IO9 has an article up about Margaret Atwood's new book. They quote from the Amazon Product Description:
The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners-a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life-has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.
Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers...
Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away...
Besides assuming they mean "social contract," isn't this the plot of Oryx and Crake? Either way, I'm not particularly excited about this book. Atwood never has anything nice to say about science fiction and yet everyone thinks her books are SF, so you end up with this whole ugly scene. Moreover, Oryx and Crake made a lot of embarrassing moves and seemed to enforce a lot of negative stereotypes about speculative fiction writing that aren't true about most participants in the genre. Sadly these writers don't get as much attention.