Margaret Atwood's futuristic novel Oryx and Crake certainly doesn't shy from man's inhumanity to man, featuring as it does genetic engineering, sexual jealousy, child abduction and viral warfare amongst other unpleasantries. Although the book's ultimate concerns appear to be about the nature of creation and the need for faith in a secular society, by the time these 'heavy' themes emerge the adventure aspects of the story have well and truly hooked you in.

The plot is a little too complex to describe in a concise manner, but suffice to say there's a dual narrative going down - the fight for survival of 'the last man on earth' (aka Snowman) alongside his flashbacks to the events leading to this apocalypse. Like in many futuristic novels Atwood finds the answers to her protagonist's predicament rooted in the past. The bleak prognosis to this compelling novel appears to be that the only way forward now is to work again from a clean slate. Recommended.