IO9 posted a review of Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy. Here is an excerpt from the section on Year of the Flood, which will be the focus of my class for the next few weeks:
In a sense, The Year of the Flood is an extended worldbuilding exercise. We learn about the cultures and experiences that are left out of Oryx and Crake, and we see the pandemic from the perspective of its victim-survivors rather than its perpetrators.
Perhaps most importantly, Flood brings a spiritual perspective to the apocalypse trilogy that appeared only in fragments in Oryx. We follow protagonist Toby, one of the most passionate Gardeners, as she recites the beautiful, weird and whimsical prayers of the group — odes to evolution, to great naturalists, and to animals. We see how the scientific perspective on nature doesn't have to undermine our metaphysical attachment to it. Most of all, we meet characters who seem gritty and real compared to the demented cipher Crake.
Click through to read the whole thing.
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