<P> Oryx and Crake is a novel by the Canadian author Margaret Atwood . She has described the novel as speculative fiction and "adventure romance" rather than science fiction because it does not deal with things "we can't yet do or begin to do" and goes beyond the realism she associates with the novel form . Oryx and Crake was first published by McClelland and Stewart in 2003 . It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction that same year, and for the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction . </P> <P> A television adaptation of Oryx and Crake and its follow - up novels The Year of the Flood (2009) and MaddAddam (2013) was being helmed by Darren Aronofsky under the working title MaddAddam, but was dropped by HBO as of October 2016 . Currently, an adaptation of the MadAddam trilogy is in development at Paramount Television and Anonymous Content . </P> <P> The novel focuses on a post-apocalyptic character with the name of Snowman, living near a group of primitive human - like creatures whom he calls Crakers . Flashbacks reveal that Snowman was once a boy named Jimmy who grew up in a world dominated by multinational corporations and privileged compounds for the families of their employees . Near starvation, Snowman decides to return to the ruins of a compound named RejoovenEsence to search for supplies even though it is overrun by dangerous genetically engineered hybrid animals . He concocts an explanation for the Crakers, who regard him as a teacher, and begins his foraging expedition . </P> <P> In Snowman's recollection of past events, Jimmy's family moves to the HelthWyzer compound, where his father works as a genographer . Jimmy meets and befriends a brilliant science student named Glenn . Jimmy begins to refer to him as Crake when he uses that name in an online trivia game called Extinctathon . Jimmy and Crake spend much of their leisure time playing online games, smoking "skunkweed" and watching underground videos such as live executions, graphic surgery, Noodie News, frog squashing and child pornography . During one of their child pornography viewings, Jimmy is very much lovestruck by the gazing eyes of a young Asian girl seen in the porn . </P>

Who are the crakers in oryx and crake