Introduction

A New York Times Notable Book
A Washington Post Notable Book
A Best Book of the Year: The Guardian, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, The Globe and Mail
A GoodReads Reader's Choice

In this final volume of the internationally celebrated MaddAddam trilogy, the Waterless Flood pandemic has wiped out most of the population. Toby is part of a small band of survivors, along with the Children of Crake: the gentle, bioengineered quasi-human species who will inherit this new earth.
        As Toby explains their origins to the curious Crakers, her tales cohere into a luminous oral history that sets down humanity’s past—and points toward its future. Blending action, humor, romance, and an imagination at once dazzlingly inventive and grounded in a recognizable world, MaddAddam is vintage Atwood—a moving and dramatic conclusion to her epic work of speculative fiction.

Editorial Review

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, September 2013: Margaret Atwoodâ??s genius is fed by her appetite for synthesis: she sees every consequential cultural and tech trend (the realized and the possible) and spins them out into a near-future thatâ??s both freakishly strange and horrifyingly plausible. MaddAddam concludes the trilogy she started with Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, simultaneously set stories of the survivors (and the late creator) of a deliberately unleashed plague thatâ??s left a few ragged stragglersâ??the fever-dreaming Snowman, remnants of a peaceful Godâ??s Gardeners cult and eco-warrior MaddAddamites, psychotic escapees from the Painball arena, and humanityâ??s bioengineered â??replacements,â?? the bizarrely placid Crakersâ??all bushwhacking through a trashed world of animal mash-ups (including some wicked-smart Pigoons). Depending on your outlook, sheâ??s a scathing satirist, an alarmist, or an oracle. But the world she imagines feels near enough that you wonâ??t soon forget it. --Mari Malcolm

Excerpt

Egg

The Story of the Egg, and of Oryx and Crake, and how they made People and Animals; and of the Chaos; and of Snowman-the-Jimmy; and of the Smelly Bone and the coming of the Two Bad Men

In the beginning, you lived inside the Egg. That is where Crake made you.

Yes, good, kind Crake. Please stop singing or I can’t go on with the story.

The Egg was big and round and white, like half a bubble, and there were trees inside it with leaves and grass and berries. All the things you like to eat.

Yes, it rained inside the Egg.

No, there was not any thunder.

Because Crake did not want any thunder inside the Egg.

And all around the Egg was the chaos, with many, many people who were not like you.

Because they had an extra skin. That skin is called clothes. Yes, like mine.

And many of them were bad people who did cruel and hurtful things to one another, and also to the animals. Such as?.?.?.?We don’t need to talk about those things right now.

And Oryx was very sad about that, because the animals were her Children. And Crake was sad because Oryx was sad.

And the chaos was everywhere outside the Egg. But inside the Egg there was no chaos. It was peaceful there.

And Oryx came every day to teach you. She taught you what to eat, she taught you to make fire, she taught you about the animals, her Children. She taught you to purr if a person is hurt. And Crake watched over you. ... view entire excerpt...

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