Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Oryx and Crake  By  cover art

Oryx and Crake

By: Margaret Atwood
Narrated by: Campbell Scott
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $17.96

Buy for $17.96

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

A stunning and provocative new novel by the internationally celebrated author of The Blind Assassin, winner of the Booker Prize

Margaret Atwood’s new novel is so utterly compelling, so prescient, so relevant, so terrifyingly-all-too-likely-to-be-true, that listeners may find their view of the world forever changed after listening to it.

This is Margaret Atwood at the absolute peak of her powers. For listeners of Oryx and Crake, nothing will ever look the same again.

The narrator of Atwood's riveting novel calls himself Snowman. When the story opens, he is sleeping in a tree, wearing an old bedsheet, mourning the loss of his beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. He searches for supplies in a wasteland where insects proliferate and pigoons and wolvogs ravage the pleeblands, where ordinary people once lived, and the Compounds that sheltered the extraordinary. As he tries to piece together what has taken place, the narrative shifts to decades earlier. How did everything fall apart so quickly? Why is he left with nothing but his haunting memories? Alone except for the green-eyed Children of Crake, who think of him as a kind of monster, he explores the answers to these questions in the double journey he takes - into his own past, and back to Crake's high-tech bubble-dome, where the Paradice Project unfolded and the world came to grief.

With breathtaking command of her shocking material, and with her customary sharp wit and dark humour, Atwood projects us into an outlandish yet wholly believable realm populated by characters who will continue to inhabit our dreams long after the last chapter. This is Margaret Atwood at the absolute peak of her powers.

©2002 O.W. Toad, Ltd. (P)2003 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Ingenious and disturbing.… A landmark work of speculative fiction, comparable to A Clockwork Orange, Brave New World.… Atwood has surpassed herself.”
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Oryx and Crake can hold its own against any of the 20th century’s most potent dystopias – Brave New World, 1984, The Space Merchants – with regard to both dramatic impact and fertility of invention.…Oryx and Crake showcases a nightmare version of the present era of globalization on a globe coming apart at its ecological seams.… It is a scathing (because bang-on) portrait of the way we live now.…Majestic.…” –Washington Post

“Atwood’s new masterpiece.…Extraordinary.… [Atwood pulls] back the curtain on her terrible vision with such tantalizing precision, its fearsome implications don’t fully reveal themselves until the final pages.… A darkly comic work of speculative fiction.” –W Magazine (U.S.)

Featured Article: Listen Like the World Is Ending with These Apocalyptic Audiobooks


Apocalyptic audiobooks all have one big thing in common: each is set in a world that is ending or just on the brink of collapse. Outside of that, apocalyptic and postapocalyptic stories take on all sorts of topics, twisting and turning into so many different genres and directions. Whether you love sci-fi adventures or prefer character-driven stories that reflect on real-world issues, this collection of listens has something for everyone.

What listeners say about Oryx and Crake

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4,863
  • 4 Stars
    2,314
  • 3 Stars
    919
  • 2 Stars
    294
  • 1 Stars
    197
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4,577
  • 4 Stars
    1,720
  • 3 Stars
    528
  • 2 Stars
    105
  • 1 Stars
    70
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4,097
  • 4 Stars
    1,779
  • 3 Stars
    726
  • 2 Stars
    257
  • 1 Stars
    163

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Couldn’t stop listening

Margaret Atwood is a brilliant writer. This book (and the reader) was so compelling and thoughtfully developed.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

very good

2nd time thru. really relaxed and engaged the story! many great details and character[s]. on to the next one.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Love Atwood

I’m not really a fan of a story in which people try to survive in a completely distroyed and hopless world. The only reason I strated this book is because it’s written by one of my favorite authors, and she didn’t betray me.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Shangri-la of Sci-fi.. (a must listen to)

This is one of the better works of sci-fi that I have read (listened). It is well crafted, and the author is sublime in creating this world of the near future and very complex characters. The narrator is excellent - full of emotion and projecting a range of diverse characters.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Love story friends and lovers Book 1

This is not a typical book for me, but I love Margaret Atwood so I thought what the heck. I enjoyed this so much I had to complete the series and listened to book 2 and 3. It was a WILD ride but I enjoyed all the character development.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Felt it lacked plot

Was hard to get thru this. Love the descriptive and creativity but left me feeling like it’s missing something. Dragged on

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Apocalypse with no feeling

A lazily concocted uninteresting look at disaster. Feels like she wants to shock us but there's no suspense till the final few pages so instead of shock this is a slow march through an artificial feeling tale of manufactured woe. A dystopia created using the worst of 1950s American male dominated capitalistic society improbably merged with a biotech future, without any bridging cultural development. Characters that no one cares about. Good narration! My advice--don't bother with this one.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

superb book with support reading.

great reading of a great book. Atwood at her best. thanks for a great listen.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Such a great beginning to the trilogy

A wonderful narration and a great story. If you like dystopian futures this is for you.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great story. The story telling made it hard to follow.

I loved the concepts in this book. Also the plot points seemed compelling. 80% of the time jumps made a lot of sense and did a great job of moving the story forward. 20% of the time I was confused where I was in the story and if something happened before or after something else. I would love to see a retelling of this story in a more cohesive way.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!