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‘Halfway through Margaret Atwood's 11th novel, there is a joke ... "Female artists are biologically confused," concludes Crake. Atwood herself, from a family of scientists, is far from confused when it comes to biology. The bioengineered apocalypse she imagines is impeccably researched and sickeningly possible: a direct consequence of short-term science outstripping long-term responsibility. Atwood herself is one of our finest linguistic engineers. Her carefully calibrated sentences are formulated to hook and paralyse the reader as the distant writer, working far off at her Canadian keyboard, runs practised fingertips over the skin of our culture. You can feel her seeking out the sore places. "Does it hurt if I do this?" she asks, as she probes our unrequited love of science, our environmental guilt and our dysfunctional relationships. Sometimes her touch is reassuring; more often she uses her fingernails to scratch away scar tissue and let the painful reality seep or gush out. Jimmy and Crake grip like characters out of Greek tragedy, pre-programmed for horror. If Atwood's argument is that the creator can never retain full control of the creation, then this brilliantly constructed novel almost disproves her point.’ Helen Brown, Daily Telegraph — in full ‘Superlatively gripping, remarkably imagined’ Sunday Times
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