Book Buzz

DOUGLAS COUPLAND

I ‘m sorry another dud. What is happening to Can Lit? I usually laugh out aloud reading Coupland.

A is speculative fiction in the near future where bees have gone extinct. Today a frightening possibility. But after several years of extinction five people are stung around the world. As soon as they are stung they are seized by officials and studied by computers. After they are released they are drawn together. At this point all is well. But this is what looses me. The five characters are taken to Canada’s most remote archipelago, Haida Gwaii. There they are told to tell each other stories. So a third of the book is pithy, little allegorical tales.

Maybe you will get more from it than I. Doug write us a book for heaven’s sake!

MARGARET ATWOOD

one word: DISAPPOINTING. Much to my surprise and dismay. I love Atwood’s writing. What got me with this book is that it did not live up to it’s hype. The hype being that FLOOD starts off where Oryx and Crake left off. I kept waiting for that to happen. It does around page 350. Before that she is exploring the life of a couple of characters before the apocalypse. All very interesting. All superbly written. I am likely the only one in all of Canada who was left embittered by this novel. Be for warned. I wish I had been. I could have enjoyed it more.

MARGARET ATWOOD

Since Atwood’s newest novel starts where ORYX ends, I thought I would refreshen my mind by reading this excellent saga. Wow what a book. No punches held. Not post- apocalypse, this novel tackles the devastation from before and during as well as post. Snowman is the last human left alive after an engineered virus designed by Crake is dispatched to the populous.  Crake spared Snowman to take care of his new species: a humanoid creation made by splicing different DNA.

It is a dark look at our future. It reminds me of the song (first line ) I Can Ride My Bike with No Handlebars. Starts off as simple braging but graduates into a megalomaniac ready to destroy the world.

I can hardly wait to read The YEAR of the FLOOD.