Review: The Windup Girl

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I didn't care for this book, however Bacigalupi's writing and creativity is 5 stars. I loved his YA books, but I found this adult work to be be too slow paced for my taste. I didn't really care for any of the characters or the plot in the book which made it really hard or me to get through it.  I pushed through so I could complete the challenge for  book from a a genre/subgenre you've never heard of. This is considered cyberpunk.

What is cyber punk you ask? It is a subgenre of sci-fi set in the near-future. It typically features advanced technology and/or scientific achievements with a breakdown of social order. They are usually post-industrial dystopian societies that center their confict on AI, hacking, and megacorporations. In the case of The WIndup Girl it is more of a biopunk, yet another subgenre of cyberpunk. Biopunk is cyberpunk centered around biotechnolgy advances instead of computer based tech. The Windup Girl has megacorporations which focus on manipulation of human DNA and the gene hacking of the world's food sources.

The Windup Girl is definitely a dystopian, biopunk adventure set in futuristic Thailand and follows several main characters, Anderson is attempting to build a factory and gain access to the Thai seebank, more on that later. Jaidee and Kanya who are both "white shirts" a kind of military police force that monitor the imports, exports, and the calorie use. Many of the white shirts are corrupt, but Jaidee is known as being by the book and has many enemies, Kanya is his second in command. Hock Seng works for Anderson and is always bargaining with someone trying to get back to his status as a great shipping captain. Emiko, is a New Person, genetically engineered to be beautiful and perfect, and trained to serve. She was revered and loved in Japan, but her previous master abandoned her in Thailand where she is abused and used as the New People are hated and feared.

The world of The Windup Girl is violent and brutal. Food is limited to what big gene-ripping corporations can produce, each company trying to outsmart the next gene-plague and outbreak. Money no longer exists, people pay in calories as currency. Corporations are trying to develop disease resistant foods, but no one has been able to crack the DNA code to get there. Anderson is playing the political game with the major players to gain access to the Thai seed bank which may in fact hold the secret to new genetic material. Each of the stories of the characters progresses independently for quite some time, but as the book progresses they begin to intertwine until they are completely entangled. Emiko, who is supposed to be completely subservient, does something out of character and it starts an uprising. Anderson and the rest of the political players try to take advantage of the situation and overthrow those in power. No one really wins in the end.

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