Edition: U.S. / Global

Atwood's Dystopian Warning; Hand-Wringer's Tale of Tomorrow

Published: June 24, 2003

In Margaret Atwood's first attempt at writing a novel, the main character was an ant swept downriver on a raft. She abandoned that book after the opening scene and became caught up in other activities, which she has described as ''sissy stuff like knitting and dresses and stuffed bunnies.'' That certainly does not sound like Ms. Atwood, who is known for the boldness of her fiction. Of course she was only 7 at the time.

Fifty-six years later, as one of the leading writers in Canada, she has published her 11th novel, ''Oryx and Crake'' (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday), and that river ant could have been a character in it. In this futuristic work, mankind, through its own devious devices, finds itself on the brink of extinction. New hybrid species like the wolvog, pigoon and rakunk -- or the robotic ''children of Crake'' -- may inherit the earth.

Ms. Atwood has always been unpredictable. Her last two novels, ''Alias Grace'' in 1996 and ''The Blind Assassin,'' which won the Booker Prize in 2000, were, respectively, a historical tale about a Canadian woman convicted of murder in 1843 and a novel within a novel about two sisters and the lies and compromises in their lives. Not since ''The Handmaid's Tale'' in 1986 has Ms. Atwood focused her imagination on a dystopian future.

To some readers ''Oryx and Crake'' may seem fantastical. For its author it is real. In a recent interview in New York, she said that almost all the strange events and transformations in the book could happen, and that some had already happened through gene splicing and other forms of bioengineering. By splicing a spider gene into a goat, for example, scientists in Montreal have produced a material strong enough for bulletproof vests.

Ms. Atwood has always had a compulsive interest in the wonders -- and the blunders -- of scientific invention. But she said she had no intention of starting a novel so soon after her last one and had no plan to follow ''The Handmaid's Tale'' with another speculative work.

Then in March 2001, after finishing a book tour with ''The Blind Assassin,'' she was birding in Australia with her companion, Graeme Gibson. While staying at Cassowary House, near Cairns in Queensland, she was sitting on a balcony when she spied a rare Australian bird. ''I saw a red-necked crake,'' she said, ''and I saw the shape of a book. There was the book shining in the distance, as a goal.'' Beyond that, she could not -- or would not -- explain the inspiration, except to describe her customary manner of working.

''It's like a rummage sale,'' she said. She gathers material and thoughts from diverse sources -- in this case information about dwindling habitats and newly introduced species -- and then an event in her life sends her sailing on a new creative trajectory.

Almost immediately after seeing the crake she began making notes about a character she named Snowman, apparently the lone human survivor of an apocalypse. Soon, in a flashback, two other people made their appearance in the text: Crake, a manipulative genius, and Oryx, a waif who becomes a muse to Crake and Snowman.

Ms. Atwood continued writing during the summer of 2001 while on a journey to the Arctic and later at her Toronto home. The attack on the World Trade Center, followed by the anthrax scare, caused her to interrupt her work for several weeks. The novel seemed almost frighteningly prophetic. In it disaster is set in motion by an all-purpose pill that she calls BlyssPlus, which as a side effect causes death.

After the book was finished came the outbreak of SARS in Toronto. ''Unfortunately the coincidences are a little too startling,'' she said. ''With SARS everyone said, 'So is this it?' I said, 'No, because if it were, it would be much worse than this.' ''

As Peter Kemp said in his review in The Times of London, ''This superlatively gripping and remarkably imagined book joins 'The Handmaid's Tale' in the distinguished company of novels ('The Time Machine,' 'Brave New World' and '1984') that look ahead to warn us about the results of human shortsightedness.''

Although some reviewers have categorized the book as science fiction, Ms. Atwood considers it speculative fiction, and to clear the air she defined those two forms and also defined fantasy fiction.

Fantasy, she said, is ''largely mythic and Celtic in inspiration'' and deals with ''dragons, magic swords and chalices that glow in the sky.'' She offered ''The Lord of the Rings'' and the ''Harry Potter'' series as examples. Science fiction, she said, deals with ''technologies we don't yet have, other universes,'' as in ''Star Trek'' and ''Star Wars.''

In contrast, speculative fiction is ''this planet,'' she said. It doesn't use things we don't already have or are not already developing. 'Beam me up, Scotty' is not speculative fiction. We don't yet have the ability to disintegrate people and have them reassembled in some other place.''

Then she said about ''Oryx and Crake,'' ''Had I written it 20 years ago, I would have called it science fiction, but now it's speculative fiction, believe me.''