The Subprimes, by Karl Taro Greenfeld

New York Times review.



It's dystopian near-future fiction. America has become almost completely de-regulated, practically everything privatized. There's an enormous population of unemployed homeless, the "Subprimes" of the title, who wander the country, working as temporary labor--especially at fracking sites--and squatting in foreclosed, uninhabited housing developments. The environment has deteriorated quite a bit from the way it is now: summer has become a long, hellish season with temperatures routinely climbing into the 130s. A major character is a kind of Bernie Madoff who may be rehabilitated by a televangelist who characterizes him as a victim of progressives who wish to stymie the "job-creators." One of the skillful things that Greenfeld has done is to make this world very, very close to the one we are in. Many current cultural references are made: it's not that far in the future.


Unfortunately, I didn't much like the ending. It seemed contrived, a sort of deus ex machina thing that says, "I didn't know what to do with this plot so I did this." To me, anyway. The book was still worth reading for its dire predictions and the caution that it should raise.

MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood

This is the third part of a trilogy that began with Oryx & Crake,  and continued with The Year of the Flood. I was pleased to find that the book began with a brief recap of the first two books, as it's been quite some time since I read them. In this one, we find the surviving humans along with some modified-humans (The Crakers), and many another interesting life-form in the post-chaos world.

A lot of the book is made up of flashbacks into Zeb's life, back to the time when he and Adam were half-brothers living with their father, "The Rev." This is pre-Flood, at the height of Corporate power in Atwood's future Earth.

Atwood's writing is, as always, unintrusive, economical, precise, and entertaining.

What could be a drab indictment of the present environmental atrocities committed all about us is kept alive as a very readable story by the interesting and sympathetic characters she has created in this trilogy.

Be advised: one is not left with a warm, fuzzy view of the future.

NY Times Sunday Book Review

Margaret Atwood's Web Site

Future Dramatization of the Trilogy

The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood

This novel is set simultaneously with Oryx & Crake, in the future. Global warming is no longer a subject of speculation, it is the condition of the world. Bioengineering has become a big industry, and scientists are manufacturing new species such as the pigoon, and the rakunk. Corporations are running everythng, and then -- comes the waterless flood.