Space Station Mir

34. MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood Stories are what makes us human. But which stories? The stories that we tell to ourselves, the stories that we tell to our confidants, or the stories that we tell to our children? The final book in Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy suggests that it is the last that is most important, and which will have the most lasting and unpredictable effects. It reminds me of Atwood's comment at the National Book Festival about new technologies having "a good use, a bad use, and a use that no one expects." In a trilogy that has opened against an immense background of advanced science and technology, which has both theoretically ruined and potentially saved the world, here is a return to the true building blocks of civilization-and surprise! the most dangerous, powerful, and potent tool of all is the Word, written and spoken. Toby, the primary point-of-view character, teaches a Craker child how to write, and then thinks, "How soon bef...

Did you know Margaret Atwood had a Twitter ? I didn't. From one side of a standing room only tent at the National Book Festival, I learned a lot more about Margaret Atwood than I knew before. Her father was an entymologist, The Complete Works of Shakespeare would be her reading of choice on the proverbial deserted island, and she won't divulge her favorite authors or her favorite among her own books. Atwood did divulge, however, her opinions on genetic manipulation, genre, and the cover of the just-released end to her dystopian trilogy, MadAddam . As Atwood put it, genetic manipulation and other future technological/biotechnological tools have a "good use, a bad use, and a use that no one expected." She spoke in praise of the recent attempt at a lab-grown burger and in support of continuing such projects. Growing up with an entymologist father and her own inclinations seem to have made her quite scientific in thought and opinion. When asked if she had grown up wi...