#books #fiction #speculative #dystopia

Warning: Contains some spoilers

“It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”, is an observation attributed to Marxist critic Frederic Jameson and popularised by Mark Fisher. And indeed, our culture is rife with stories that tell of the end of the world, often as a result of capitalism, yet rarely do we see stories about capitalism’s transcendence. Post-apocalyptic stories walk a fine line between serving as a warning, and expressing our fears that the trolley can no longer be switched to a track where it will not kill all of us. Margaret Atwood’s Oryx & Crake sits within the latter category, being less a warning and more a bleakly cynical tale of human powerlessness.