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

Continuación excelente de Orix and Crake

Buena historia que completa y amplifica la primer novela de la serie. Con un final que invita a entrar de lleno en la última.
La ejecución de la producción francamente buena y muy clara para una persona cuya lengua madre no es el Inglés. Se agradecen las interpretaciones musicales de los himnos. Como siempre, creo que debería existir una web con las letras de esos himnos para tener la visión total.
Deseando empezar MaddAddam

Good except

Very good story and performance. Interesting and well developed characters, typical of Atwood.

Except Ren. It was beyond irritating to have so much of the story narrated by an airhead. I suppose this was meant to be amusing but I find stupidity revolting. I ended up skipping most of her parts, which didn’t seem to add much to the overall story anyways (of all 3 books), aside from what it’s like to cling to a child’s crush for your whole life.

Mixed

The voice actor that plays Toby is really terrible. I can barely get through those chapters. I don’t understand how she was cast. Others are pretty good overall and that one is really jarring.

This book is no O&C which I thought was brilliant. I wouldn’t necessarily bother honestly but I’m a sucker about finishing things. There some great bits, I liked hearing about the extreme dystopia of the plebe lands but without the contrast of the corporation run citadels it falls a bit flat.

Disturbing dystopian tale

Margaret Atwood’s prescient and disturbing fiction feels even more relevant today than when when I read it a decade ago. Interwoven with eternal truths and questions about humanity and human nature, it is still a story of individuals and their choices.

Excellent

Read this years ago and now moved to revisit the trilogy. Flood is beautifully narrated and the musical settings for the hymns nicely done. Atwood is genius. Well worth the listen!

Kept me interested and wanting more

There are so many hidden gems in this piece. Saint Euell Gibbons had me chuckling as did many of the references. The songs also gave me a chuckle and were always a surprise diversion from the story. It’s a book that left me disappointed when it ended because I wanted it to continue.

Disappointed Atwood Fan

Atwood's dystopian post apocalyptic efforts like The Handmaid's Tale and Onyx and Crake are quite wonderful and memorable. This one falls short of those masterpieces.
The rather somber feel remains but this story seems aimless and ill conceived or formed.
I won't quit on Atwood yet but I can't really encourage anyone to start with this one as a good intro to her work.

Great Atwood, great audio (even the music)

I am a huge Atwood fan, and have listened to Oryx and Crake at least twice. The reader is good, though I really liked the male reader in O&C a bit more. I enjoyed the connections between the two books, and the different perspective it lends. The music was a bit strange at first, but it does a great job of adding to the "goofiness" of the God's Gardeners (think hippie folksy 70s Christian music), along with Adam One's "sermons". The story tells well, and it has that same Atwood tongue-in-cheek cynical world view. If you liked Oryx and Crake, you'll like this one too. Not a world I'd care to live in, but very thought provoking and engaging.

Read Oryx and Crake one last time before this

The Year of the Flood is Margaret Atwood at the height of her powers. Very few authors have the courage to attempt the whole "create a religion" thing, and practically none of them can actually pull it off. Yet Atwood has here a whole book detailing a minor religious sect that isn't ridiculous on the face of it, even writing hymns that (while admittedly tedious to listen to) actually sound like hymns. This all but blows the mind.

Unfortunately, Atwood has set this whole thing in the same universe as her absolute classic, Oryx and Crake. Why? What was the point? It's like watching the greatest conjurer of all time, only to have the climax of her act be a rabbit pulled out of top hat. This book all but ruins its predecessor, filling in gaps, dispelling mysteries, and answering questions that nobody on earth wanted filled, dispelled, or answered.

OK, you know Pulp Fiction, the Quentin Tarantino film? Remember that one scene where Vincent and Jules are shaking down those kids in the apartment, and Vincent opens a mysterious attache case and stares in wonder at whatever is inside? And later, Tim Roth's character does the same thing? And you're like "what's in the case?!" Then what happened? YOU GREW UP. Now, what if Tarantino made a sequel to Pulp Fiction starring, like, Steve Buscemi's Buddy Holly waiter, where he FINDS OUT WHAT'S IN THE CASE and it's like the most obvious thing imaginable. Only fat useless nerds who don't get it at all would be super happy to see this film.

That's what this book is. It's what's in the case. Oryx and Crake was flawlessly built up to an ambiguous ending, where Jimmy's intentions are unclear and subject to a massive amount of debate. Guess what? NOT ANYMORE. Now we know what happens, and it's a load of old bunk. A lame attempt is made to replace it with another kind of cliffhanger, but it's the kind of cliffhanger where a bomb is ticking down and the screen cuts off at 00:01. WILL THE BOMB EXPLODE?

Who cares?

An excellent companion piece

I'm surprised that some reviewers didn't like the connection with Oryx and Crate and/or the music. I thought the flip of perspective fascinating and not at all heavy-handed. The music added a level of immediacy and realism to the religious world of the Gardeners that works. I found this a very satisfying companion piece to Oryx and Crate.