科幻國協毒瘤在臺病灶: 《末世男女》（Oryx and Crake，2003）by Margaret Atwood

這本書問世五年來已經有太多關於內容的討論分析，我也沒什麼特別可以拿出來講的內容，就只針對為什麼科幻行內與主流文學圈對它的評價如此兩極來發表自己的兩個銅貨。

整本書看下來，最引人注目的部分是近未來（要說現代也可以）由（生技）企業所控制的社會逐漸衰敗，然後在某人為事件中突然崩毀的過程。人想當神然後歸組害了了的模式已經老到不能再老，因此 Atwood 試圖以反映現下「趨勢」的未來世界「預測」來說服讀者。於是行內外的分歧點就在這裡出現了：一般讀者看到這些描述往往大感驚奇，而懾服於作者「豐沛」的想像力及所夾帶的強烈批判色彩。然而這種想像與批判在科幻作品中，特別是反烏托邦的主題裡，已經是五十年前甚至更古老的形式。Atwood 愈是寫得駭人聽聞，愈表現出她就是刻意要將自己意識型態篩選批判後的內容灌輸給讀者，根本不留其他發展空間的可能。這在 1960s 以後中上等級的科幻作品已經很難見到，畢竟行內比較習慣讓讀者自己去想。當然我不是要反駁 Atwood 所敘述的種種問題（包括網路性泛濫 X-D〔我就是不爽她批鬥 Naked News，當初我就是靠該電視臺草創期還可以免＄＄看全部內容的時候奠定英聽基礎，除了脫衣以外，該臺可專業得很〕、優勢社群對弱勢的剝削等）不真切反映現實，但她的世界是她寫了就算，完全不留自行發展的空間。

就連書中主角們的性格也要為大前提服務。Crake 是標準的無道德感（瘋狂？）科學家、鮮少出現的 Oryx 則是「神女←→女神」形象的來回投射，Jimmy/Snowman 則設定成無能嘴泡男，全程參與但也全程旁觀。比較有意思的反而是那群「精心設計」過的 children of Crake，只是想到 The Eloi 乃至於 Bikura，Atwood 的創意也就算不上創意了。

唯一的優點大概就是她的文筆和鋪陳比普通科幻還強一點。但從新浪潮之後，科幻敘事的複雜、優美程度絕對不輸主流，更不用說本世紀所興起的 New Weird 還更具實驗性質。這一點坦白說 Atwood 也討不到什麼便宜。

所以，當 Atwood 跳出來說她不是在寫科幻的時候，我心裡其實是很贊同她的。當然理由不一樣，因為我認為儘管她大概也不認同 technothriller，但她寫出來的東西以及所產生的效果，和 technothriller 居然相去無幾，科幻作品可沒這麼淺啊！只是她還敢自稱寫 speculative fiction，天哪，就別侮辱當年提出這個名詞的 Robert A. Heinlein 和將它重新定義後發揚光大的 Judith Merril 啦！

閱讀版本：
瑪格麗特‧愛特伍（Margaret Atwood），《末世男女》（Oryx and Crake），韋清琦、袁霞　譯（臺北市：天培，2004）

作者寫作過程自述：
http://www.oryxandcrake.co.uk/perfectstorm.asp〔戰文段落摘錄如下，我當年看到這一段從此開始杜爛 Atwood〕

Like The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper. It contains no intergalactic space travel, no teleportation, no Martians. As with The Handmaid's Tale, it invents nothing we haven't already invented or started to invent. Every novel begins with a what if, and then sets forth its axioms. The what if of Oryx and Crake is simply, What if we continue down the road we're already on? How slippery is the slope? What are our saving graces? Who's got the will to stop us?

讀書會問題討論：
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides3/oryx_and_crake1.asp

學習指南總整理：
http://www.luminarium.org/contemporary/atwood/oryx.htm

網上評論
專業媒體書評：
http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue325/excess.html by John Clute〔Clute 老大的重砲回擊當然必讀！以下恭錄戰文段落，請特別注意 SF 和 sci-fi 在此處的使用〕

Balked by some seemingly unaddressable refusal to do her homework in the ways the 21st century is actually being made storyable by writers who have gone to school, Atwood is of course not writing contemporary SF about the near future, which is one of the most difficult and learned creative enterprises—hard-to-master regions of the imagination—a writer can envisage, now that the human race has become isomorphous with the data that iterate the real; what Atwood is in fact writing is sci-fi about the near future as envisioned by Hollywood. Her sisters and brothers of the cloth are not Sterling or Stephenson but the beleaguered souls who novelize Star Trek or Star Wars in obedience to bibles that constrain them to a view of the world as deeply retro as the world we encounter in Oryx and Crake, as Christopher Walken's son encounters in Blast from the Past.

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=M1ARTM0012467 by Brian Bethune
http://contemporarylit.about.com/od/sciencefictionreviews/fr/oryxAndCrake.htm by Evan Dashevsky
http://www.dragonsworn.com/reviews/books/oryxandcrake.html by dragonsworn staff
http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/oryx_and_crake/review/ by W. R. Greer
http://www.ortholog.com/archive/read/oryx_and_crake.php by Zac Hanley〔戰得好！〕
http://www.geocities.com/fantasticreviews/oryx_and_crake.htm by Aaron Hughes〔逆襲！〕
http://www.popmatters.com/books/reviews/o/oryx-and-crake.shtml by Bruce F. MacDonald
http://www.spikemagazine.com/1103margaretatwood.php by Jayne Margetts
http://dir.salon.com/story/books/review/2003/05/27/atwood/index.html by Laura Miller
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,448927,00.html by Oliver Morton
http://januarymagazine.com/fiction/oryxandcrake.html by Linda L. Richards
http://www.sfwriter.com/broryx2.htm by Robert J. Sawyer〔加拿大頭牌科幻作家也來戰同胞！ X-D 一樣恭錄戰文：〕

But after finishing Oryx and Crake, I better understand Margaret Atwood's reluctance to let her work be considered as science fiction. And that's simply that it comes off poorly in comparison to the truly great works in the genre.

http://www.eclectica.org/v7n3/skea_atwood.html by Ann Skea