Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake is one of my favourite literary / science fiction crossovers (even though Atwood herself snobbishly denies the sci fi label). It's set in a speculative future where genetic engineering has gone haywire and civilization has fallen apart as a result. It's part romance, part post-apocalyptic thriller, part distorted mirror on the world we live in today. I loved it, and was intrigued to see Atwood returning to that world for a second novel, not a sequel as such but a separate story set in the same dystopian future.
The Year Of The Flood is a different beast entirely. I suppose you have to respect Atwood for trying something else - isn't that what we always complain about with sequels, that they just retread the same ground louder and brasher? That said, this one just didn't work for me. It tells the story of two survivors: Ren, a young dancer trapped in the sex club she worked at before the "waterless flood" (lots of obvious Noah parallels floating around here); and Toby, a young woman who tends a rooftop garden and awaits the return of her religious cult friends. Though each character is well drawn and believable, Atwood doesn't seem entirely certain what to do with them. Their stories lack the narrative drive that propelled Oryx And Crake.
There's also unpleasant hints of misandry. Atwood is no stranger to stories that pitch feminist heroes against unpleasant patriarchies, though normally there's a little more balance to her work. Reading The Year Of The Flood though, I felt subtly indoctrinated that when civilization does inevitably fall, men will devolve en masse into barbarian rapists. And while that's probably likely in certain circumstances... I'm not exactly planning it myself. Rest easy, ladies. Personally, I'd be far more likely to lock myself in the house and quietly starve to death (after eating the cats), while sobbing into my pillow that the internet had gone down forever. But maybe that's just me. Fellas...?
