told through Toby. Much of it is told in flashbacks (things that happened in the years before the "Waterless Flood" destroyed all human life on Earth, and in the years just after that pandemic). But in the novel's final act, things happen that conclude the trilogy in a very satisfying way.
For those who have not read the first two novels (or those - like me - who have forgotten major details of the story), Atwood provides a brief introduction called "The Story So Far." This is a great help, and will refresh readers as to who these characters are and how the world came to be as it is. In ORYX AND CRAKE, we learned how Crake engineered a pandemic that wiped out most human life.
I think it's fair to say that I am a huge fan of the works of Margaret Atwood. In fact, "The Year of the Flood" was my personal choice as Best Book of 2009. So I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of "MaddAddam," the concluding chapter of the MaddAddam trilogy. With her previous efforts, the aforementioned "Flood" and its predecessor "Oryx and Crake," the brilliant Atwood set her sights on a dystopian future that was alternately savage and satirical. The fact that Atwood's bleak vision seemed both far off and eerily plausible was a testament to her extraordinary storytelling ability. She so expertly straddled the line between science fiction and social commentary, it was almost impossible not to admire the complexities and challenges she had to offer in her unquestionably unique voice.
While "Oryx and Crake" and "The Year of the Flood" had some overlap, each was a relatively independent novel from a character standpoint. Of course, the principle plot points driving the narrative were common to both books (but seen from a different vantage point), but either could be enjoyed separately. I've often thought of them more as companion pieces as opposed to one being the sequel to another. Not so, however, for "MaddAddam." Bringing together the characters from the prior novels, I would not necessarily recommend it as a stand alone read. At the beginning of "MaddAddam," Atwood wisely includes a recap of the story so far. Wow! While certainly a helpful refresher, I can't imagine a newbie tackling these dense few pages and making much sense of them. Each book is whittled away to about a page and half of recap which will surely scare away the uninitiated!
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