Q&A with Margaret Atwood discussion

Hello, Margaret Atwood! So glad for the chance to participate here after missing you on DeviantArt.

My question concerns the illness from Oryx & Crake and Year of the Flood. [SPOILERS follow!]

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Did Zeb or any of his cohorts know what Crake was planning, and inoculate the God's Gardeners? If not, how is it that so many of them managed to survive? Was association with Snowman a factor in anyone's immunity?

Also, any good suggestions where to ride out the impending global pandemic?

Keep up the good work!
Dave

Hi Dave,

They didn't take any form of pharmaceuticals--Crake engineered the virus (which went into BlissPluss, I think it was called), made his Crakers immune, and Oryx delivered the virus worldwide in BlissPluss samples.

Anyway God's Gardeners did contract the virus--many died at the end of The Year of the Flood.

Ya, I've read them both three times :-)

Hi Ryandake,

To my recollection, many of the characters believed the disease to be profoundly contagious. If they are right, then avoiding BlyssPluss should only delay illness. The only escape routes would come in the forms of inoculation, innate immunity, or complete isolation from the infected.

Toby's survival in particular seems problematic to me. She was holed (but not sealed) up at the AnooYoo compound. Evidently, she is the only surviving resident. All this despite a field trip to retrieve her father's rifle which exposed her to probable sufferers.

Hi Dave and Ryandake. Some answers to your questions:

You asked if Zeb or any of his cohorts know what Crake was planning and inoculate the God's Gardeners?

ANSWER: No, not the group that was hiding out with Adam One.

Second part of your question: If not, how is it that so many of them managed to survive?

ANSWER: To quote Adam One: “We knew a global pandemic when we saw one.” Remember, they were waiting for something like it, so they were alert to the possibilities...and they had an Ararat all ready to hide out in. The thing was spread by contact and close proximity, and since they kept themselves to themselves as much as possible they preserved a barrier... My models for a lot of the behaviour come from the way people behaved during the Great Mortality of the 14th Century. (Waiting it out in castles, etc.) I have a small library on the subject, going as far back as Rats, Lice, and History...

But this virus is not spread by rats & fleas etc. There is in fact a new theory (The Return of the Black Death) that holds that the Great Mortality was not bubonic plague, though that may have co-existed with it, but a thing like Ebola that came down the Nile and was spread by cough droplets.

Then you asked "Was association with Snowman a factor in anyone's immunity?"

ANSWER: You mean, could his own inoculation be passed on? No. As in Real Life. Another interesting book is The Spotted Monster, about smallpox and the way inoculation came to England and New England respectively.

Then you asked "Also, any good suggestions where to ride out the impending global pandemic?"

ANSWER: Well now. I think Toby’s choice of a spa in a park would be good... But any place where you can seal yourself off from actual contact, with an adequate food supply etc. ... As this one sweeps through very quickly, you wouldn’t have to be cut off for years, just some months...

Thanks, your reply made my day! I hope that the remainder of your book tour is both fun and successful.

After reading the final book: I love how she says "the group with Adam One." Adam One (in my humble opinion) absolutely knew about and even orchestrated Crake creating the waterless flood, much the same way he orchestrated Zeb into killing their father. He was always one step ahead and able to pretend innocence. Where Crake possibly had Asberger's, Adam One knew how to manipulate people into doing what he wanted and following his agenda (Zeb, Toby, the Gardeners, etc.). Adam named the living animals Maddaddam named the "dead ones." In this case, the majority of the human race.

Hello everyone,

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