The MaddAddam Trilogy: The Story So Far

1. Oryx and Crake

As the story begins, Snowman is living in a tree by the seashore. He believes he is the last true human being left alive after a lethal pan­demic has swept the planet. Nearby live the Children of Crake, a gentle humanoid species bioengineered by the brilliant Crake, Snow-man’s one-time best friend and rival for his beloved, the beautiful and enigmatic Oryx.

The Crakers are free from sexual jealousy, greed, clothing, and the need for insect repellent and animal protein – all the factors Crake believed had caused not only the misery of the human race but also the degradation of the planet. The Crakers mate seasonally, when parts of them turn blue. Crake tried to rid them of symbolic thinking and music, but they have an eerie singing style all their own and have developed a religion, with Crake as their creator, Oryx as mistress of the animals, and Snowman as their reluctant prophet. It is he who has led them out of the high-tech Paradice dome where they were made to their present home beside the ocean.

 In his pre-plague life, Snowman was Jimmy. His world was divided into the Compounds – fortified Corporations containing the techno­crat elite that controlled society through their collective security arm, the CorpSeCorps – and the pleeblands outside Compound walls, where the rest of society lived, shopped, and scammed, in their slums, their suburbs, and their malls.

Jimmy’s early childhood was spent at OrganInc Farms, where his father was working on the pigoons – transgenic pigs with human material designed for transplants, including kidneys and brain tissue. Later, his father was transferred to HelthWyzer, a health-and-wellness Corp. It was at the HelthWyzer high school that adolescent Jimmy first met Crake, then known as Glenn. They bonded over internet porn and complex online games. Among these was Extinctathon, run by the cryptic identity MaddAddam: Adam named the living animals, Madd-Addam names the dead ones. They learned to access Madd Addam via a chatroom accessible only to trusted Grandmasters of the game.

Crake and Jimmy lost touch when Crake was accepted at the well-funded Watson-Crick Institute, while word-guy Jimmy had to make do with the run-down Martha Graham liberal arts academy. Oddly, both Crake’s mother and stepfather died of a mysterious illness that caused them to dissolve. Then a bioterrorist group with the code-name MaddAddam began using genetically engineered animals and microbes to attack the CorpSeCorps and the ruling infrastructure.

When Jimmy and Crake reconnected years later, Crake was in charge of the Paradice dome, where he was gene-splicing the Crakers. At the same time, he was developing the BlyssPluss pill, which prom­ised sexual ecstasy, birth control, and prolonged youth. Jimmy was surprised to discover that the names of the scientists at Paradice were identical to the user names in the Extinctathon game. In fact, they were the MaddAddamite bioterrorists, traced by Crake via the chat-room, then promised immunity in exchange for their input at Para-dice. But the BlyssPluss pill contained a hidden ingredient, and its launch coincided with the onset of the pandemic that erased human­ity. In the chaos that resulted, Oryx and Crake both perished, leaving Jimmy alone with the Crakers.

Now, haunted by his memories of dead Oryx and of treacherous Crake, and despairing of his own prospects for survival, an ailing and guilt-ridden Snowman hikes to the Paradice dome in search of the weapons and supplies he knows are there. En route, he’s stalked by escaped gen-mod animals, among them the vicious wolvogs and the giant pigoons, made crafty by their human brain tissue. 

Oryx and Crake ends with Snowman’s discovery of three others who have survived the plague. Should he join them, abandoning the Crakers? Or, knowing the destructive tendencies of his own species, should he kill them? Oryx and Crake ends while Snowman is deciding.