Oryx, Crake (aka Glenn) and Jimmy appear in cameo roles over the course of the book with the protagonists Ren and Toby unaware that these characters are responsible for the pandemic. Toby, a God's Gardener who goes into hiding to escape a dangerous stalker, by working in a high-end spa.She previously dated and fell in love with Jimmy (Snowman) in school. Ren, a trapeze dancer and prostitute who works at the brothel Scales and Tails, who survives the plague by being isolated in the club's biohazard containment chamber.Similarly, Toby is barricaded within a luxury spa where she has begun to work following a raid on the gardeners by Blanco and his brutish pals. Ren eventually grows up to become a prostitute and trapeze dancer in the sex-club Scales and Tails, and happens to be locked in a bio-containment unit in the club when the pandemic occurs.

Toby becomes an influential member of the gardeners and encounters Ren, a child member of the gardeners. He saves Toby from Blanco and takes her to the sanctuary of his rooftop garden. The leader of God's Gardeners, Adam One, is looked up to as a charismatic holy man but perceived by outsiders as a cult leader. She soon encounters the unwelcome attentions of Blanco – the psychopathic manager of the chain who sexually assaults women in his employ and has a reputation of killing women. Toby is a young woman who loses her parents under tragic circumstances that may or may not be due to the corporations, and is forced to live off of the grid in a shady meat burger joint. Much of the story is told through flashbacks with the two main characters separately surviving the apocalypse described in the previous novel, each reminiscing about their time in the God's Gardeners religious movement and the events that led to their current situations. The plot follows two characters, Toby and Ren, whose stories intertwine with each other and, at points, with major characters from Oryx and Crake. This prediction becomes true in a sense, as Crake's viral pandemic destroys human civilization. They are vegetarians devoted to honoring and preserving all plant and animal life, and they predict a human species-ending disaster, which they call 'The Waterless Flood'. God's Gardeners are a religious sect that combines some Biblical practices and beliefs with some scientific practices and beliefs. The Year of the Flood details the events of Oryx and Crake from the perspective of the lower classes in the pleeblands, specifically the God's Gardeners.

Year of the flood trilogy