Today, I actually remembered to talk about The Handmaid's Tale, so this entry may be a bit more coherent.
At chapter 15, the book remains about as dark as the cave system under Florida. I've lost track of the amounts of suicide references that have been made. It would seem that, in Atwood's world, the patriarchal society that the Tudor and Victorian kingdoms stuck to so rigidly has been revived.
The evidence to support this is there; Gilead (the superpower that has replaced Uncle Sam) is a place run by a religious section of Christianity. This has caused a massive falling-out between Gilead and the other Christian sects, to the point of full scale warfare. Gilead (at chapter 15, at least) is at war with the Baptists (this could be symbolic, I suppose, of things that are supposed to do good going belly-up, love thy neighbour and all that), and I get the impression of warfare in parts of Canada.
It's worth pointing out at this stage that Atwood is from Canada, which is a nice place, and a war that concerns Canada is about as likely as instant worldwide stock market recovery, but that's another story.

In other news, Oryx and Crake.
This is another Atwood book, and, you guessed it, it's as dark as the ace of spades. It's set in the future, where genetic modification has gotten loose, but the protagonist keeps flashing back to how things were before the horrifying creatures with enough teeth to wreck the afternoons of no fewer than many people started escaping. If you play as many video games as I do, this book is like the offspring of Bioshock and Fallout 3.
The book touches on many major issues, and how they effect people. It ranges to child abduction and exploitation to totalitarian pharmaceutical rule to Asperger's Syndrome. The latter of those points bears specific importance as far as I'm concerned, I'm slap-bang at the Asperger's end of the Autistic Spectrum (there is a lot of stuff going around about AS that is either untrue or extremely stereotypical. Please, take it from me, we're nice people (we sometimes just like our own space), there's a Facebook page called Aspergers Syndrome awareness, seriously, give it a look). This is why my writing style is, I quote "weird".
Enough of my brain and back to Oryx and Crake. The main character is a very, very sad fellow indeed, a-

Maybe it's best to talk about something happier.
If you're into Mountain biking, Morewood have announced a new downhill build fr 2014, which shouldn't be shown before 9:00 pm, and the Santa Cruz V10 Carbon remains as beautiful as ever.

The song for today is: Dissolve - Kai Wachi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRGasCS5MHo (If you're worried about me posting lots of electronic music, I'll try and be varied)

And the thought for the day is: "We are all human"
                                                  - Prophet (Crysis 3)