I finally got around to reading The Year of the Flood, the second book in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAdam trilogy. And I liked it. I remember not loving the first book, Oryx and Crake. Sometimes whether or not you love a book depends on where you are and what you are doing when you read it. Often, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I read a book I loved. And I don’t remember where I was when I read Oryx and Crake, which is a telling sign. However, I remember exactly when I read The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl – 2009. And I remember thinking that Margaret Atwood lifted themes directly out of that book, only didn’t use them quite as well, so I guess I read Oryx and Crake after that. And I remember being annoyed that Atwood would not admit that the book was a work of science fiction, and that serious people were reading and positively reviewing the book who thought they were too serious for science fiction. Well, I have news – it was science fiction all along, and not only that, it’s cyberpunk. Well, I’ve decided to forgive all this. I can give her the benefit of the doubt, or else I can decide that she was paying homage to an earlier science fiction master and give her credit for that. As I’ve gotten more into science fiction, I’ve seen that done several times, obviously on purpose, and it seems to be acceptable where it might not be acceptable in another genre. So, I’ve decided since then that both books are pretty good after all, and I plan to read the third book.

In The Year of the Flood, there are themes that seem like they are taken right out of The Hunger Games. I found this interview online where Atwood says she has never heard of The Hunger Games, and forgives the author of The Hunger Games for taking her idea.

Have you had a chance to read or see The Hunger Games? The games are designed for the districts to pay back the Capitol for a past rebellion, via the lives of their children, like the heroine Katniss Everdeen. It seems to be inspired in part by elements of The Handmaid’s Tale, Oryx and Crake, and Year of the Flood, especially in terms of the structure of postapocalyptic society, how the disenfranchised are “chosen” for an honor that is anything but …
In kind of a game show? So, basically it’s Painball from Year of the Flood in which people are pitted against other people so other people can watch it on TV? And the origin of that of course is paintball, which is a real thing! It’s always nice to have people see the beauty of one’s ideas. I’m flattered. [Chuckles.] It sounds interesting. Some of these things go way back, mythologically. How did she end up in this position?

Because there’s a lottery, and her sister was chosen, and so she volunteers to take her place.
Shirley Jackson! How old are they?

Between the ages of 11 and 18.
Theseus and the Minotaur! Love it. And so they put these people in a very large area? It’s Painball. Same idea. If you survive, will they let you out?

I don’t want to spoil it too much for you.
That’s okay — I can guess. I haven’t written my third one yet, so whatever’s in it can’t be used in The Hunger Games.

The original Hunger Games novel was released in 2008, and The Year of the Flood in 2009. So it’s plausible that it was a coincidence and I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt again. Anyway, maybe she’s right and there are only a certain number of themes and plots out there, and good fiction is all about how you apply them to your characters and your time.

The MaddAdam books present a near-future dystopian society in a very entertaining way, and I was entertained by that. I don’t think I would be giving away too much if I told you there is a collapse of industrialized, urbanized civilization in this story. You find that out in the first few pages of the first book. Then the rest of the story is really about who, how, and why that happened. The first book focuses more on consumer society and dangerous technology in the hands of amoral – in fact immoral – private corporations, while the second mixes that with a bit of climate change, habitat and species loss.

You find out pretty early what actually caused the collapse, but the more interesting part to me, which Margaret hints at but ultimately leaves to our imaginations, is how the society got to the point it was at before the crash. Any sort of representative government seems to be completely absent, but you don’t get the sense that the corporations muscled it aside through any sort of armed means. Maybe they simply starved it of resources to the point where it gave up. The entire society is designed to accumulate wealth and power at the top, but it is a bit of a puzzle how that works. The corporations themselves create new value through their research into the new technologies, but then they have to make the whole society want to buy those things from them. They have to let just enough wealth trickle down to enough people so they can spend the wealth and let it be gathered back up. So there must be a very, very large number of relatively poor people working hard to support the elite few, without realizing they are doing that. I say relatively poor because they can’t be so poor they decide to drop out of the consumer system entirely (as a few people do, which is the focus of the second book.) They can’t realize how poor they are, and they have to have a little bit of income that they can spend on all the things the corporations provide, which is everything – food, shelter, clothing, drugs, even access to reproduction. They have to believe in money, and want to accumulate money, but they have to want the products and services of the corporations so much that they never actually accumulate much money but spend it all. Of course, the corporations are exploiting not just all these people but the natural environment, so at some point that is either going to catch up to them, unless there is an accident or deliberate act to help the process along first…