The Windup Girl

By: Paolo Bacigalupi

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

Length: 19 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

Earphones Award Winner (AudioFile Magazine)

Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories.

There, he encounters Emiko...Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.

What happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism's genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? In The Windup Girl, award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi returns to the world of The Calorie Man (Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award-winner, Hugo Award nominee, 2006) and Yellow Card Man (Hugo Award nominee, 2007) in order to address these poignant questions.

BONUS AUDIO: In an exclusive introduction, author Paolo Bacigalupi explains how a horrible trip to Thailand led to the idea for The Windup Girl.

©2009 Paolo Bacigalupi (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

• Hugo Award, Best Novel, 2010
• Nebula Award, Best Novel, 2009
• Best Books of 2009, Publishers Weekly
• 10 Best Fiction Books of 2009, Time magazine
• Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy 2009, Library Journal

"Paolo Bacigalupi's debut sci-fi novel is a stunner, especially as interpreted under the careful ministrations of narrator Jonathan Davis. The novel postulates a corrupt near-future society in Southeast Asia, where powerful corporations vie for control over rice yields by wielding bioengineered viruses as tools for profit." ( AudioFile)

" The Windup Girl will almost certainly be the most important SF novel of the year for its willingness to confront the most cherished notions of the genre, namely that our future is bright and we will overcome our selfish, cruel nature." ( Book Page)

"A classic dystopian novel likely to be short listed for the Nebula and Hugo Awards" ( SF Signal)

Everything Moves Slower in the Heat

If you have never lived and worked in a really hot and humid place, you may not be able to appreciate how well Paolo has captured its essence. Paolo soon had me smelling the pungent musk of stale human sweat and recalling how everything does slow down; how the heat and humidity saps the body and fogs the mind. To this environmental condition he deftly adds strange new beasts, the claustrophobia of a closed society, and the paranoia of immigrants competing for a future with the ever present poor. To this setting he adds his characters full of bravado and his Thailand of tomorrow is convincing if not compelling.

Then there is the Windup Girl; a creature condemned to death simply because she lives. I find her intriguing precisely because I can image that during my lifetime someone will genetically engineer new life forms and like her some of these new life forms may be capable of reasoned thought; and even love and hate.

The Windup Girl like all truly great science fiction lets me live in that future today.

I agree with Slow, the narration needlessly drug out this story. When I switched to my MP3 player's fast setting things were much improved.

Interesting :) Very Ironic. Well written.

I KNOW who the main character of the story is...but it didn't really feel like that until somewhere near the end of the tale (even though the title DOES say it all). LOL. A very "anti-" book is so many ways. A small collection of interesting people populate the story line. Getting close to them, getting to know them...takes the entire story. Plenty of foreboding on parts of the ending but an interesting trip nonetheless (because you don't see ALL of it coming). Very much of the flavor of a broken world (not my preference) ....but still... worth the trip. An interesting read/listen.

Pessimistic, gritty, and interesting.

This story is dark, graphic, and full of unlikable characters. That is what made me give an overall rating of only 3. I didn't enjoy the story because I kept thinking that something would have to turn out positive, but it didn't. I also wanted to like one of the characters, and I didn't. Not even the Windup Girl herself...I didn't like her...I just pitied her.

The story is excellently written and from a very interesting perspective of a possible future. Other people may like stories that show the negative side of humanity; if you do, you will really enjoy this book. The author had vision...incredible vision, and I am always amazed at how people invent these worlds; in this he did an excellent job. The Narrator was superb and made me continue listening, even though looking at these characters was uncomfortable for me.

A well written twist on steampunk

The setting is original - I haven't seen too many sci-fi stories set in Thailand, and the overall feel, with the lack of electricity clashing with the high tech of the genetic rippers produces a world akin to a hot, sweaty steampunk novel, though I've seen it referred to as a 'biopunk' work, which does kind of fit.

The writing is solid, truly achieving the feel of a failed society, the heat and sweat of a summer in Thailand, and the desperation of almost all the characters. All sides are represented, and whilst much of the story follows Lake and Emiko, the texture of the world is shown through an incorruptible white shirt and former Muay Thai fighter Jaidee Rojjanasukchai, his assistant, and a yellow card, Hock Seng, a formerly wealthy trader from Malaysia who now runs the spring factory since his entire family were slaughtered in his homeland.

The whole storyline twists and turns, and overall, the plot has a satisfactory outcome, winding through politics, military intervention and indeed the indigenous beliefs of the Thai people themselves, and their pragmatic approach to this new world order. It isn't a book which relies on its setting to prop up a weak story, it balances the two quite well, which makes it easy to get into and quite satisfying right to the end. Indeed, at the end you might realise that the Thais, as underdogs have held together far better as a society, than the west represented here by the huge seed companies, and other nations which have embraced them and fallen.

Difficult Read

To be fair this is not the type of book I typically read and I did listen to the end but found it painstaking. I spent much time confused about which characters were which.

Incredibly Well Woven & Thought Provoking

Any additional comments?

Initially a “slow burn”, but this is an incredibly well woven, thought provoking, and haunting science fiction story. The characters read so uniquely! Each chapter brims with culture, both real and imagined. Truly worthy of it’s Nebula and Hugo Awards. Paolo Bacigalupi is a talented author. Check out the Audible performance, if you’re pressed for traditional reading time. Jonathan Davis really makes the story come alive.

All Wound Up

Paolo Bacigalupi's first full length novel takes us to a teeming Thailand in a dystopian future that is more of a post-Malthusian world than post-apocalyptic. Rising sea levels, pandemics, mass extinction, genetically engineered plants, animals, deadly microbes, and even humans (the semi-robotic Windups of the title), corporate dominance, mass poverty and starvation, social and political unrest leading to coups, civil wars, fascism, and genocide.

All in all, not a feel-good walk in the park. But like the best dystopian visions, one that says as much about where we are today as it does about where we might be heading.

This is tough read not just because of its relentlessly bleak themes and settings. It's nearly 20 hours long and doesn't really have much forward narrative plot momentum. PB doesn't rely on exposition to explain the world he builds in thin layers, preferring to develop character in addition to themes and settings. The result is more of an impressionistic painting, until things boil over in the last five hours.

Which is a good thing, except that in audio format, with the story hopping around among a number of primary characters, with many terms and events undefined or obliquely explained, it can be hard to follow. I highly recommend reading a plot summary beforehand -- I did that after struggling through the first couple of hours, and it turned my experience from one-star to five-star, since I was able to follow along more closely.

The impressionism does give way to a hyper-kinetic John Woo movie in the last five hours, and that too was difficult to follow, although it unfolded at a more precipitous pace. Other reviewers liked that section best, I liked it least, having grown accustomed to the style of the first 15 hours. So that drops my rating to four stars, although this is really a love-it-or-hate-it book -- you'll either be engrossed from get-go, or will stop listening after a few frustrating hours, or (like me) swing back and forth between the two extremes.

One more recommendation: set the speed to 1.25x right from the start. The narration is very good, but it is too slow -- 1.25x is just right.

Interesting plot, flat characters

What did you like best about The Windup Girl? What did you like least?

It has an interesting plot set in a near dystopian future where fossil fuels have run out and "calorie companies" (which bear more than a passing resemblance to Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland) have wrecked the environment with "gene hacked" plagues and infertile staples. The tension is between the isolated Thai kingdom and a calorie company spy seeking to steal the secrets of their seed vault.
However, I couldn't find myself drawn into any of the characters. Perhaps my dilemma is that I just don't like the primary character as a person, so I can't find myself caring about what happens to him. The more likable characters don't get enough description time for me to really empathize with them.

Would you be willing to try another book from Paolo Bacigalupi? Why or why not?

Certainly! This was a great debut, and I hope that Bacigalupi continues to write.

Have you listened to any of Jonathan Davis’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

He's an excellent narrator! His pace is perfect and the character voices contrast nicely so I can always tell who is speaking.

Could you see The Windup Girl being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Only if Michael Moore makes it...

Any additional comments?

Steampunk meets enviro-activism! What could be more fun that dirigibles running on clockwork systems powered by massive springs wound tight by genetically engineered elephants!

Really interesting look at a potential future,

Loved the concept of this book, the characters, and the over all plot. Did think it finished a little fast, which may be the result of editing, but it was certainly an enjoyable experience.

Stunning Book - Gritty and Real

I don't give five star reviews lightly, but this book was truly amazing. This book is a thrill ride from start to finish. The characters are complex and the author takes the bold step of trusting the reader to decide who are the hero's and who are the villains. The world and it's politics are painted with such gritty realism that you become engrossed within them as you read. I would love to see the treatment that a premium network could give to this amazing book.