The Windup Girl

Paolo Bacigalupi has written a unusual but compelling novel involving the biotechnology of food sources, mutant animals and insects, and limited fuel options. Because of the lack of background provided by the author, I found the first fifty pages a bit confusing; however, it is so well written that I was able to quickly figure out what was happening.

The novel is set in Thailand 200 years into the future. Anderson Lake is a calorie man working for AgriGen, an American genetic food company, under the guise of a factory manager making a new type of energy storage unit known as kink-springs. These springs are wound in a factory that is manned by Thai peasants and aided by genetically altered elephants, known as megodonts. Anderson's real goal is to get his hands on the Thai seed bank for his genehacking company. His factory foreman is a displaced Chinese "yellow card " from Malaysia, Hock Seng, who wants to steal the blueprints for the kink-springs, so he can sell them to a gangster known as the Dung Lord. I told you this gets a little confusing.

Anderson falls in love with genetically modified Emiko, a Japanese windup girl. The windups are considered trash by the Thais and could be mulched at any time. She is working at a sex club, where she is sexually abased daily. Emiko's goal is to find a place in Thailand where supposedly her kind, the New People, live in peace. Their liaison will prove to be tragic for everyone later in the book.

Intertwined with these people are three political powers vying for control of Thailand and independence from the world powers. First, there is the Environment Ministry led by General Pracha, Captain Jaidee, and his Lieutenant Kanya, a mole for the Trade Ministry. The Environment Ministry's duties include: stopping illegal imports, identifying new diseases caused by genetic alterations, and destroying anything deemed a threat to Thailand...unless bribed. The second power is led by Akkarat of the Trade Ministry, who wants to increase imports beyond what the Environmental Ministry will allow. The third power is the protector of the Child Queen, the most powerful man in Thailand, the Somdet Chaopraya. Also involved as a outside power is the mysterious Gibbons, a geneticist, who is the Thai's last resort against new diseases.

When all of these entities collide, all hell breaks loose. This is not only a meaningful story, but a genetic engineering warning! When man tinkers with genes, he could cause a catastrophic and irreversible calamity.

 RATING: 5 stars out of 5

Comment: This novel is a fairly new genre of writing known as biopunk.The Windup Girl tied with The City & The City for the 2010 Hugo award for best novel. Although Paolo Bacigalupi has written many short stories and essays, this is his first novel.