The Windup Girl
Ratings228
Average rating3.6
I ended up DNFing this book. I might return to it at some point in the future, frankly I don't like abandoning books, but I found the story difficult to follow. Imagine all the politics of Game of Thrones, except much less interesting. Also set in a future dystopia where there are environmental disasters, food shortages, and artificially engineered people. I was listening to the audiobook, but with about 6 hours left I realized I had no idea what was going on and decided not to continue making the effort. There were parts I liked, but overall I felt that plot sometimes felt secondary to world building and detail. With hundreds (ok...maybe even a thousand) books on my TBR, I can't be wasting time on books that bore me, and this one did.
Excessive worldbuilding... felt like all of the interesting stuff happens “off-screen,” at the expense of the present story.
It isn't often that I start a book by a new author and find myself unable to put it down. At the moment I'm about 60% into the Windup Girl (gotta love the new Kindle inspired method of gauging your progress in a book), and find myself even daydreaming about the world portrayed. Since buying the kindle I've been caught off guard quite often by how much I have read when I later check how many pages were in a book.
This is the first book by Paolo Bacigalupi that I've read and I've already decided I'll have to see what else he has written. The pacing is fantastic, the world created is immersive, and the story is tightly written with believable characters. This book really does have everything going for it so far. Hopefully he will be able to continue it until the end, I'd hate to finish this one with that often felt sense of outrage when a writer can't put together a cohesive ending.
Full review posted at:
http://www.mattsrespite.com/2012/01/windup-girl-book-review.html
Like some commenters said, Bacigalupi manages to bring a sort of Gibsonesque lyrical quality to SF and this is something I sorely miss. Also, the setting is fresh (never read anything set in Thailand and using the backdrop with such gusto).
4.5 // this was way more than i thought it'd be. dealt w more themes than i anticipated. a lot more action-packed than i expected as well. i'd put the book down and realize how much was happening within a short amount of time. the characters were super nuanced. i found myself questioning almost all of them in terms of their motives and intentions, and whether those were good or not. the answer was often more complicated than that as there was only 1 character who i was on the side of 100% of the time. thoroughly enjoyed every single perspective we got in here. it was also pretty hard to figure out where the story was heading plot-wise. i had vague predictions throughout, but nothing specific or concrete, which i liked. it made it very exciting. also the ending? it has me craving for more, but i love the open-endedness of it. it doesn't need more despite my desire for it. especially because everything was neatly tied up. or rather it was messily tied up, but i think that fits really well. i was never expecting the story to have a neat ending. it's not like there were loose threads. it more so just makes me wonder where certain characters go from there. more than anything though, i love Paolo Bacigalupi's writing style. it's a distinct voice. i have his newest release, Navola, and will be reading that in 2025 for sure.
Took me 100 pages or so to get into this (and to figure out that looking up the Thai words and slang was useful) but once I did, what a ride. Paolo doesn't beat you over the head with the concepts he's working with, he just focuses on the characters, which I appreciated.
Started but I cannot seem to get into it.
Guess I am not in the mood for a near-future dystopia now. Perhaps I will come back to it later.
Really loved the world of this book. Climate dystopia + intricacies of Thai culture. I avoided reading this for a long time because I thought based on the cover that it was steampunk or something? Don't judge a book by it's cover!
Oh boy. What I knew of the premise of this book intrigued me - a dystopian future exploration of agriculture and biotechnology politics. What I did not know was how gruesomely violent and rapey it would be - in ways that felt unnecessary and exploitative. As in, not just depicting violence necessary to move the plot forward or adequately set the context, but eroticizing it.
At first I was confused - this book has gotten so much praise and awards, how could I hate it this much? And then I remembered this book was published in 2009, at a time when prestige TV was almost universally hyper-violent, around when a critic I follow said, “this is the golden age of television if you don't mind watching someone getting shot in the face,” and I opted for less prestigious comedies instead. So for the same reason I tapped out of Game of Thrones after watching 10 too many beheadings in the pilot (I didn't even make it to the gratuitous rape scenes in that show), this book is not for me. Maybe for other people, but not for me.
Story: 4 / 10
Characters: 7
Setting: 10
Prose: 9
The Windup Girl started so well ... and there were so many reasons to read it: Hugo and Nebula award winner; and someone literally bought me a copy.
The unique, poetic prose and clever post-steampunk setting immerse the reader in the first few pages. The story starts off fairly strong with compelling characters and strange relationship dynamics. However, the plot loses direction in a web of tertiary story threads. At 33% completion, it was clear that the story was ultimately never going to come together. Since I'm reading through all the Nebula and Hugo award winning authors, I cannot honestly suggest you skip this book. Nevertheless, I would suggest reading one of Bacigalupi's later works: I imagine the stories would be more mature.
Tags: generipping (bio-engineering), plagues, post-steampunk, energy-efficiency, asia, androids
This novel offers a fascinating look at what might happen in a distant future shaped by genetically engineered crops and animals. Set in a future Bankok where one of the last pure Seed Banks still exists, this is a story of corporate greed, the societal definition of what it means to be human, and the hope that can be fanned to a flame in the soul of a “new person.” The writing is stunning, the characters fully-formed and the setting captivating.
The concept is great, but I had a hard time getting connected to characters or wading my way through the dialect.
I've been waiting to read this book for a long time, after reading [b:Pump Six and Other Stories 2819368 Pump Six and Other Stories Paolo Bacigalupi https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1391343246s/2819368.jpg 2845301], his book of short stories. Which was SO GOOD. This book takes place in the same universe as some of the Pump Six stories, and it's a really interesting and sad, poverty-stricken world. I read this one on my phone so it was in between other books I was reading. I found it hard to follow the politics and loyalties, but it was still really great.
I think I've decided I don't like the star rating system. I like analyzing things too much, and my feelings on this book run the whole gambit.
I'll start by saying that as far as writer's craft, Paolo Bacigalupi is a five star writer. The way he plays with the language, his powers of description, his attention to minutiae are all skills I to which I aspire. This book surrounds you with post-crisis Thailand from the sweltering heat to the stink of plague. The world envisioned is also terrifyingly probable. I remember doing research back in college on genetically modified foods and the disease mutations produced by them, but I don't think my brain ever made the next logical leap to fear and horror until reading this book.
The complexity of Bacigalupi's plot is intense. There are so many crises facing each and every character, and just when one of them distracts you to the point you forget the others, boom! Also he has the plague! Or white shirts attack. Or a plan goes awry. It's a lot to keep track, and Bacigalupi does it masterfully, instilling suspense and surprise at every chapter. Add to that the normalcy of a world without cats or elephants or pineapples, of government balancing on knife edges, of humanity delving just a little too deep. It's a world just slightly twisted from the one we know, and one where we could end up with just a few mis-steps.
His characters too are complex, believable, and sympathetic. Kanya's life as a double agent, coming to sympathize with the people she still despises, is fascinating to watch, and I love how she ends the story. Jaidee is likable, direct, and therefore doomed, but I loved his muay thai approach to the world, and I don't think I'd like the book at all if his phii didn't come around to snark behind Kanya's back. Hock Seng's unstoppable need to prepare and survive at whatever cost is balanced out by his sympathy for little Mai. He's like a Thenardier with a heart. Emiko, naturally, is the character that held my attention the strongest. I love the way her alien nature comes through the prose, the steady fighting of her nature and training against the reality of a world she for which she was never intended. When Emiko murders the Somdet Chaopraya and his men, I just about cheered. For a title character, though, she gets remarkably little screen time.
I think that Emiko's lack of screen time is really what keeps me from loving this book for all of its craft. The title is “The Windup Girl,” and I went in expecting a story about human hybrids surviving in a post-crisis world. I expected her to go North to the windup encampment. Instead, I got a story about Thai politics and genetically modified fruit. It's an interesting story, but it's not the kind of book that would normally peak my interest. For every heart-breaking or hear-stopping emotional chapter, there's five about political nuances and lychee. It was all necessary, but I found those chapters hard to sit through, especially in the beginning. If you have trouble with slow-starting novels, this one is really not for you.
I'd add to that statement that you should not try this novel if you are not okay with a lot of disturbing, often sexual, violence. I'm not accusing Bacigalupi of being gratuitous because that violence really cements the world and is vital to Emiko's character change, to the very idea that the mistreatment of just one person can topple the world (a theme I very much enjoyed), but it is graphic and again, hard to read.
It's hard for me to sum up my feelings on this book because they are so polarized. On the one hand, I have to respect the craft and skill that went into its creation as well as the entirely topical themes it introduces. On the other... it wasn't the book I was looking for. I didn't get enough time with the characters I wanted to follow, and I had to spend a lot of pages mired in stories I wasn't interested in. 3 stars might be harsh, but using the rating as my strictly personal opinion, that's about where it falls.
I was kinda bored with the main storyline, but I really liked the side story about Kanya and her mixed loyalties.
Very interesting story. A strange combination of characters set in a near future.
This is one of those books where I felt like I owed it to the book to finish, which is usually not a good feeling. I'm not sure what my hang up was, the premise was very intriguing. Post-apocalyptic future where crop disease (and human disease) has given food suppliers an enormous amount of control over the fate of nations. Alternating narrators eventually cross paths.
I just wasn't very invested in the characters, the story seemed sort of clinically cold and a bit meandering, That being said, I really do appreciate that this was not set in the United States featuring a rag tag group of survivors who live off the land in the wake of an EMP. Or zombies. Or a nuke.
Nice twist on this genre and really neat to read a book that takes place in Thailand.
I really wanted to like this book. It had some cool concepts and owed a lot to Neuromancer and Snow Crash. The problem is that this book has a weak story, weak characters and was way to long. This would have worked better as a short story.
Overall: Disappointing that this should have won the Hugo/Nebula. For a number of reasons.
THE GOOD
Bacigalupi's worldbuilding is great: he imagines a far future Kingdom of Thailand, where risen sea levels + GMO mayhem have managed to destroy the planet. This biopunk dystopia feels desperate, immediate and urgent, and, on a meta level, it's a scathing commentary on (fair) trade, ag subsidies in the US/Europe, the American food industry and people (such as myself) burning up the atmo in environmentally-unsound jet planes. In Bacigalupi's future history, we arrogant, over-happy, over-traveled 21st century citizens are living during the brief “Expansion” era - soon to be followed by a violent and unpleasant “Contraction” where no one will travel any further than where their feet can carry them. Bacigalupi's future Thailand is just after the Contraction, now poised on the edge of a possible second “Expansion”, using resurrected woolly mammoth (OK, megodonts - but wtf is a megodont) strength and methane composting to fuel industry.
THE BAD
Bacigalupi may be an inventive worldbuilder, but he is not an inventive writer - nor even a particularly good one. He violates the sacrosanct Law of Good (or at least Decent) Writing, which is “show us, don't tell us” - often bluntly introducing characters as “terrifying” or “charming”. Um, why not save some word count and just say, “The villain entered.” Another tiresome authorial tic was repetition: if I saw Emiko the Cyborg Lady described one more time as exhibiting “telltale stutter-stop herky-jerky” movements or a character described by their (often “pale” or “icy” or “watery” blue) eyes... oh my God. Oh. My. God.
THE UGLY
This was the dealbreaker. I forced myself to finish this book, as I have a spiritual obligation to all Hugo/Nebula joint winners, but wtf is up with this thinly-veiled retrograde Orientalist male chauvinist fantasy? To whit: Chapter 1 introduces Anderson Lake, the blond/blue-eyed American male hero who will guide us through this exotic (EXOTIC) foreign land of small, shy, deferential, and pitiably incompetent Asians. Chapter 2 introduces Anderson's Chinese sidekick, Hock Seng, a survivor of an Islamic fundamentalist genocide against ethnic Chinese in Malaysia. Hock Seng is embittered, often described as scheming or cowering or untrustworthy, and he spends the entire book lamenting his victim state and attempting (but always failing) to make a better life for himself. Just in case it's not clear: Hock Seng has no agency. Chapter 3 introduces the titular “windup girl”, Emiko, a Japanese sex slave robot woman who is repeatedly raped (described in - DARE I SAY IT - loving (!?) detail), works in a stereotypical Miss Saigon-style brothel, and dreams of a better future where New People (i.e. windups) live free and unmolested. She has also been programmed to serve (one geneticist character speculating she has Labrador DNA in her!) and is repeatedly described as a “dog”.
Unsurprisingly, when Anderson isn't planning to overthrow this “little country” in order to make room for American profiteering GMO interests (from the Midwest! the Heartland!), he falls hard in love with the poor, bruised, whimpering, helpless Emiko. Various scenes of rescue and damsel-in-distress ensue.
OK, I'm assuming Bacigalupi has never been exposed to post-colonialism/Orientalism/feminism, because this entire premise just reeks of unreconstructed American/white/male hegemonic views. Not only is it alarming and disappointing that this type of story still has any sort of currency at all (but then, alas, my beloved scifi genre is one of the most unreconstructed in this regard...), but it's also incredibly tedious, unnecessary and unrealistic. I'm a scifi writer and fan, and a lady, and all I can hope for is to read about other future-ladies being... victims, objectified and sexualized? (Even Mai, Hock Seng's sidekick, is a little girl who does little more than cry out in alarm as plot twists promise ruin.) The only woman who enjoys any sort of agency in this story is Kanya, a Ministry of Environment official who is described as an unsmiling hardass (also, wait for it, a victim! her village was destroyed by evil men!) and, surprise, a lesbian.
Bacigalupi excuses himself from any potential attacks re: his portrayal of the Other by noting that this is THE FUTURE and thus not really Thailand at all. He then recommends a number of ethnically Thai authors. Um, I have no problem with writers of one ethnicity writing about other ethnicities, as long as they're respectful and informed and not idiotically exoticizing about it. I even don't have too much of a problem of white/male authors writing about non-white/non-male issues - fraught as that may seem, given the world we live in - because I'm sure it can be done well. What I CANNOT STAND is lazy narratives of romanticized victimization and macho Orientalist fantasies. And for that, I hated this book and am disappointed that it was so lauded by the arbiters of good sf.