Oryx and Crake

I haven’t finished the novel Oryx and Crake, by Margret Atwood yet due to all the work that has been piled on during the last couple weeks but I have been really enjoying it so far.

            What I find kind of creepy about the story so far is the feeling of backwardness in the main character Snowman. Who was once a man by the name of Jimmy. Throughout the story, Atwood gives us insight into Snowman’s past. It’s a very interesting addition to the story and helps explain why the world is the way it is. You learn about him from a very young age and follow him up to young adulthood and finally as he is now –Snowman.  It’s as if Margaret Atwood is starting the story off at the end of another story, a story with a sad ending.

            The voices that play in Jimmy’s head are unique and I’m really glad I read this as my last novel choice because it reminded me of I am Legend, which was one of the first novels I read for my speculative literature class. In that story, the main character, Robert Neville is a little bit saner than Snowman, but you start to notice him talking to himself more and more. Robert Neville died before getting a chance to dissolve his humanity to the same extent as Snowman. The moment Jimmy took on the name Snowman is the moment Jimmy died.

            This leads me to what I thought about next. Is Snowman even human? Sure throughout the novel he talks about the Green Eyed Children of Crake as not being human, but has he lost the thing that has made him human over the years? I’m not sure how to answer that question. One part of me believes he most certainly has. He has moved into a dark age, living from day to day with blunt escapisms in his ragtag existence. However, he clearly holds on to love and hope and those are very human concepts. This book is holding my interest and I can’t wait to find out how it unfolds. I wonder if Snowman will still be Snowman in the end.  

The Death of Circuits.

I had never seen Blade Runner before. (Shame on me, I know.) However, I really enjoyed it. It had a lot of strong themes that progressed throughout the movie. It made me want to read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. By Philip K. Dick.

I found the idea of Mega-Manufacturers like the Tyrell Corporation intriguing. This is hauntingly similar to the real world. Monsanto anybody? (Except Monsanto is a little bit more evil, but that is another story altogether. Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo, ect. Those are the current world’s “Game of Thrones.” Also, this movie was released in 1982 and portrayed a grim, dystopian future set in the year 2019. If the Mayans were wrong, we will be hitting this year fairly soon and we can all take a long sigh of relief that it's not too much like Blade Runner.

            Another interesting aspect of this movie is the “grey area.” It makes you question who the good guys are. Are the androids Deckard hunts the bad guys? They’re escaping their work. Thus, escaping slavery. I feel that this story is a great example of “victims of circumstance.”  Tyrell, Roy, Zhora, even Rachel and Deckard all have these sad endings or grim futures. 

            Spinners are cool. We have always had a fascination with flying cars and it’s actually a technology that isn't far off. Granted it uses magnets and magnets under the street to create the “flying” affect but it is still doable by 2019.  I always find it fascinating when things once thought of as the pinnacle of sci-fi are now just out of reach; or even stranger yet, old technologies now.  The original Star Trek had devices very similar to that of a cell phone as well as many other small gadgets that you see on the market today.

            Today’s SciFi is just as weird as ever, we have a lot of interesting contemporaries, Margaret Atwood, China Meiville and others. I wonder if their worlds, their creations, will come to fruition as well.