The Year of the Flood

By: Margaret Atwood

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne, Katie MacNichol, Mark Bramhall

Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power. The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners - a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life - has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.

Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers...

Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: The lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away...

By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.

©2009 Margaret Atwood (P)2009 Random House

Rip my ears out!

Male no mistake, I loved Oryx and Crake. I had pretty high hopes for this one too. But I just couldn't take the poxie religious songs after every sermon. The first one was stupidly funny in a poking-fun-at-Christians-trying-to-be-hip sort of way. But by the third song I was done. My bleeding ears couldn't take it any more.

The story was pretty slow too; mostly about a girl's indoctrination into an Eco-Christian cult. Yawn. Skip this one and let Oryx & Crake rest on its sudden ending.

Excellent sequel

Wonderfully read sequel to Atwood's Maddaddam trilogy. Enjoyed this very much and the songs of worship sprinkled throughout were great!

hmmm...

I like the story, though not as much as the first book. The songs is what I could not stand, kept fastforwarding through those. I dont like my audiobooks to be productions, though.

The engaging middle of the Maddadam trilogy

I found Oryx and Crake, the first book in the Madaddam trilogy, depressing but compelling. This second volume, which takes place at the same time as the first book, and intersects with it, focuses on two women who lived with The Gardeners, an earth-centered religious cult, but had to survive the worldwide pandemic—the Flood—on their own. The characters are beautifully drawn and explored in depth, which is both a strength and weakness. The book is very long, often repetitive, and could use some judicious editing. I listened to the audiobook at 1.7 speed, which for me was perfectly understandable, and at least dealt with some of the extreme length. I admire both Margaret Atwood and apocalyptic stories, so I thought this was well worth my time, and I'm looking forward to the third book. A word of warning: In the book, many chapters end with a sermon by the head of The Gardeners, followed by song lyrics. Here, those lyrics have been put to music, and it's everything that people hate about folk music. Maybe this was a deliberate choice, since The Gardeners are portrayed as excessively earnest, and the music fits that description. All I know is I fast-forwarded through the songs.

She does it again

The incomparable Margaret Atwood..does it again. Can’t wait to get into Mad Addam ..that will be interesting

ok sequel

my favorite part of this is the Earth religionists and their sermons and songs. & actually I would rather Atwood had lifted that element out and produced a completely unrelated novel of nature religionists, or survival of an isolated cult or something & I think she very well may have given us another masterpiece like Handmaid or Oryx. Unfortunatley it is tied to the Oryx story, which was great, but all we really have here is that same story retold from different characters perspectives until it reaches the same point at which Oryx ended. OK fine, but aside from elements like the religion, or the nature artist who may be my favorite in this book, it is basically the Oryx story but from the city view. If you like Oryx, I think this is worth doing just for the songs and sermons.

Great book - bad music.

Agree with the first review by Valerie. The music was awful.

I do not agree with the other reviews though this was a great story. I had a hard time putting it down.

Shadowplay off another story..

I kept feeling like I was a block away from Oryx & Crake... It's been quite a while since I read that one and I kept getting the feeling that this story would be much deeper and more interesting if I remembered more of O&C. BIGtime. At least that story seemed to be going somewhere, this one kinda rambled a bit. The characters are kinda interesting but not terribly so. It just seemed like a shadow play off O&C. And the songs were terrible. IF they had been hummed or sung by the appropriate character (a more traditional approach), it would have fallen within the context of the story. As a fully realized musical production however.... it was very jarring and off-putting. I fast forwarded through every one after the first (which kind of defeats the author's intent). Anyway. Not terribly interesting but not horrible, just ok. I feel like I should re-read Oryx & Crake now (which I DID enjoy quite a LOT :)

Really Enjoyed it

After reading and loving "Oryx And Crake", I was eagerly anticipating the release of "The Year Of The Flood". And happily, I was not disappointed. "The Year Of The Flood" is a companion book to "Oryx And Crake", meaning this story takes place during the same time as "Oryx And Crake". It's not a sequel. Through the stories of Ren and Toby, we learn more about what it was like to live in the pleeblands, outside of the Helthwyzer complex. We also learn about the Gardeners, a cult-like group that has unforeseen influence on the men instrumental to the catastrophe to come (Snowman and Crake).

Why did I rate this only four stars? Because I found the first few chapters very confusing. It took a while for me to figure out what was going on. If this happens to you, don't give up. The payoff is well worth the time and effort. I also found the first half of the book a bit slow. The characters were very interesting, though, and by the time I reached the halfway point, I could not put this audiobook down. I am not sure if Ms. Atwood is planning to write a sequel, but I would love to read it. I'd especially love to read more about Zeb and Adam One and their time at the Helthwyzer complex. Really enjoyed this one!

Find another narrator if you can

This narrator is almost more than I can stand. If I weren't thinking of the waste of the money, I wouldn't even listen to this audiboook.