The Windup Girl

By: Paolo Bacigalupi

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

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)

Brilliant and Engrossing

W.B. Yeats wrote, "Whatever flames upon the night, man's own resinous heart has fed." Bacigalupi's imagined future Thailand, his characters, and his sure and economical prose bring weight and life to that assertion. The characters especially are memorable in a Dickensian way.

The dystopian future of the story is all too plausible. Coastal cities drowned by melting ice caps. Giant corporations supplanting governments and destroying human freedom in the name of ever growing profits. Warfare of the rich upon the poor, conducted with famine, and genetically engineered insects, parasites and viruses. Bacigalupi makes every challenge real and still leaves room for unexpected hope.

I was slow to warm to Jonathan Davis' performance, but once well underway, his clear and distinctive voicing, both for narration and for each character made the novel all the more engaging and memorable. In a way I seldom do, I felt I had missed nothing by listening to the book instead of reading it. Kudos to Davis, and brickbats for me who was so slow to notice his mastery.

A Scary Fluid Line Between Natural & Unnatural

The Wind Up Girl is a strong work of dystopia science fiction filled with imaginative, vivid, and provocative ideas, settings, and characters that cast a horrible light on our present world here and now. The novel takes place in the capital city of a future Thailand that is barely holding out against global warming, scarcity of fuels and foods (calories), and prevalence of mutating, genetically engineered plagues that attack flora and fauna. Powerful genetic-agricultural corporations who control the world food and gene supply are itching to get their hands on Thailand's secret, "natural" seed bank. Genetically engineered people (wind ups), elephants, and cats play their roles (or break free from them). In this situation Bacicalupi tells his story from the point of view of several compelling characters whose schemes and dreams and destinies become ever more intertwined as the novel progresses.

Some reviewers have complained that the novel is too slow, especially in the first half or so, but I found it completely engrossing. Some reviewers have said that there are no likable characters, but I found all of them human and increasingly compelling. I sympathize with the reviewer who said that he'd have preferred shorter or fewer of the movie-type action scenes that kick in as the novel surges through its climax, although the reader, Jonathan Davis, does such a splendid job that I found myself excited rather than repulsed by the action.

Jonathan Davis delivers a virtuoso performance, convincingly reading parts for a Japanese wind up girl, an aging Chinese refugee entrepreneur, a Thai double agent, an American corporation operative, and more, his voice becoming appropriately tender or intense, cynical or ominous, jaunty or morose, depending on what's going on in the story.

All in all a fine listen!

Thought-provoking; well-written; superbly narrated

This book is well worth your time. Like all good science fiction, it is a meditation on the present. It is a thought experiment in which trends and technologies that are accepted today are taken to their logical conclusion: agri-businesses move from genetically engineering crops to intentionally releasing blights to destroy native plants. When those blights spiral out of control and all that is left is genetically engineered food, who controls the world? Food companies. And when the entire world is on the edge of starvation, what is the most valuable commodity? Calories. But far from being preachy, this book brings that alternate world vividly alive as four characters struggle to survive in a country that is teetering on chaos. The book compares very favorably to Oryx and Crake, and is far superior to Cormac McCarthy's dismal "The Road." The book has some great writing, and falters only when it focuses for long periods on cinemtatic-action sequences as opposed to character development and its fascinating description of a frightening future that may be closer than we think. The narration is superb. You can skip the sex scenes and violence; they don't advance the plot except to establish that in desperate times, life is cheap and human dignity is a luxury available only to those who are well-fed and safe.

A must-read for fans of futuristic dystopias

Bacigalupi offers a plausible vision of the future as a world ruined by greed and ambition. Lushly descriptive and imaginative. The title is a bit inappropriate and the story could have been edited down in a few places, but it is an outstanding read that will long occupy my thoughts. The narration was great too -- well worth your credit.

Bioengineering as evolution - neat concept.

If you could sum up The Windup Girl in three words, what would they be?

Clever, provocative, possible

Who was your favorite character and why?

The bioengineered woman; she mirrored the struggle of oppressed people of all locations and times.

What does Jonathan Davis bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He did a lovely job, changing voices to fit characters, reading with feeling, just a really nice reder to listen to.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Any additional comments?

Worthwhile book!

Fantastic

A huge, epic tale, well told and well read. If this is indicative of the authors future work, then he is on his way to a brilliant career.

An Interesting Trip to World Relatively Realistic

Listening to the Windup Girl was definitely an adventure for me and I enjoyed it, for I have always liked science fiction, especially when the world created has some realistic aspects. The first half of the book does have many different subplots that eventually came together in the second half of the book. I feel that they come together nicely and every tale is completed, but still leaves the opportunity for the reader to imagine what happens after. Keeping up the characters in the first half of the book is somewhat difficult and one can easily become lost in the who's who if careful attention is not paid. I do not feel the first half of the book is boring if one likes details and a good narration, which Jonathan Davis does a fantastic job. His voice can easily switch between male and female, from American to Thai to Chinese, young to old. I really loved his reading of the Windup Girl and probably liked the book more because of his reading.

One aspect of the book that I felt was a little overboard was the detail telling of the Windup Girl's situation in the whore house. I understand that it was important to the story, but some of the details could have been left out without losing anything from the plot line.

Overall, the Windup is a good tale of something could easily happen in the future. It is a story for those who really like science fiction and can deal with some objective scene here and there. I would recommend with a that word of caution.

An engrossing but draining experience

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

This book is written for a very particular mindset. If you are very much into a dystopian/post-apocalyptic nightmare world where technology has run rampant this will hook you (as it did me) right away. However, to stick with it, you have to be comfortable with a book that alludes more than it describes and be able to bear with a relentless sense of hopelessness that pervades until the end of the book.

It IS a very well written book, but I confess I found it difficult to remain engaged at times because it could be very depressing and/or downright opaque.

What could Paolo Bacigalupi have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Bacigalupi world builds through inference. He describes things like "rust" and talks about terms like "Calorie Man" early on but never actually gives a good description of what those things *are*, just what they mean to other people. It's not a tool unique to this book, but I guess I'm old fashioned and prefer to be told just what terms mean in the beginning so I could understand their context for the rest of the book.

What does Jonathan Davis bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Davis did an amazing job of narrating this book. All the accents he had to develop and bring in were difficult yet none sounded like a parody of Asian accents, but rather accents based on careful study of real accents.

Absolutely outstanding and unique story

Would you listen to The Windup Girl again? Why?

The story is entirely unique. The characters are nuanced and grow in the midst of their circumstances. The reader does a remarkable job telling the story.

I look at fruit in a whole new way

Reading this book changed the way I feel about my grocery store, about the huge piles of delicious, inexpensive produce I see there. It will for you too.

This is a complex story, and as you-the-reader are trying to understand what is going on you are simultaneously learning what has happened to bring the world to this state. It is a dizzying experience. At first I could not decipher which of the characters was meant to be the protagonist and I felt some degree of distaste for them all. By the middle of the book, however, I loved each of them in some way or another - as much for their flaws as in spite of them. The ending was deeply satisfying, although I wish I could continue listening on and on.

Jonathan Davis is a favorite reader of mine and I chose this book largely because of him; he did not disappoint. The dystopian future Bangkok was an amazing setting for this engrossing story, and Davis' subtle, dexterous accents distinguish the characters without distracting from the narrative.

One of the best books I have read. Ever.