Reddit reviews The Year of the Flood (The MaddAddam Trilogy)
We found 8 Reddit comments about The Year of the Flood (The MaddAddam Trilogy). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Anchor Books
I have yet to finish anything, but two well-known "epilogue" endings come to my mind that had entirely different effects on me: The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.
Reading the "end story" for Arwen and Aragorn was... devastating. I don't think I've read anything else that was so depressing, even in crapsack worlds like The Road.
Harry Potter, on the other hand, seemed like an appropriate send-off to that type of series. Yes, it was very neat and tidy and fluffy and cliched, but it accomplished several aims:
In another vein, I dove into The Year of the Flood expecting either an epilogue or prequel to Oryx and Crake and was extremely disappointed because it wasn't nearly as awesome. Still Atwood so well-written, but not the same brand of magic. From that, I'd take away that if you write an epilogue/alternate companion, make it clear which one it is.
Nobody's mentioned Oryx and Crake yet? Seriously? It also has a sequel (more like a companion) novel, Year of the Flood and the same author wrote The Handmaid's Tale. All are beautifully crafted novels and count as "High Literature" rather than quick reads. Very readable though.
Into the Forest also has the dystopia without the YA bent, but I have some problems with that book.
Okay - then to start, I will recommend Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood, both by Margaret Atwood. They're part of a trilogy, the third book is due out this fall. Atwood defines them as speculative fiction; they're set in the not-to-distant future, and follow the downfall of civilization. I like Year of the Flood better, but both are pretty awesome.
For fantasy, I really like The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay. It's a blend of celtic mythology, fantasy, and arthurian legend. Some people don't like that it's basically an homage to LOTR, but it's one of my absolutely alll-time favourites.
For YA dystopian fiction, I'd suggest Divergent and Insurgent - also a trilogy, not sure when the third one is due out, off-hand.
One of my favourite sci-fi series is Phule's Company and the following books, by Robert Asprin. I also love Time Scout by him and Linda Evans. His writing is ridiculously clever and witty, and he's one of last century's greatest writers, in my opinion.
And finally, I love anything by Terry Pratchett - his Discworld series is amazing. So very very British and hilarious.
I'm reposting something I posted a couple of years ago:
Well, perhaps the most famous recent post-apocalyptic novel was McCarthy's The Road. Quite a bleak book, and very characteristic of McCarthy's spartan prose, this became a huge international best seller and a successful Hollywood movie. I certainly recommend it, but it's not really an uplifting book and has several confronting scenes. Still, very good.
The other obvious recent "literary" PA novels would be Margaret Atwood's "Oryx and Crake" trilogy. They start with Oryx and Crake, are followed by Year of the Flood and conclude with MaddAddam. These are very good books with strong feminist and ecological themes (a good thing!). Highly recommended.
The Dog Stars is yet another recent PA novel which garnered a fair bit of praise (I picked it up after hearing a segment on the novel on NPR's Fresh Air). I enjoyed it, despite the cliched "Survivalist" aspects and occasional far-fetched coincidences. A good, fun read; especially if you're a dog lover. :)
Other recommended titles (which I won't link to directly for time reasons) include Justin Cronin's The Passage trilogy (kind of a mash up between post apocalypse and horror), Stephen King's The Stand (ditto), A Canticle for Leibowitz, Earth Abides and Alas Babylon (the triptych of classics of the genre).
Good luck. I love these books even though I'm a positive optimistic guy! :)
EDIT: I overlooked Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven (fun, action packed but accused by some of racist undertones), The Postman by David Brin (so so so very much better than the movie it spawned. So much better), The Year of the Plague by someone I forgot (rather original PA novel with nano-technology rearing its head) and even Blood Music by Greg Bear (though most people consider this full on science fiction, it does feature an apocalypse... or a sort. :)
 
 
 
Since then, I've thought of (or read) a few more. Perhaps one of the most famous is Station Eleven. It garnered a fair bit of media attention and mainstream critical acclaim a couple of years ago. It's a bit of a slow burner, and whilst it's not my favourite post-apocalyptic novel, it's certainly worth picking up. The Girl with All the Gifts was a recent hit. Set in the UK, it tells the story of a band of British scientists and soldiers searching for remaining survivors, as they bring along a very strange and very dangerous survivor of the recent plague. It's great fun and was made into a movie recently. I believe the author recently published a sequel (The Boy on the Bridge?), but I haven't read this.
Wastelands is a collection of short-stories. Some really good stuff here, and if you're not feeling up to a full length novel or comptemplating the end of humanity, it's well worth a look.
Let me know if you want more. It's a favourite genre of mine. :)
I personally love this book. There's also a sequel: Amazon.
Apparently, she's writing them as a trilogy...but this is hearsay.
And now I see how the CorpsSeCorp could get started. So I assume we're about 30 years away from the Waterless Flood.
Margaret Atwood has two companion books, both of a dystopian nature. I prefer Oryx and Crake, but The Year of the Flood is a nice afterword. The Handmaid's Tale is her most popular work. She calls it speculative fiction instead of science fiction.
She's one of my favorites, obviously.
Margaret Atwood already did it in two of her books.
But I'd also love to see different renditions of the same kind of scenario.