  oryx and crake is a novel by the canadian author margaret atwood. she has described the novel as speculative fiction and "adventure romance" rather than science fiction because it does not deal with "things that have not been invented yet"atwood, 2004: 513. and goes beyond the realism she associates with the novel form.atwood, 2004: 517. oryx and crake was first published by mcclelland and stewart in 2003. it was shortlisted for the man booker prize for fiction that same year, and for the 2004 orange prize for fiction. a television adaptation of oryx and crake and its follow-up novels the year of the flood (2009) and maddaddam (2013) is being developed for hbo by darren aronofsky under the title of maddaddam. == plot== the novel focuses on a post-apocalyptic hermit character named snowman, living near a group of primitive human-like creatures whom he calls crakers. flashbacks reveal that snowman was once a boy named jimmy who grew up in a world dominated by multinational corporations and privileged compounds for the families of their employees. near starvation, snowman decides to return to the ruins of a compound named rejoovenesence even though it is overrun by dangerous genetically engineered hybrid animals. he concocts an explanation for the crakers, who regard him as a deity, and begins his foraging expedition. in snowman's recollection of past events, jimmy's family moves to the helthwyzer compound where his father works as a genographer. jimmy meets and befriends a brilliant science student named glenn. jimmy begins to refer to him as crake, when he uses that name in a trivia game called extincathon. jimmy and crake spend much of their leisure time playing games, smoking "skunkweed" and watching underground videos such as live executions, graphic surgery, [
2000s_science_fiction_novels 2003_novels Biopunk_novels Canadian_science_fiction_novels Dystopian_novels Environmental_fiction_books McClelland_&_Stewart_books Novels_by_Margaret_Atwood Post-apocalyptic_novels Satirical_novels