The Year of the Flood
First published 2009 · English · 434 pages
- Novels
- Science fiction
- Dystopia
- Fantasy
The second MaddAddam novel runs alongside the events of Oryx and Crake, but from a different point of view. It centres on Toby and Ren, two women connected to the God's Gardeners, a small religious group that values nature, simple living and preparation for a coming ecological catastrophe.
The story moves between the rough, corporate-run cities and the group's rooftop gardens, and between the years before and after a disaster. Hymns and sermons of the Gardeners appear throughout. The novel is inventive, satirical and sometimes moving, and it looks at faith, friendship, environmental damage and how people endure.
Quotes
Everybody knew. Nobody admitted to knowing. If other people began to discuss it, you tuned them out, because what they were saying was both so obvious and so unthinkable. We are using up the Earth. It is almost gone.
What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question.
You can forget who you are if you're alone too much.
we must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing.