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

Interesting storyline monotonous narrator

The storyline is very interesting, however, narrator is very boring/monotonous which makes it a long listen. I’m sure reading myself would’ve made the experience better.

Very good…apart from the songs!!

A good follow-up to Oryx and Crake that takes a while to heat up, but when it finally does, woah Nelly hold onto your hats lads!! Had to dock a star for the songs tho, as they were real stinkers!!

Oryx and Crake Revisited

I loved Oryx and Crake. This book is to O&C like Ender's Shadow is to Ender's Game.

It's the same story from another point of view.

Instead of telling the story from within the corporation compounds, it is told from the point of view of the plebe lands and concentrates around the God's Gardeners group.

I found it easier to identify with Jimmy in O&C, as I am a word person in a tetchy world, a bit worried about where this world is going. The extreme nature of the God's Gardeners green cult is harder to identify with.

I love nostalgia and meeting the characters from O&C again was allot of fun. I did think Atwood laid the references to O&C a little too thick. We meet just about every character we knew, event's from Oryx and Crake are alluded to in very high detail. For example if in O&C Jimmy tells how a girl caught him reading her diary, then in The Year of the Flood you meet this girl and she describes the event down to how many times she underlined different words in the message she wrote him.

I may be too sensitive to this because I made sure to reread O&C before starting the Year of the Flood. But this is the main reason I'm deducting one star from my rating for this book.

I really enjoyed The Year of the Flood, it was allot of fun to revisit the O&C world. The only thing wrong with it is that like many sequels it doesn't match the brilliance of the original.

Yay! More dystopian goodness.

This book was a wonderful surprise! I had read Oryx and Krake multiple times and was left wanting me after the ending. This book is not a sequel, but rather covers the same period of time but from the point of views of different characters in a totally different situation. I didn't know that when I picked it up, and when I realized that is what it was, I was thrilled. It is not necessary to have read O&K to enjoy this one, nor is it necessary to read one before the other. I don't think I have ever ran into this kind of story-telling, and it was a very satisfying experience. Like O&K, there are some racy (raunchy) parts and language I could have done without, but the dystopian story captured my imagination.

Marred by poor performances

I did not enjoy this second book in the trilogy nearly as much as I did the first largely because of one the narrators - Bernadette Dunne - reads as if she is voicing a cartoon. Her characters come off as caricatures, not people. Really too bad. I also could have done with out all the hymn-singing, even tho they were written by Atwood. They were just silly and pulled me out of the narrative. I recommend listening to "Oryx and Crake," then reading the next two in the series. I think this would have sounded better in my head.

good value

Would you consider the audio edition of The Year of the Flood to be better than the print version?

Don't know haven't read it.

What other book might you compare The Year of the Flood to and why?

1q84 - by Murakami. The audio book has 3 narrators also. It features a cult. The main character is a strong women. If Atwood used fantasy more like Murakami this story would have been better or more entertaining for want of a better word.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

There are 3 narrators in this performance, which is rare in my experience. They are top end readers and really make the story as they should. My only criticism is that Adam 1 is good but perhaps a little old.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It's not as good as the previous book but it still has lots of good ideas in and cleverly plays out in the same time as the first story (Oryx and Crake).

Any additional comments?

I think it's a very now story, based on the feelings towards life my friends have. May 2013.

Please never write hymns again

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Good book, but falls short of developing the story of Oryx and Crake further.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Most interesting: synoptic view of the catastrophe. Least interesting: the gardener hymns

What three words best describe the narrators’s voice?

Lively, pleasant, engaging

Do you think The Year of the Flood needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No, but I wished there were more to the ending of this story, sorta leaves you at the same place you ended with Oryx and Crake

Any additional comments?

Please do not include poorly written and performed original music in this audiobook. Had to skip the hymns to keep from giving up on the book.

A sequel with depth.

This book is a sequel to Oryx and Crake, and needs to be read as such - don't read it first. Atwood expands the world of that first book, giving us a glimpse of events just beyond the horizon of the original plot. The book is heavy on character, light on plotting, yet knowing the first book helps create suspense for the coming "flood." The interstitial songs recorded to live music started out being disruptive, but after time they add a lot of depth. The book lingers a bit too long, perhaps, on tangential topics, but on the whole creates a really vivid world. Read this book if you like dystopian settings, apocalyptic stories, and issues about what man's role in his world should really be.

Fabulous

This is so well done - the main reader is excellent, and the inter-chapter voice and music is a powerful way to bring the book to life. Margaret Atwood's genius comes through yet again.

Connects with our current world!

I look forward to hearing what is going to happen next. How does it end? Everytime time I get in the car I want see more.