Its a world not too distant from now when a person's death, execution and losing all forms of dignity at the most vulnerable moments are captured in camera and is made available online. We are living in a time when a child is dressed like an adult is paraded in front of people for tiaras and blue ribbons. We justify perverse voyeuristic moments by exploiting intimacy, privacy and vulnerability in the name of entertainment and with time, their numbers are only growing. Atwood begins her story in a time such as these where one can watch execution online, in loop. 
 The pandemic is entirely man made via a wonder drug that's sole intention was to wipe out humanity. The young genius who created this drug also created "Crakers", herbivorous humans who have sex during mating season. Of all the things Crakers could be, Atwood chose two primal needs of humanity - food and sex, and rewrote their behavior. 
 Why would someone want the human race to be gone? The reasons are never mentioned out loud but are heavily implied throughout the narration. It is a world that's covered in excess consumption - food, sex, entertainment etc. To produce excess a compromised has to be made. More cows needed for more beef. More lands needed for grazing of more cows. Larger structures built to breed more cows. Its a vicious cycle of expectation and delivery that only grows larger with time before the cycle bursts. To overcome this problem technology has advanced to modify animal genome to produce what is necessary efficiently in a lab instead of natural habitat. (Chicken are made in labs without brain with multiple breasts for direct use.) Atwood refrains from making any moralistic observation about right and wrong. Is it right to grow animals in lab? Isn't it wrong to breed animals in tiny barn or coop without giving them proper food, water and light? Which one of the two is ethically wrong? 
 Jimmy or Abominable snowman is the only survivor of the pandemic till the very end of this book. He is a friend of Oryx and Crake. He becomes a teacher to the Crakers and tells them story of the time before. The stories are often ironic edging on being cynical but fascinating nonetheless. 
 The story stays unfinished with this first installment but tells us enough about the world that it's set in.