The Windup Girl | Paolo Bacigalupi

Being Part II of a six-part series (six?  WTF?! I thought it was supposed to be five!?) reviewing this year's crop of books nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel.  Boneshaker by Cherie Priest was reviewed here.

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Anyone who has attempted to lose weight (yours truly included) has at some point tackled the ominous calorie count: how much am I taking in?  How much should I be taking in?  Are there more calories in that milkshake or that scoop of non-fat yogurt?  How many calories can I burn?  By taking the stairs, riding the stationary bike, going for a walk?

Sure, pretty important when you're trying to lose a few pounds in time for the Summer season, but things become a bit more complicated when the survival of the world's at stake.  Paolo Bacigalupi's fantastic first novel The Windup Girl envisions a planet where global warming, food plagues and depletion of much of the Earth's natural resources have made the search for natural, resistant foods worth corporate sponsored raids and even war.  Taking place in Thailand, where a strategy of isolationism, ruthless scouring and the careful cultivation of one the last seedbanks on the planet, The Windup Girl is an example of the biopunk genre, an offshoot of cyberpunk where the manipulation of biology takes precedence over technology.  Bacigalupi's world is one of genetically bred fruits and grains, of tightly wound springs taking the place of batteries and where the counting of calories - both ingested and expended - makes or breaks the corporations vying to be the world's leader in the food wars.

Into this world enters a host of characters, including Emiko, the title character: an artificial human created as a companion for a wealthy Japanese businessman, only to be abandoned and forgotten, forced to work as a prostitute for a pittance of pay and a cupful of water to keep from overheating.  Anderson Lake, manager of a spring factory is also an undercover operative for AgriGen, whose primary objective is to get access to the seedbank controlled by the Thailand government.  His life becomes intertwined with Emiko's when she mentions a name, a name of a brilliant renegade scientist thought lost, and both get caught up in events beyond their control as warring factions inside the government suddenly burst out of control.

It's amazing how fully realized Bacigalupi's world is.  The multiple narratives serve not only to move the story along, but to flesh out an entire future for our planet, one that is both indicative of everything that is the hallmark of great science fiction without feeling at all familiar.  The Windup Girl is also very aware of what it wants you to feel about it's characters, and it's a huge credit to the book that it's takes a long time for us to really latch on to a person we care about, but that time doesn't at all feel wasted.  No one is black and white, there is no clear hero or heroine, and our allegiances change with each piece of new information the book brings our way.

Bursting with new ideas, clear and concise in its execution, and with a truly gorgeous cover to boot, The Windup Girl is a wonderful discovery for anyone looking for early peek at the future of great science fiction.  Having already won the Nebula Award for Best Novel, The Windup Girl is going to be the one to beat at this year's Hugo ceremonies.