Oryx And Crake

It's difficult to summarize what this tale is all 'about.' That's maybe the hardest and most challenging aspect of this novel. It starts after the collapse of civilization and focuses on the relationship between Jimmy, a remembered-self of a hermit calling himself Snowman. There's also a group of creatures called 'Crakers', who are like humans but not human. Jimmy once had a buddy, called Crake. They played computer games, including one called Extinctathon, only one a fairly unsavory list of internet activities. Seriously twisted characters, but maybe not as uncommon as one might want to believe. When Jimmy finds himself a love interest, Oryx, Crake goes nuclear, even though Oryx becomes a part of both their lives. But her heart is for Jimmy and that's not good. Crake reacts with stunning violence. Not only does he kill Oryx, but does some serious pandemic wetwork on the humans and transforms himself into the original Craker. Why it's on this list: It may sound pat and not doing the book full justice, but I think it is 'about' some seriously screwed-up people. Atwood herself insisted that it wasn't SF, and that she just happened to use genre tropes. Despite Atwood's protests though, the novel does a excellent job in the post-apocalypse-as-revelation stakes. It also trumps all the other novels on this list in the 'ratings' extremes. If I had allowed Hope and Fun-factor ratings of '0', I would have done it. Ratings: Grimness: 5, Bizarreness: 5, Hope: 1, Fun-factor: 1.