The Year of the Flood

The Year of the Flood is a novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, the second book of her dystopian trilogy, released on September 22, 2009, in Canada and the United States, and on September 7, 2009, in the United Kingdom. The novel was mentioned in numerous newspaper review articles looking forward to notable fiction of 2009. The book focuses on a religious sect called God's Gardeners, a small community of survivors of the same biological catastrophe depicted in Atwood's earlier novel Oryx and Crake. The earlier novel contained several brief references to the group. The novel is told through the perspective of protagonists Ren and Toby, with the main characters of Oryx and Crake, including Jimmy and Crake having minor roles. Atwood continues to explore the effect of science and technology that has caused this plagued world, focusing on the theme of religion through the environmentally focused religious movement of God's Gardeners. It answers some of the questions of Oryx and Crake, develops and further elaborates upon several of the characters in the first book, and reveals the identity of the three human figures who appear at the end of the earlier book. This is the second of Atwood's trilogy, with the final book being MaddAddam. Although, Atwood sees them as 'simultaneous' with the three novels all taking place at the same time and not in sequence.