As in her best-known work, The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood creates a world that is both horrifying and horrifyingly close to home with Oryx and Crake. "Snowman," who may be the last human on Earth, is mourning the loss of his best friend Crake and the woman they both loved, Oryx. In his grief, he embarks on a journey through the strange wilderness that overtook a huge metropolis not long ago, on the heels of a corporation's genetic experiment that spun out of control.