I recently started listening to the audiobook version of MaddAddam but then stopped after the first disc. I had read Oryx and Crake when it first came out 11 or so years ago (as well as The Year of the Flood when it first came out), and I realized I needed a refresher in Margaret Atwood’s trilogy — who was this Snowman again? What was his relationship to other characters?

So I went back to Oryx and Crake, as read by Campbell Scott, which is a rather simple story. A man nicknamed Snowman appears to be the last human in a post-apocalyptic world. He has been left to care for genetically modified humanoid creatures amid a ravaged landscape – no electricity — that has been taken over by other genetically modified creatures that have gone wild: giant and smart pigoons (pigs with human cells), and the friendly and sweet looking dog-like creatures that are actually fierce and killer wolves deep down inside, thus the name wolvogs.

The plot goes something like this: Snowman tells stories to the humanlike creatures, thus giving them a creation story about Oryx and Crake (these are both names of extinct animals taken as nicknames by a brilliant scientist and one-time friend of Snowman’s — that’s Crake — and a woman who is a love interest for both men, Oryx). One day, Snowman (his real name is Jimmy) goes in search of food and then returns to find that other humans may be around. The end. Continue reading →