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)

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.

Absolute must read near-future dystopia

Amazing. I can't believe it's not a movie already, not that I want it to be.

Near-future horror and hope. Refreshingly un-Eurocentric and absolutely plausible.

Love it.

Very emotional and inspiring

I read this book several months ago and decided I'd like to experience it again. the narrator and production team did an excellent job. This book is full of characters with different goals, but all their motivations are understandable and there actions are sensible in this world in the future where fossil fuel technology is a thing of the past.

Ending was rushed and loose ends.

The book was really good though it was a story of a scary futuristic world using Thailand as a back drop.The pace was good and characters well developed. The narrator did a fantastic job. My three stars was for the rushed ending leaving a few things unexplained.

Ok

This is not my genre so I’m sure it might be better than ok for someone who likes cyberpunk. For me the cyberpunk seemed to be just using different words for things that already have words. That took away from the story for me and brought the rating down to just ok. Narration was great.

Amazing (but brutal) novel, inconsistent reader

The Windup Girl is a revolutionary work of science fiction. It is one of the few books that transcends the genre, offering not just a compelling vision of a (dark, declining) future world, but a cast of deep, complex, ambiguous characters, and a very true-to-life outsider's take on the Thai culture. In other words, it rocks. If you don't listen to it, read it. Just be prepared for a very brutal, downbeat, heartbreaking story.

Jonathan Davis, however, was a mediocre narrator. He kept switching the voices that go with each character, so that I kept getting confused as to who was speaking. His accents were also not amazing (granted, Thai and Japanese accents are difficult, but that just means one should err on the side of a lighter accent).

All in all, despite the brutality of the story and the inconsistent narration, this was the second-best audiobook I have ever experienced (the best being Neal Stephenson's "Anathem"). I definitely recommend it.

Just can't get into this!!

I find myself wanting the story to progress to something I am interested in. I have listened to about 4 hours and I can't spend any more time waiting to care about this story. The concepts, the dystopian future world is pretty well thought out. The story just needs characters I am wanting to know more about. I may try again some time but for now I have too many others waiting in my cue that will hopefully be more interesting to listen to.

Good Ideas, Too Much Unneeded Detail

Any additional comments?

This book lies between 2 and 3 stars. So I'm going it 3 stars. I like the last quarter of the book and the overall story idea and world building where all quite good. But the author overwrites this book to such a degree that I found 3/4 of it to be pretty boring. If the book's page number where to be cut in half it would have greatly improved this story.