With Women's History month upon us, it is a great time to reflect on some great feminist literature. The name that tops them all is the famed Canadian poet and novelist, Margaret Atwood. This out-spoken woman, who makes no apology for being what she is, (female writers take note) has won the Booker Prize twice, the Giller Prize in Canada, and in Italy the Premio Mondelo. She has written thirty books, with "The Handmaiden's Tale" being perhaps the best-known work. In "The Handmaiden's Tale," a work that is often misinterpreted as being anti-women,  she told of the future that was in store if women didn't practice solidarity and allowed a total theocracy. In her eleventh novel, "Oryx and Crake," she tells of a future if everything is controlled by science.

            The story is told in a "Pulp Fiction" style, starting right in the middle. It is a tale of genetically engineered humans, made to order children and the schiasm between the rich elite living in well-ordered science company compounds and the odinary Joes living in the "Pleeblands." Artists only serve the function of marketing and great literature is forgotten.

In an age of cloning, cell mapping, and inutero surgery, does a future ruled by science seem that far off? Readers drawn into the future portrayed in "Oryx and Crake" may find themselves pondering some present-day issues. Do we entrust our future without thinking to those we deem more intelligent? And in that vein, is a person less intelligent because they can dissect Shakespeare instead of a rabbit? Because we love and hate does that mean our genetic make-up needs to be changed?

Not to say all those who wear white coats are bad, or misled through good intention, or even that we shouldn't try to make the world a better place, but rather, we should meet the future with our eyes open instead of being "sheeple." After all how far really is too far?

If feminist science fiction like "Oryx and Crake" or "The Handmaiden's Tale" doesn't tickle your fancy or make you question the action of authority, you can always try Atwood's other works, she isn't limited by genre like some authors.  

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