Windup Review

Hey,

So last night I tore through the last 2/3rds of The Windup Girl by Paolo Baciglupi. It covers much of the same ground as World Made By Hand that I reviewed last time but...it's so much better.

Right, so the oil dried up and the climate went wonky and genetic engineering, deliberate and accidental, has devastated the ecosystem (and mutates every few years to take another shot). In the Contraction, globalization fell apart and countries retreated behind their borders. Now things are starting to expand again. Major agri-businesses are spreading their patented crops around the world by dirigible and hydrofoil clipper ships. Industry is powered by the calorie, either human muscle or the newly engineered mastadonts. Kink-springs and shake lights and hand-cranked radios are the order of the day.

Thailand is doing better than most. Bangkok sits behind massive sea walls and their Environment Ministry has been vigilant about keeping foreigners out and agressively attacking any new infection. They also, mysteriously seem to have a surprising array of foodstuffs -- things thought long gone. Certainly Anderson Lake, secret agent for AgriGen, thought they were long gone and he's working to uncover the secret program the Thais are using to bring back these crops. His cover is that he's a businessman with a factory producing new kinds of kink-springs. Since it's just a cover, he leaves the details to Hock Seng, a Chinese refugee who's struggling to rebuild the fortunes he lost after his family was killed by radical Islamists.

Meanwhile, Captain Jaidee of the Environmental Ministry and his Lieutenant Kanya kick off a raid that pits the powerful forces of the Environmental Ministry and the Trade Ministry against one another. The two powerful ministries embody the tension between Thailand's desire to protect itself from the dangers (genetic and corporate) of the outside world and their need to engage with the outside world for the technical skills and items they require to keep going.

Finally, into all of this stutters Emiko, a windup girl. Windups are artificial people grown in a vat with a mish-mash of human and animal DNA. Built in Japan to offset the aging population, Emiko is a personal servant with an artificial, herky-jerky movement to her limbs that give her kind the name of windup. Emiko was brought to Thailand by her owner on a business trip and then left behind when he flew back to Japan. Now she's living illegally in Thailand, an object of contempt, sheltering in a seedy sex club.

The book is well put-together. Characters are complex and have a variety of conflicting loyalties which makes it hard to pigeonhole them. In fact, the whole book tends towards shades of grey. As you uncover more and more about the characters your find yourself viewing them in different lights. The books is also pretty grim in a lot of ways. Just like the ocean that threatens to inundate Bangkok, all the characters are busy trying to hold back catastrophes of one kind or another. Often they fail. But they also keep fighting and keep looking for new ways to move forward and I think that's one of the things that makes the book so appealing to me. Humanity takes a lot of hard knocks in Windup Girl and it's not clear that they'll be able to hold out in the long run, but they keep trying. The characters remark that the Contraction forced by the end of oil is finally beginning to ebb and once more the world is becoming a smaller (if more slowly moving) place. They don't just throw up their hands and go back to the 1700's -- they can't, the rust blight will mutate and kill their crops. They have to keep advancing their genetics and their technologies as best they can because the world is a harsher place. And that's the kind of dystopia I can get behind.

So yeah, Windup Girl is a good read and hits a nice dystopia sweet spot for me.

later
Tom

Windup Review

Hey,

So last night I tore through the last 2/3rds of The Windup Girl by Paolo Baciglupi. It covers much of the same ground as World Made By Hand that I reviewed last time but...it's so much better.

Right, so the oil dried up and the climate went wonky and genetic engineering, deliberate and accidental, has devastated the ecosystem (and mutates every few years to take another shot). In the Contraction, globalization fell apart and countries retreated behind their borders. Now things are starting to expand again. Major agri-businesses are spreading their patented crops around the world by dirigible and hydrofoil clipper ships. Industry is powered by the calorie, either human muscle or the newly engineered mastadonts. Kink-springs and shake lights and hand-cranked radios are the order of the day.

Thailand is doing better than most. Bangkok sits behind massive sea walls and their Environment Ministry has been vigilant about keeping foreigners out and agressively attacking any new infection. They also, mysteriously seem to have a surprising array of foodstuffs -- things thought long gone. Certainly Anderson Lake, secret agent for AgriGen, thought they were long gone and he's working to uncover the secret program the Thais are using to bring back these crops. His cover is that he's a businessman with a factory producing new kinds of kink-springs. Since it's just a cover, he leaves the details to Hock Seng, a Chinese refugee who's struggling to rebuild the fortunes he lost after his family was killed by radical Islamists.

Meanwhile, Captain Jaidee of the Environmental Ministry and his Lieutenant Kanya kick off a raid that pits the powerful forces of the Environmental Ministry and the Trade Ministry against one another. The two powerful ministries embody the tension between Thailand's desire to protect itself from the dangers (genetic and corporate) of the outside world and their need to engage with the outside world for the technical skills and items they require to keep going.

Finally, into all of this stutters Emiko, a windup girl. Windups are artificial people grown in a vat with a mish-mash of human and animal DNA. Built in Japan to offset the aging population, Emiko is a personal servant with an artificial, herky-jerky movement to her limbs that give her kind the name of windup. Emiko was brought to Thailand by her owner on a business trip and then left behind when he flew back to Japan. Now she's living illegally in Thailand, an object of contempt, sheltering in a seedy sex club.

The book is well put-together. Characters are complex and have a variety of conflicting loyalties which makes it hard to pigeonhole them. In fact, the whole book tends towards shades of grey. As you uncover more and more about the characters your find yourself viewing them in different lights. The books is also pretty grim in a lot of ways. Just like the ocean that threatens to inundate Bangkok, all the characters are busy trying to hold back catastrophes of one kind or another. Often they fail. But they also keep fighting and keep looking for new ways to move forward and I think that's one of the things that makes the book so appealing to me. Humanity takes a lot of hard knocks in Windup Girl and it's not clear that they'll be able to hold out in the long run, but they keep trying. The characters remark that the Contraction forced by the end of oil is finally beginning to ebb and once more the world is becoming a smaller (if more slowly moving) place. They don't just throw up their hands and go back to the 1700's -- they can't, the rust blight will mutate and kill their crops. They have to keep advancing their genetics and their technologies as best they can because the world is a harsher place. And that's the kind of dystopia I can get behind.

So yeah, Windup Girl is a good read and hits a nice dystopia sweet spot for me.

later
Tom