M Atwood 'Oryx & Crake'

Compound or no Compound, you're still dead.

TS: sci-fi vs. non-fi. These past few years I've been finding both genres waay more interesting (and full of original ideas) than regular-fi.

1. Never open a book with weather. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking
for people.

2. Avoid prologues. They can be annoying.

3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line of
dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his/her
nose in.

4. Never use an adverb to modify "said." It can interrupt the rhythm of the
exchange.

5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than
two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."

7. Use regional dialect or patois sparingly. Once you start spelling words
in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won't be
able to stop.

8. Avoid detailed description of characters.

9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things, unless you're
Margaret Atwood.

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

11. If it sounds like writing, rewrite it. If proper usage gets in the way,
it may have to go.

I bet she does really nice descriptions ofthe countryside the infected are rampaging through though.

4. Never use an adverb to modify "said." It can interrupt the rhythm of the
exchange.

One of my journalism teachers told me the same thing. I agree with it, actually.

you fit into me
like a hook and eye

a fish hook
an open eye

it also applies to Odantjee(sp)

These are the worst rules of writing that I've ever read in my life and I disagree with almost all of them. Except 5 and 6, everything else is utter rubbish.

Anyway, I just finished this book yesterday. I know that I'm two years out of date, but I would still like to talk about it. I guess I prefer to evaluate things for themselves after all the hype has gone away.

Generally, I like Atwood better as a fiction writer than a Sci-Fi writer. I think the Handmaid's Tale is fairly overrated. However, Oryx and Crake struck me as a better sci fi story.

Hours before starting this book, I started and finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, which I enjoyed, but not as much as I thought I should.

Situations will be explained, sometimes overexplained, but you are really left to draw your own conclusions about the actions that the protagonists take.

Blind Assassin is sitting in my "to read" pile.

I couldn't say which was my favourite. Surfacing was strange but amazing. I also couldn't put down The Robber Bride.

robert musil! you hack!

The character of Zenia marred TRB slightly for me. I don't think Atwood finally decided whether she was a "real" character (ie with the same ontological status as the other women) or a personification of the other characters' deepest anxieties; consequently she wasn't quite successful as either.

Alias Grace I didn't get at all. The story didn't interest me and Grace's proto feminism seemed anachronistic and forced: not because she thought women were as good as men, or that men conspired to deny it, or that some social values were thinly disguised misogyny, but because she thought these things using concepts and language that seemed jarringly inappropriate to her historical period, her education and her character.

I quite love this book. find it hard to put it down, which rarely happens with a novel these days. How are the other two 'sequels'?

there are sequels?!

i love this book

i am 1/3 of the way through this at the moment and can't really seem to get over the hump where i have to make myself pick it up--but i'll keep plugging away.

JG Ballard - "Even the worst sci-fi is better than the best regular fi"

lol what is the source of this quote? cuz I think I kind of agree

it's straight-up googleable, Shakey:

http://www.jgballard.ca/non_fiction/jgb_fictions.html

yes there are two other books, Year of the Flood and Maddadam. They take place in the same world, don't think they revisit specific characters.

YotF introduces a lot of new characters but expands on the main O&C story I think, and then Maddadam follows most of those YotF characters.

Darren Aronofsky to film an adaptation of Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam for HBO.

so excited

That could actually be really really great. I loved the first two, never made it through Maddadam. Is it worth sticking with it?

somehow I doubt this will make it to screen

I liked the first two books but Maddadam is kind of dragging now... There's nothing for these characters to do any more but sit around and reflect on the past and bicker among one another... There's an unconvincing romantic plot being forced on me too which I'm a bit concerned about. Hopefully it'll pick up by the end.

Where does the "oon" part of the pigoon come from? Baboon?

raccoon i thought?

Really? I guess they didn't want to let the other half go to waste after creating the rakunks.

man i want to see real pigoons

xpost, it's just my assumption. i don't think it's ever explained.

Mystery solved!

Pig + balloons = balloons.

From Year of the Flood.

Pig + balloons = balloons pigoons.

Well I'll be.

Finished MaddAddam earlier this week, loved it. Funny thing is how romanticized it and Year of the Flood make the GGs, like I'm now having daydreams about living off the grid as an expert mycologist or something.

http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2qprzk/i_am_margaret_atwood_author_of_the_handmaids_tale/