Oryx and Crake

Do writers get ideas from real life or is reality inspired by the writers?


Have you read the book Oryx and Crake? What did you think of it? My friends are in love with it and I just finished reading it myself. Don't kill me now, but I don't absolutely adore that book. You know how there are some books you just can't put down ~ you eat words, you pee words, you sleep words, heck! you even breathe words! Nope! this wasn't that book for me. 
In fact, I could survive a day without reading it. Sure, it was everything a good book is supposed to be, but I guess, my level of understanding some concepts is not as strong as my friends (walking, talking libraries, they are!)


Anyway, the book introduces us to a murdered world. The homo sapiens are extinct, only one of their kind remaining. Snowman, he calls himself. Though he doesn't want anything to do with the "Children of Crake  (a designed human look-a-like species ~ definitions of perfection), Snowman considers himself responsible for making sure they survive. As we read on, we are introduced to several designed species like pigoons, wolvogs, etc. Researchers and scientists are restricted to live in a 'compound' where the top secret experiments...scratch that...top secret disasters are created with pride. Basically, Margret Atwood says that one man (with a hope of creating a perfect world) manages to kill the world with a pill, with one exception (Snowman). He is the chosen one. The one to help the 'Children of Crake.' 


'Compounds', a place so isolated from the rest of the world that people in them have no idea of whats going on in the 'real world'. Similar concept is used in other books like "The Giver" and "The Hunger Games." 


Now, I wonder if these writers saw something in their life that such an idea got into their heads. Or, did some creepy, lunatic scientist like this idea of an isolated world and decide to create one. 
Did Atwood write about this because she knows what the government is upto or did the government decide they should do something like this after reading 'The Giver'?


Yesterday, I talked to my sister about this and she replied, "I don't even know man! With all these movies I watch and the books I read, I'm starting to think they might just have chips installed in every baby to keep track of their citizens!"


This is a CRAZZZYYYY idea, I know. You have no idea how happy I am to believe that stories are just ink on pages and characters in your head. These won't kill me. (I like my life, too much!)