Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl is regarded as some as the most celebrated science fiction debut novel of all time. It was published in 2009 and has won the Nebula award, tied for the Hugo award for Best Novel, the John W. Campbell Award, and the Locus Award for Best Debut Novel.
The Windup Girl is considered an excellent example of a new genre of speculative fiction called "biopunk." Biopunk is a new term derived from cyberpunk science fiction and generally involves detailing the dangerous impacts of the biotechnology revolution on the near-future development of mankind. Bacigalupi had already made a notable name for himself by writing multiple award-winning short stories which contain many of the same themes which appear in this debut novel.
Similar to my experience with the other 2010 Hugo Award-winner for Best Novel, The City & The City, I really wanted to like this book but my actual experience of reading the book was less enjoyable than the enthusiastic reviews would have lead me to expect.
After reading the very first chapter I told my Other Half, "I don't think I'm going to like this book as much as the critics did."
My main problem with the book was my lack of connection with any of the main characters. Those were: Emiko (the eponymous windup girl of the title; she is a genetically modified humanoid--known as New People-- who has been engineered for absolute obedience); Hock Seng (a formerly very successful Chinese industrialist who is a refugee from an ethnic purge of Chinese people in Malaysia; he is known as a "yellow card" in Thailand due to his questionable immigrant status in the country); Anderson Lake (a secret representative of the multinational corporation AgriGen known as a "calorie man," he is currently the owner to Hock Seng's operations manager at a factory which produces "kink-springs";) Jaidee and Kanya (they are two "white shirts" who are employed by the Environment Ministry as somewhat arbitrary enforcers of strict environment regulations).
One of the central threads of the novel's plot is a political power struggle between General Pracha, the head of the Environmental Ministry, and the head of the Trade Ministry, Akkarat to control the city of Bangkok. The other main thread involves how (and whether) Emiko the windup girl will survive her dismal and desperate existence in Thailand. When we meet her, she is basically a sex slave who is being abused nightly for the entertainment and pleasure of men by another female employee. Because of her nature, Emiko can't refuse any request or order, regardless of how depraved or humiliating it is. Hock Seng is scheming to steal the plans for a revolutionary kink-spring in his boss Anderson Lake's safe in order to restart his career. Jaidee and Kanya (who is a secret mole for Akkarat) are pawns in the power struggle between Environment and Trade.
The most notable aspect of The Windup Girl is the alternate-history world view that Bacigalupi presents. In his vision, there has been an environmental catastrophe (Bangkok is literally under sea level, but is being protected by huge sea walls). Additionally, multinational corporations have their own private armies and regularly release genetically modified produce whose seeds can dominate and make sterile the indigenous produce of other nations. The currency of this new world is "calories." Most electric energy appears to be generated by kinetic energy, by turning "kink-springs" which can translate motion into power used to run machines. Of course, humans and animals get their energy to move from calories they eat. So, the corporations that control food production now control the world. It's an engaging and fascinating vision and Bacigalupi conveys it well. It's all the other aspects of a good book which seems to have eluded him: interesting (possibly sympathetic) characters in unusual situations with compelling conflicts and motivations. I was interested in the milieu the characters were in, but could care less what happened to the careers.
The primary defect of the book is the character of Emiko, the windup girl. It is just insupportable to re-create gender-based subordination in the form of what is essentially a real, live sex doll and not expect some people to object. Bacigalupi basically punts on the implication of his characterization of Emiko, even when he compounds it by layering on a Japanese name and explicitly giving her a bac story of being a discarded plaything of a Japanese businessman who left her in Thailand because he didn't feel it was worth it to pay for Emiko to travel back to his country.
The way the stories are left somewhat unresolved makes it very likely that there will be a sequel to The Windup Girl but I doubt it will be a book I will feel is worth my time.
Title: The Windup Girl.
Author: Paolo Bacigalupi.
Length: 361 pages.
Publisher: Nightshade Books.
Date: September 15, 2009.
PLOT: B.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.
OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.33/4.0).
2 comments:
The key element that drives Wind-up Girl is its environment, no pun intended. If you were to ask someone who has read most any book what it was about they would likely tell you it's about a person who did so-and-so or had such-and-such happen to them. With 'The Wind-up Girl' they would say it's about a dystopian society that has suffered a series of environmental disasters and how that society responds. The doings of the characters unfortunate enough to live in Bacigalupi's Thailand are seemingly secondary in importance to the setting itself. While there is a plot, it takes an interminable length of time to get moving and much longer before things start to come together. The bottom line is that this is not a book for the impatient.
I listened to the unabridged audio version read by Jonathan Davis. Davis did an excellent job but I don't thing audio books are the best way to experience 'The Wind-up Girl'. It is a pretty involved story with lots of characters and alternating points of view and requires more attention than I can usually afford it while driving, dog-walking or otherwise multi-tasking.
Agree 100%. Bacigalupi has created particularly flat character and also characters who serve no purpose in forwarding plot (Mai, the American women who was getting stoned all the time. With the exception of Kanya, none of the females have any sense of power and Kanya is a traitor who never smiles (shades of bitch?). Cookie cutter plot with a self-serving ending. Racism? Indeed? Stereotypes? Galore? Lazy book.
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