San Francisco : Night Shade Books, c2010.
361 p. ; 23 cm.
"Feeling down" in the title of this post is not meant to be a negative critique of this book, just a description of how its grim view of the future had me feeling (and thinking) about the grim present we are living in.
Bacigalupi sets his novel in a future Thai kingdom that has survived the collapse of the global carbon economy, survived the ravages of plant and human epidemics sparked by genetically modified organisms, survived catastrophic climate change, and survived the predatory depredations of global corporate raiders. Quite a future, isn't it? But will it survive the infighting of factions within its ruling parties, and the attempts of global genetic corporation raiders from the outside? You'll have to read it to find out!
Notice that I haven't even mentioned the novel's eponymous windup girl, Emiko. She is probably the saddest and most troubling character in the novel. A creation of Japanese geneticists, she is one of the "new people" who is meant to be an obedient servant, secretary, assistant and sexual plaything of the male Japanese elite. Her genetic makeup (along with strict training) compels her to be obedient, and makes her physically stunning. Unfortunately her "owner" has abandoned her in Thailand where "new people" are hated, in constant danger, and not accepted as having any of the rights of other human beings. She survives as the grotesquely exploited show-piece of a tawdry strip-club/brothel, but eventually finds herself at the center of explosive events in the kingdom when a foreign corporate agent takes a liking to her.
Bacigalupi has a wild imagination and has done copious research for this novel. Unlike Ship Breaker, which was clearly a young adult novel, The Windup Girl is an adult novel, but will appeal to sophisticated readers who want to move past The Hunger Games or Divergent for something more complex and weighty.
