The Windup Girl

Not quite what I had expected.

The windup girl is a fascinating character with her odd movements and disposition, but the book is barely about her, which was disappointing. I found myself somewhat uninterested in the other characters and unsatisfied because I wanted to know more about the windup girl. The integration of Thai and Mandarin (I believe that's what it was) language was interesting but confusing at times. I was sadly disappointed by this book; it had a lot of potential (characters, setting, etc.) but I personally did not think it was executed as best as it could have been. An okay read all in all, but I think it could have been so much better.

14 out of 22 people found this review helpful.

I find it amazing that people rate this book without reading it...

I bought "The Windup Girl" on a whim. After reading the back I decided to give it a try. Bacigalupi has invented a terrifying future. Filled with Blister Rust and famine. No longer does the human race rely on the old fossil fuel, that source is long gone. So is the idea of a global economy. What once took hours now takes weeks as humans ply the oceans as they once were in times long past. Airplanes are a form of archaic transport and even electricity is a rare resource. It's a world where the seeds of plants are worth mountains of gold and getting enough calories in a given day is an up hill battle. I found this story intriguing and hard to put down. It was well written and the author has the ability to bring his characters to life. Though many authors own that ability, it's still nice to read a book where you feel like you know how a character is going to react to a given situation. The idea of the heechy-keechy windup girls who move in a stutter of stop motion is so interesting. The only thing that gives away the biologically engineered human who walks among the crowds is their flutter of spastic movement. As if they are in a constant wake of a strobe light. This book is deep and will remain one of my favorites for a long time I'm sure.

7 out of 8 people found this review helpful.

A Must Read

I enjoyed this book tremendously! Bacigalupi takes you into a world where fruits are manufactured, gene ripped, and there is not enough to go around. Where living creatures are also gene ripped into working, living, breathing creations that are both loved and despised. I was lost in his world of yellow card immigrants, Megadonts and Cheshires (I want one). I'd love to see a second book of The Wind-up Girl. Wonderful read. Thank goodness for the release of Pump Six, a collection of his short stories. Tore through it in two days!

5 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

The most depressing and annoying book I have ever read

I would recommend that you don't buy this book - it is incredibly depressing and annoying. The premise is simple: what happens when you take a 3rd world country, make food incredibly scarce, add population pressures, hostile forces on the border, and remove almost all energy generation technology - no solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, or petrochemical? Answer: you get a complete hell-hole.

That's basically what the writer did - he erased all possible energy generation types in the world - there aren't even any windmills or water wheels. The only thing people have is spring power - advanced springs wound up by humans or animals.

Couple that energy starvation with extreme corruption, and you have a horrible situation. Into which the author drops people made ugly and horrible by the same situation. And some innocents, who get tortured by this reality. This makes for an INCREDIBLY, astonishingly depressing read. It basically ruined my mood for a few weeks.

Plus, as I already said, the author threw out all technology and logic that wouldn't fit with the image behind the book - the image of giant genetically engineered elephants walking around in a factory winding springs. Even if we ignore solar, nuclear, wind, ocean, and geothermal power, there aren't any water wheels - a technology invented over 2000 years ago!!! And this is supposed to be a few hundred years in the future. Besides alternative energy concepts, the author completely screwed up the concept of carbon credits (he has no idea what they are or how they work), as well as genetic engineering in general.

3 out of 8 people found this review helpful.

One of the best!

If you enjoyed the world-building in Dune, you should be impressed with the interesting and different world Bacigalupi has created--and his writing style is exceptional.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Masterful Writing

Like all avid scifi readers, I heard of Bacigalupi's Hugo and Nebula award-winning novel, and I certainly wanted to read it. I fairly recently read a great short story of his previously, 'Pop Squad', in Brave New Worlds (a very well written, disturbing dystopian story), and I wanted to read more of him.

The Windup Girl is one of the best novels of any genre I have read, in many years. It deserves its Hugo and Nebula awards, as it is a masterpiece of futuristic world building, within the confines of Earth's future. It's characters are sensitively portrayed in detail, and the plot is intricate, surprising in its turns, and penetrating in theme. It is what any aspiring speculative fiction writer wants to achieve. It is a benchmark, a masterpiece. I don't use superlatives like these too often. The novel is that good.

Perhaps the only criticism I can lay before you - and it is more a case of personal taste than a technicality - is that I am not overly enamored of the third person, present tense POV for works of any substantial length. It took me quite a while to avoid the distraction of this less-than comfortable style of writing (albeit, I accept that it was useful for enhancing the immediacy of the tension of the tenor of the novel). Even in Bacigalupi's case, I don't necessarily think pros outweighed the cons with regard to this matter. Given the mastery of the writing, plot, characterization and themes, this criticism is a small matter.

The world building astonishes me. As I hinted above, Bacigalupi creates a future society within the context of a future Earth, but transformed beyond expectation. Genetics is the keystone of what technically (and culturally) drives society, in a backdrop of an energy-starved population. It smack of truth, given the inroads in genetics and the Monsantos of this world. It also smacks of truth with current issues with regard to environmentalism. What makes this particular powerful, however, is representing this future world in the microcosm of a future Thailand. This was masterful, and Bacigalupi clearly researched this part of the world meticulously. I use the term 'microcosm' lightly, because it turns out that this future Thailand is a special place, unique and more than just a representative of humanity-to-come - it is in many ways the center of humanity's universe.

Bacigalupi paints his characters well, and not a single one of them is just noble and righteous. They are all flawed, due to the circumstances of their lives, and because, quite simply, they are human. Even the New People. The key characters, Anderson, Hock Seng, Kanya, Jaidee, and The Windup Girl (Emiko), are expertly drawn and attract reader empathy, and yet are scrutinized for their frailties, whether they were self-constructed or were thrust upon them.

Anyone with a predilection for speculative fiction, and particularly dystopian themes, will be immersed in The Windup Girl, and will want to read more. If you have discomfort with the Third Person, Present Tense POV style, try hard to ignore it - it's still well worth it.

Five sparkling stars.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

I didn't enjoy this book.

I still haven't finished this, though I've been trying to for weeks. I am only a hundred pages from the end, and still don't know what's going on. Who are all of these groups of people? You're just sort of thrown into the middle of the story with very little background. Because of this, it was impossible for me to become invested in the story or the characters. I spent most of the time trying to piece together the tiniest of clues that came up in order to figure out the socioeconomic and political structure of a world sometime in the future. Still, a hundred pages from the end, I have no real idea of who the Child Queen is or her significance, so why would I care if her handler gets killed? Yet this seems to be a turning point in the narrative of the windup girl, whose appearances in the novel are brief, dwarfed by longer sections about characters I didn't care about. Oh, well. Just wasn't the book for me. I enjoy sci-fi, and that is how this was categorized, but I didn't enjoy this book.

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

Try it even if you're undecided

I had picked this book up and looked at it about a half dozen times then gently placed it back on the shelf deeming it too uninteresting for MY tastes. Then it pops up as a friends' read and makes me rethink my own stance, so I picked it up off the shelf again, didn't look at it, bought it and came home. I read everything else new I had picked up and then I settled down for what I thought would be a laborious read. I found myself frustrated feeling as if I had just stepped off a dirigible or Clipper Ship into a confusing place and time with no context of the times' past. It was unnerving to say the least. I have never read any of Bacigalupi's writing before and had no idea of his writing style so his world was very foreign to me in more ways than one. It's ok though, I got it finally... or at least I think I do. The world building leaves a lot to be desired since we have no explanation of this futures past except what is given via different characters memories. This can be somewhat confusing because in one instance I thought I had a reference of 500 years past the year 2000 but then another character speaks of stories his great grandfather told of foraging in the suburban areas after the fall of fossil fuels. I came to the conclusion it didn't really matter WHEN the novel was taking place but WHAT was taking place. After making this conscious decision I rolled with the punches and came out only slightly bruised. I am not really sure if I like this book or only think its ok, so I'm going with the 'like' option because I'm still thinking. I found the story itself paced slowly but that in a way is possibly intentioned by the author to convey a sense of place as well as leading us, the reader, into the mindset of the cities citizens because many of them are just sitting; waiting to see if they will work, will eat, will die, or will be killed. I found so many different varieties of life conveyed in this book and so many different subtexts it's hard to determine what if any of them were meant by the author or if it's my own need to quantify what I read. All in all a good Sci-Fi read. I say if you're still on the fence about reading it, go for it, you might find out you liked it despite your initial apathy.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

A breathe of fresh cyberpunk

Bacigalupi brings a fresh petspective to a genre that many thought only Stephenson could save...

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Not what I expected at all

This book was hard to get into, even 100 pages in, I was wondering if I could get myself to finish it. I hated all the impossible to pronounce names, even if they did make it realistic, and the italicized words totally disrupted the flow. Hard to keep track of who is doing what and who is on whose side. Great idea but I think it could have been done better.

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Why isn't this available for the Nook?

Looks like a good read.

1 out of 12 people found this review helpful.

When the future grows in a new way

Bacigalupi has seen a new future, one that is terrible in that it is plausible. In the true tradition of classic science fiction, technology has run amok leading to our downfall, but that same technology may also be our salvation. World trade, politics, big business and our innate will to live merge in the creation of perfection. New people will lead the way as the author leads us to a new future of science fiction.

1 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

Loved this!

Loved this!

This is an intricate story well executed. Paolo¿s got massive sk

This is an intricate story well executed. Paolo’s got massive skills, that’s for sure. I liked the way he wrapped up the end of the book. It was a real page turner at the end – I didn’t have a problem at all finishing it. I have issues with wrapping things up with a bow, and P did do this – up until the Epilogue. But I can justify it this time. It was partly poetic justice, partly showing a more human side to a character that seemed to be losing his humanity. I loved the prophetic nature of this story. Scary in a whole different kind of way.

What I didn’t like is how wordy Mr. B is. Very descriptive. I could have used less of the descriptions. Also, it became clear after a time that this was a chain of short stories. Which explained the reiteration of information over and over – but it’s sold as a book, not a collection of short stories. So why couldn’t they have edited these things out? There were only three incongruities I found – two glaring, one small. Not so bad, but still, made me irritable. Lastly, this is labeled as Sci/Fi, not horror. I strongly feel it should have been. Shame on the publishers for not labeling it correctly.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

A great story. Award winner you should read.

The glowing words said, it seemed just a tad too long for the story. Like it was stretched to add more to the book. The story was complex and enjoyable. It did not play down to the reader. A few items were left to your imagination and might require a Google or other search engine. A great read set in a future dystopia where food is the major form of currency and most food groups have been destroyed or affected by genetic design flaws. I was taken enough by this book that I bought another by the same author. "Shipbreaker." It turned out to be a bit simpler to understand, or it may be I was familiar with Bacgalupi's universe by that time. There is another book, "The Drowned Cities." It looks like it fits in the same universe. It is a dystopian world after the sea has risen and oil has run out. Plague has swept through the planet because of errors in genetic codes released into the wild by the giant food companies. Quite a well constructed and thought out universe.

Well told dystopian story

Neither the English, nor the Thai, is fluent. If you discount the nitpicks of grammar, however, this is a fascinating story with vivid characters.

Excellent book--highly recommend

Baciagalupi plays with what can be familiar themes of clone/robot/android humanity set in a familiar sort of world: post-oil, post economic blowup, post-food chain collapse--in very fresh and interesting ways. His characters are complex; the world-building is wonderful; the plot is propulsive. Setting the book in southeast Asia is brilliant. The writing is top-notch, but for me it is the characters and world that pulled me in--and made me read just about everything he's written since. One to watch--don't miss this one.

Has disturbing moments.

There were a few scenes in this book that may turn readers off. However, the author only goes into real detail in the begining, to get the idea across. If rape scenes upset you, I would avoid it. There are a total of 2 that I recall. He does not litter the book with it, but I personally would pass this up if they ever made a film.
It was however an excellent read, very engaging and exciting. I was shouting in joy at times and biting my nails by the end!

Futuristic

Not too shabby although i would have liked more detail into what truly makes the windup girl tick.

Editor should find new profession

The level of unrestrained author self indulgence is beyond belief or tolerance. I'm almost half way through the book and I'm not sure there's even a story here.This author's best, as edited, is worse than William Gibson's worst. 'Nuff said. Caveat reader.