Paolo Bacigalupi's breakout novel is an extraordinarily unique book that will absolutely make you think. It's dark, brutal, and full of deeply complex people, all of whom are trying to get a piece of the pie and don't care who gets hurt along the way.
Published 2009; won the Hugo and Nebula awards
Brent: 4 stars. Super interesting, different kind of book. There aren’t any good guys, everyone is in it for themselves, and nothing is simple or straightforward - in both a good and a bad way. Extremely cool setting.
Cody: 4 stars. Fantastic near-future imagining of society in the fallout from climate catastrophe. You can feel this book; the heat, the greed, the overwhelming population size. Wonderfully written novel that is also brutal and crushing.
Here's the setup:
The Windup Girl takes place 200 years in the future. The vast majority of the world's fossil fuels have been expended, leading to a climate and economic catastrophe. In the aftermath, calories from food become the world's most important energy source, not only for human consumption, but also to power industry and technology. A few mega-corporations produce almost all the world's food, and have become the most powerful entities on earth, thriving by genetically engineering new foods, while also trying to destroy the competition by biohacking diseases to attack other sources of nutrition they don't control.
The novel is set in a future version of Bangkok. Thailand is one of the few countries that has maintained its sovereignty from the calorie companies, but it has its own troubles, and is plagued by corruption, rent-seeking, and factions struggling for control over the kingdom.
Hugonauts' Thoughts:
While the world is extremely interesting, it’s the way the characters interact with that world that feels so unique. Each character gives us a view into their faction or group, showing us what that part of society is like. No one is truly good or bad, but they are all in it for themselves, trying to get a piece of the pie in this land of relative prosperity.
This feels like one of those sci-fi books that is showing us a bunch of ways the world can go wrong, and what we should strive to avoid. The thing that spoke so strongly to us was that if society and the government are set up poorly, conflict, bribery, and corruption almost feel inevitable. None of our central characters are good people, but none of them are traditional villains either - they are just trying to get rich and improve the outcomes for their little faction of society, but society is set up in such a way that the way to become prosperous is to exploit other people and siphon off their resources rather than generating growth that benefits everyone. Only the titular Windup Girl, Emiko, is truly innocent - and even she can't avoid getting pulled into the maelstrom because of the exploitation that is allowed to exist and thrive in the underbelly of society.
It's a brutal book, but also so refreshing to read something so out of the ordinary. It's an extremely full, complex world with a long cast of characters, so it takes a little while to get all the pieces on the board - but once they are, the plot is extremely propulsive as well, and we definitely didn't want to put the book down during the whole second half.
The book calls for a trigger warning - there are two fairly brutal sexual assault scenes that are quite disturbing. If you are reading a chapter with some bad things happening at a sex club, know that it will get worse before it gets better - you can skip to the next chapter to avoid those scenes. They definitely feel unnecessary, and the book could have easily gone without them.
One other small bit of Windup Girl trivia - it split the Hugo award with The City & The City (i.e., they both won) because they got the exact same number of votes! One of only three times that's ever happened.
The Windup Girl is one of the most unique books we've read in recent memory. Bacigalupi achieves something difficult, creating a tangible middle-future world. But good lord is this world brutal, let’s all really try to avoid a fate like this.
Related Books
If you loved this one, you might also like:
The City & The City - China Miéville
A thrilling police procedural that takes place in an equally thrilling (and mysterious) setting - two cities that somehow exist in the same space. A story in which the place is as interesting as its people.
The Water Knife - Paolo Bacigalupi
Bacigalupi's near-future conjecture about the Southwestern US after it runs out of water. A visceral and realistic look into how climate change will overly effect the poor, it is also a gripping thriller.
Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
Genetic experimentation and pharmaceutical engineering have run amok in this dystopian world of corporate espionage and terrorism in pursuit of profit.
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