Pump Six and Other Stories

By: Paolo Bacigalupi

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Eileen Stevens, James Chen

Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

Paolo Bacigalupi's debut collection demonstrates the power and reach of the science-fiction short story. Social criticism, political parable, and environmental advocacy lie at the center of Paolo's work. Each of the stories herein is at once a warning and a celebration of the tragic comedy of the human experience.

The 11 stories in Pump Six represent the best of Paolo's work, including the Hugo nominee "Yellow Card Man", the Nebula-and Hugo-nominated story "The People of Sand and Slag", and the Sturgeon Award-winning story "The Calorie Man". The title story is original to this collection.

With this book, Paolo Bacigalupi takes his place alongside SF short-fiction masters Ted Chiang, Kelly Link and others, as an important young writer that directly and unabashedly tackles today's most important issues.

©2010 Paolo Bacigalupi (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Bacigalupi’s stellar first collection of 10 stories displays the astute social commentary and consciousness-altering power of the very best short form science fiction…Deeply thought provoking, Bacigalupi’s collected visions of the future are equal parts cautionary tale, social and political commentary and poignantly poetic, revelatory prose.” ( Publishers Weekly)

“ Pump Six and Other Stories… quite strikingly positions Paolo Bacigalupi as one of the best young SF writers of our time: a writer who has already done first-rate work and who is ready, I feel sure, to really thrill us.” ( SF Site)

“Paolo Bacigalupi is the best short-fiction writer to emerge in the past decade….He combines beautiful prose, startling imagery, and shocking ideas in unforgettable ways.” (Robert J. Sawyer)

"Three narrators perform the works individually, bringing the stories starkly to life. James Chen adds a special touch with his Chinese accent in the performance of “Pocketful of Dharma,” an odd melding of science and religion. The readers craft their performances to wring every ounce of drama from Bacigalupi's words." ( AudioFile)

Dystopic futures

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

No. The stories are snippets from an ill defined poorly constructed distant future (except for soft skin which is not worth listening to). There are no clues as to how the world devolved to the current state. The best of the stories "Pump six" involves the obsolescence of essential equipment- waste management pumps which were no longer manufactured or maintained-with no one around with the knowledge or skill to repair them. All of the stories are unsatisfying.

What was most disappointing about Paolo Bacigalupi’s story?

The lack of information about how the dystopic societies evolved or where they were heading. They are all cut off in midsentence.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

All of the narrators were excellent dealing with difficult pronunciations and thoughts

Was Pump Six and Other Stories worth the listening time?

No. No educational or entertainment value. What you get are the fanciful dalliance of a creative mind thinking about snippets of a dystopic future.

Any additional comments?

All of the stories (except soft skin) were interesting musings about a future which has devolved so that the people are stupid and knowledge and energy sources have regressed. I don't think any of these stories have any chance of occurring.

Engaging, compelling, but not exactly cheerful

These are dystopian visions, and some stories include very violent scenes. They're well written and well read by the narrators. I just hope that they're wrong about where we're headed. All of the stories are IMHO quite plausible depictions of the future.

Better than most.

Mostly typical drama set in fictitious worlds. Not a lot to get you thinking though.

not again

if you've read the wind up girl there is nothing more on offer here. I find this guys view of life too american. Everyone is either sad but virtuous victims or gritty power brokers. Maybe if you're fifteen you might find this titilating or confronting but if you've lived any kind of life you will just find it unrealistic and annoying.

IT'S AS DELICATE AS ROCK

WHEN TIME'S ARE DRY
At the time of this writing this has received a 4.2 rating from us the readers. If you consider that this is a group of short stories that is a great rating. I like short story collections and I have found that most rate around 3.6 to 3.8 by the majority of listeners, so this 4.2 is a statement in itself and comparable to a 4.5 of a novel.

SHE'S ABOUT AS SHARP AS A MARBLE
I am usually happy with a group of short stories if their is one story I really like. This collection had two stories that I loved, Pocketful of Dharma and Pop Squad. There were two that were excellent, The People of Sand and Slag and Pump Six and one that was better then average, The Fluted Girl. Yellow Card Man and Softer were good and The Tamarisk Hunter was average. I did not like The Pasho or The Calorie Man. None of these stories are uplifting, they are mostly dark and all futures are a dystopia. PB's writing style flows easily, is easy to understand even though you are in a world you are not familiar with and his imagination is interesting to explore. I especially liked the living building and I liked the Dali Lama in the computer and ...

The People Of Sand And Slag, was included in Dozier's Year's Best # 22.
The Calorie Man, was included in Dozier's Year's Best # 23
The Yellow Card Man, was included Dozier's Year's Best # 24 and Jonathan Strahan's The Best of Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume one, copyright 2007.

A NAIL THAT STANDS UP GETS KNOCKED DOWN

Opinions on narrators can differ widely, so this is just my irk, but I am not a fan of Jonathan Davis. Many reviewers have claimed they could listen to him all night. I did all right in one of the stories, but in the rest he irritated me. To me it sounds like he smokes a lot of pot before reading. Stevens and Chen were great. I especially like the Asian accents, since most of these stories take place in China or the Near East.

Great Stories

I believe this is the best set of short stories I've ever purchased. Outstanding underlying themes make interesting comentary of the path humanity has chosen.

Superb science fiction.

This is a very well written collection of eerie and frighteningly possible tales of what life could be like in the not too distant future. Though all by the same author, the styles change. Very good narration by the readers too. Good characterization.

Scenes from broken futures

Among the current crop of hot science fiction writers, Paolo Bacigalupi is one of my favorites. To me, he's the latest to grab the grimy wheel of the "broken-down future" subgenre and steer it towards nightmares extrapolated from humanity's current dysfunctions. You know, destruction of the natural environment. Running out of fossil fuels. Carelessly gene-modified organisms run amok. Marginalization and exploitation of the poor by the rich and powerful. Agribusiness conglomerates that control humanity's food supply, plant viruses having killed all natural foodstuffs.

Readers unfamiliar with Bacigalupi might want to start with one of his novels, but if you're hungry for more, the pieces here are an interesting chronicle of a writer developing his ideas. Two, in fact, are set in the world of The Windup Girl, and give extra dimension to characters and issues in that book. The rest seem to take place in other future timelines (except for one set in the present day), but contain ideas that clearly influenced the direction of his novels. To me, it's always fun to read short stories that are preliminary sketches for an author's long-form work.

Though there could have been more variety to the settings, most of the pieces here are quite good, showcasing Bacigalupi's talent for description, world-building, and taut storytelling. What makes him worth reading, IMO, isn't so much that the science of his stories is totally plausible, but that they start with a few grains of truth about human nature and use the science fiction setting to craft nuanced moral parables. One of my favorite stories here is set in a post-apocalypse world, and turns the battle of wills between a young scholar and his grandfather into a smart commentary on the endless struggle between the forces of civilization and knowledge, and those of tradition and group identity. Another takes place in an all-too-plausible near future, in which small farmers of central California find themselves losing a water rights battle against the government and the water-hungry big cities. And there's the title story, which takes place in a vaguely Idiocracy-ish New York City, where people rely on sophisticated machines built long ago by now-defunct companies, but no longer understand the principles behind their repair (I liked that the ape-like "trogs" in that world aren't really explained, but the reader still gets a sense of how they came to exist).

Be warned, there's a lot of bleakness here (illuminated by a few slender rays of hope), so this may not be the collection you'll want to dive into after a funeral or a bad breakup. But it's bracing stuff, demonstrating the power of short science fiction to suck readers into another world, then gut-punch our minds. As always, audiobook narrator Jonathan Davis, with his languid, sardonic tone, is a fine choice for Bacigalupi's writing style. The other readers do pretty good jobs as well.

Unrelentingly brutal, brilliantly imaginative

Paolo Bacigalupi write stories about bad people. Nearly everyone in the worlds he creates, including his protagonists, is a selfish, hardened, small-minded person frantically engaged in a Hobbesian struggle against nearly every other character. Trust, kindness, and friendliness are essentially nonexistent here. The ideas are wildly imaginative, the sci-fi cleverly crafted, and the worlds brilliantly realized. So if you like cool sci-fi and don't mind reading about brutal shmucks living hellish nightmares, this book is for you!

Definitely a pulse on possible futures

The performances definitely brought to life this rich oil slick colored text. Not all stories captured my interest, especially when it is the banal reasonings of murdering a spouse (I honestly couldn't make it through this one). However many captured my imagination and it brought me to wistfully see our present as if it was a time of better days gone by, and it certainly wet my interest in exploring more from this author... probably when I start to trick myself into feeling hope for the future.

Certainly not a SciFi for everyone, but it is well worth a listen if you are looking for some sobering looks into the human condition when it comes into contact with advances of technology, declining environment, increasing poverty and evolution in order to survive.