Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood is the next Brave New World. Atwood does a damn fine dystopia! The moment I finished the book my first instinct was to read it again (unfortunately I couldn't, since I have six more books in my library pile). What's particularly interesting is the narrator is male, and as I was reading I kept getting the impression that the author was male. Perhaps this means that Atwood does an effective male narrator, but I'm not really qualified to decide that. At any rate, she must be a very talented author to be able to produce both a convincing male narrator and a work like Cat's Eye. (Essay topic: both Oryx and Crake and Cat's Eye are dystopias).

The only negative is that the book contains passing references to, and descriptions of, child pornography. It's done in a sufficiently vague, detached, technical way, but it does make the book less palatable (although I do realize dystopias aren't exactly supposed to be palatable), and it isn't strictly necessary to the story. It establishes character, but I don't think that aspect of the characters is necessary for the plot to work. Nonetheless, it isn't enough to make me say the novel is not worth reading. If you do read it, read it vertically with the cover facing outwards, so people will see Booker Prize-nominated Canlit rather than reading over your shoulder and stumbling upon mentions of child pornography.