I realize this is a late entry, I have to admit I completely forgot about the second blog entries, but I figured it was better late than never.
I guess that my topic is what you could call a hybrid of the two types of entries that we were given to choose from. It is a comparison between Oryx and Crake and a story idea by my older sister. My sister has been writing short fiction for as long as I can remember, and I've always loved reading her work. A few years ago, when the first Hunger Games book came out she was instantly obsessed, and she decided that she wanted to tackle the world of terrifying, but realistic ideas about the future. She finally showed me her detailed outline a few months ago, and I instantly made some connections to Oryx and Crake.
The main idea of her story is that as a society we have finally wasted too many of our resources, and spent too much of our money. The environment is suffering, every inch of space is covered in industrialized cities. The economy is a wreck, everything is too expensive for anyone but the extremely wealthy, which causes a major division between the classes. Classes themselves have been reduced to either very wealthy or very poor. Eventually, inspired by the already existing underground train systems like the metro, an underground society is formed. Metro tracks are extended and become the main roads, stores, restaurants and, obviously, dwellings are constructed and the poor are forced to move underground as inhabitants of this new "world". The underground world is designed to be an imitation of the above ground world, but there are things missing, like nature for example.
All goes fairly well until a disease begins to form from mold and bacteria found below ground. My sister told me that for right now she does not have all the details planned out for this disease like how it spreads, how contagious it is, etc. What she has decided is that this forces the above ground dwellers to block off all access to the underground cities, locking them in a huge quarantine of sorts.
The story's main character is a young female, who is born several generations after the quarantine is enforced. At this point in time, nobody below ground has ever been above ground. The main character works at sleazy barely-in-business bar. She is obsessed with the above ground world, because stories of it have been passed down through relatives. The only real way for anyone to leave the underground world is to be bought by a wealthy aboveground dweller. They are essentially sold into slavery, similar to the children in Oryx's country. The people below ground are unaware of this, however.
So when the main character is bought, she doesn't understand the circumstances under which she is being let into the aboveground world. She is bought as a high end prostitute, which can also be related to Oryx in a manner of speaking. She is shocked by the realization that the world she has dreamed of for so long does not meet any of her expectations and it has just as many problems as the world she so badly wanted to escape.
Eventually this girl escapes her "owner", but she is terrified of everyone she meets. She ends up meeting a man who has been spending his life trying to get below ground to try and help some of the people down there. They create a plan to get past the high security systems and through the sealed off entrances. When they put the plan into action however, they are found out and the man is shot.
This is a pretty long blog entry in my opinion so I'll finish by saying that the main connection is the theme of a (much) less-than-perfect future. The environmental issues are also quite similar as are the division of classes (compounds, pleeblands).
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