The Year of the Flood

By: Margaret Atwood

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne, Katie MacNichol, Mark Bramhall

The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power. The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners—a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life—has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers . . .Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away . . .By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.©2009 Margaret Atwood; (P)2009 Random House

no songs please

If there were not songs in the book I would give it a 5. But I do not listen to audio books to hear bad singers sing songs.
Other than that it is great.

Decent story, terrible narration

This story takes a while to get off the ground. It didn't get interesting until about halfway through. The terrible narrators did not help the situation. From mispronouncing important words to having pretty much no emotional inflection in their voices, they were woefully miscast as Wren and Toby. However, the book fills out Oryx and Crake very well and what makes me want to read the next installment in the series. Only read if you are committed to reading the trilogy.

Great listen

Excellent reader...very good book...went back and listened to Oryx and Crake again after listening to "Flood"....enjoyed it more! Atwood is funny and right on.

Brilliant view of possible future

Margaret Atwood continues to amaze me with her inventiveness, her humanity, her incredibly creative mind, in this well-read, wonderful novel. The two main women are flesh and blood people, their experiences forming their lives, their reactions determining the flow of those lives. The future she draws is so scary and yet so possible, just a continuation of what is going on in these early days of our 21st century. I haven't read Oryx and Crake, so can't compare the two, but this book has piqued my curiosity!

Slow going at first, but gets better

At first I thought the dystopic future was a bit unimaginative, but the story gripped me soon enough. I liked the way different narrators told different angles of the story. I'll definitely read it's companion book.