The Windup Girl

Over the years I have read many, many, many sci-fi book, and watched many shows and movies. That being said I am always delighted to read or see something that gives a different perspective on a topic, or something that is entirely new. I read sci-fi for the possibility of it all. This book is very dystopian. It writes from the point of our human failings, which are many, but still gives a ray of hope that there is some more beautiful future available. For me, science fiction that falls into the "dystopian" category is like a psychological thriller. I found it to be terrifying and entertaining. I would recommend it.

This wasn't at all what I was expecting and it ended up on my DNF list. It took me two weeks to muster up the enthusiasm to read 17 pages. Boring!

The Windup Girl is the first book I've read in 20 years to take me to a world I haven't been to before. I don't want to give too much away about the story, so let's just say the backdrop is: Peak oil has come and gone, empires have fallen and all energy is created by calories. I would however, like to talk about the characters a little. Here you are treated like an intelligent human being by the author, and presented with characters that transcend the usual one dimension. Each has her or her flaws and you need to work to overlook their character defects to get to know the real person; there's no simple "good guy" and "bad guy". Also, there isn't really an obvious main character. Why does there have to be? It's refreshing to read something that strays from the norm and instead focuses on a bunch of people struggling to survive. If you really want a hero, just judge them for yourself and pick one. The best thing about this book for me was that it reminded me of reading books for the first time when I was a kid, when every world was new and every story an original.

After living in Thailand for several years and being married to a Thai women, the book is accurate in the ways it uses the culture of Thailand and especially the way it deals with the climate warming, peak oil, and ecological destruction within the Thai cultural framework. It was fascinating that he choose Thailand, and only referred to a broken-up Europe, a destroyed America (Emprie of America?), Finland ( seed bank in Norway), Japan (too many calories, not enough people),and China ripped apart into several small states,indirectly. The peak oil scenario destroyed the power of these nations and it made sense that they would have no influnce except through the calorie companies of the "midwest compact" search for the "gene bank" in Thailand. Also, the technology was an intersting mix of approaches to harnessing energy without the benefit of oil, which has a tremendous influence on our culture, especally the alternative energy sources which are dependent on oil for their start-ups--and would hence have a difficut time gaining a foothold in Thailand (no solar panels or wind). Also,the story of politics within Thailand with it's multiple competitors for power behind the scenes is true as it is today with the red and yellow shirts fighting each other on the streets, in 2010. Also,the competing plot lines of the calorie man's search for the seed bank, Hock Seng's desire for lost position and wealth, and the most important is the story of Emiko's desire for freedom which is undermined by her genetics to obey a master which culuminates in her ultimate sexual subservience during a group gathering to witness her degradation and the eventual leading to her one impulsive act outside of her genetic programming. It's a very good read and finds resolution of the plot conflicts. It was tantalizing with a an opening at the end for Emiko's search for freedom in a way that she didn't expect.

Paolo Bacigalupi's debut novel The Windup Girl is a frightening, realistic and brilliant look at the near future of the world. Taking place in Thailand at some point in the future, Bacigalupi paints a picture of a world that is caught between several major problems: climate change has affected the lives of many people around the world, and in turn, has brought a rise in global agricultural corporations, and global energy resources have been depleted, forcing major changes in the way people live their lives, and how a world-wide economy functions with different resources. Corporations have run amok with trying to maintain their profit margins, and released a number of plagues upon the world that devastated the planet's ecology upon which we all depend, and because of their actions, remain just a single step ahead of the latest mutation of blister rust and other assorted plagues. Thailand is a country that has thus far weathered the storm - the Royal government has maintained a fierce isolationist policy to keep the country from succumbing. As a result, Thailand has a precious resource that western companies desperately want: a genebank, containing thousands of new strains of crops that could be utilized to combat the ongoing struggle against plagues and hunger world-wide. The story follows several discrete storylines and characters, each with their own motivations and demons. Anderson is a `calorie man', a westerner who ostensibly manages a factory that manufactures kink-springs, a renewable power source. Jaidee is a member of the Environmental Ministry, tasked with maintaining a barrier between Thailand and the rest of the world and the dangers that it poses. Emiko is a windup, a genetically engineered woman, designed by the Japanese for servitude and for sex, who has been abandoned in Thailand and fears that she will be mulched (killed and burned for energy). In addition to these main characters, there are a number of other background characters who are just as complex as their counterparts. In a nut-shell, Anderson has come to Thailand on the behalf of a major Agricorporation that is hoping to gain a foothold in the country in order to obtain rights to the country's gene banks. While he is ostensibly looking for ways to combat the plagues, Thailand officials believe that the corporations have far more sinister and selfish motivations for the gene banks. While in the country, he has to walk a narrow line to stay in the country, as the Environmental Ministry intends to keep Thailand free. Captain Jaidee is a leading member of the Environmental Ministry, and throughout the book, it is clear that the country is not necessarily unified in its position to remain away from the rest of the world. Limited trade and imports occur through the actions of the Trade Ministry, which is at frightening odds with the Environmental Ministry, to the point where open bloodshed and crimes are committed on both sides to try and force their position upon the rest of

It is hard to follow up the review by Blue Tyson...it covers the book very well so I will try not to repeat it. As a reader of SF for many years,it is a rare moment that a book comes along that is shocking in its originality. This a story set in a bleak world, but a world with hope as the characters struggle to find meaning and a future in this world.This is a world of corporate domination as groups fight for what is left in a decaying world. But if anything ...this books central core is what it means to be human. That to be human is to make choices you may not like and that these choices define you for who you are.These characters must make those choices and that is what really makes this book great. Be warned...this book does leave open a possible sequel but this book in itself is a stand alone story. Major plots are resolved in the end...but there are some questions to be answered.I have a feeling there is more to come. This an author to watch...the only author that comes close to comparison is Ian McDonald. This book is a must for all SF fans..enjoy and join me in hopefully a short wait for the next book.

Thai generip terror. It Bacigalupi ever writes anything that is sweetness and light, that right there would be likely proof of the Many Worlds Theory and the fact that you had slipped into an alternate universe. The setting is Bangkok, or, colloquially, Krung Thep. It is also a near future dystopia. The city now houses many displaced Chinese refugees from a Malaysia turned fundamentalist muslim fanatics. (See his story Yellow Card Man for background) Bangkok itself is only kept from drowning by engineering and technology. This is a post-oil world, with very little petroleum technology available, remaining. No evidence of solar tech, either, really. Power is provided by human labor and genetically engineered highly efficient animals pourding kinetic energy into springs, which then can be used to power machines. Treadle computers, even. Countries have shrunk in upon themselves as a result, but are beginning to look outward again, with ships, and dirigibles. This makes this setting rather unlike the mass-media or AI ridden future India and Brasil etc. of Ian McDonald's devising. Particularly nasty are the 'calorie companies' - organisations that have the ability to manufacture crops in large supply: but their crops are sterile, so you always need to go back for more. That is if bugs and plagues 'weevils' and 'blister rust' do not get them. Much dirty, violent dealing in support of this activity (see his story The Calorie Man) and there are mentions of it going horribly wrong in other countries. One of the questions this raises is how they manage to stay around - why, with such hatred of them, are the calorie men and women not mercilessly hunted and slaughtered. The only intimations you get of this are economic power, based in the USA. Also China is apparently dysfunctional, and many other countries are devastated. Thailand, through foresight, is struggling on, and is hence a point of interest. Their genetic stocks and the genetic engineering expert they have on hand to help defend them are of interest to all. The rapidly mutating diseases caused by genetic engineering meddling and conflict kill many - with mainly the calorie companies having the resources to combat their own hellish offspring, if they care to. Mutated cats with no real predators except humans have also destroyed a lot of the food chain. The novel has many viewpoints: Anderson Lake, An American calorie man representative, brought in to try and increase productivity at a factory working on more efficient power springs. More than he seems, however. Hock Seng, The Yellow Card Man, an elderly fallen Chinese merchant who escaped massacres and now works for Lake. Emiko, The Windup Girl. A Japanese artificially created human. Unable to reproduce, overheats easily but has many unknown talents. Left behind by her owner, currently a working bar girl. Kanya, an officer in the Environment Ministry's corps of field soldiers responsible for protecting the city from incursions of disease