Helpful Score: 1
Fantastic world-building, let down by less-than fantastic characterization, and "scenes of a sexual nature" that are so overdone that they cross over into becoming completely gratuitous.
5-stars for the technical details of Bacigalupi's post-petroleum world, in which bleakly nihilist cyberpunk meets clever steampunk. Power in this world comes straight from "calories," the sheer brute strength of the human under-class, and genetically modified beasts such as the mastodon-like megadonts. The tension generated by animal- and man-power is stored in cleverly engineered "kink-spring" batteries, which power almost everything. Where battery power won't supply a solution, human ingenuity comes into play: high status buildings keep their elevators running by using human ballast as counter-weights; computers are powered by foot treadles, like old-fashioned sewing machines; travel, unless you are very wealthy and have access to a coal-diesel vehicle, is by rickshaw or sail.
It would all be very very clever, and sometimes even quite elegant, but this is a world in which horrors abound: thoughtless genetic tampering has resulted in widespread disease and cancers, and whole species of plants and animals have been wiped out. Combined with climate change and rising sea levels, this has resulted in untold death and misery everywhere: the collapse of the United States and the European Union, and the destruction of small countries all over the globe. Every page reveals some horror or other, and the terrible thing is that it's all horribly plausible (especially now ... oh, yes, hello from 2020, especially now ...)
A future version of the Kingdom of Thailand is holding back the misery and destruction -- just -- and holding on to its independence from foreign powers and agriculture conglomerates because of its cunningly protected seed bank, which allows the government that rules in the name of a saintly and popularly adored Child Queen, to feed its population with produce that hasn't been tainted by the modifications that have wreaked so much havoc. But this independence in always under threat from the evil gene-ripping conglomerates, and their shadowy reps, the "calorie men."
So far, so terrifically good. But then, we need a plot to justify all this, and that's where things go off the (megadont-powered) rails. Bacigalupi juggles the perspective of five characters, whose personal dramas and ulterior motives play out against the background of an attempt by an agri conglomerate to undermine the existing Thai government, exploit an ambitious opposition, and get its hands on the seedbank. That sounds good, doesn't it? -- and in the final quarter of the book, when it gets to the point, it is: a quite exciting, and thoughtful rendering of how a revolution might be triggered, how the various actors (good, bad and totally self-serving) might misread cues, misunderstand evidence, act selfishly, and set responses in motion that they subsequently have no control over.
BUT to get to that point, you have to get though a lot of buildup that feels increasingly ... awkward, and like spinning its wheels. I mentioned the "scenes of a sexual nature" -- trust me, I'm not squeamish, but I genuinely feel that they were wildly, and offensively, overdone. Emiko, the windup girl of the title, is a genetically modified humanoid who has been created to be a rich man's plaything, and her abandonment in Bangkok has resulted in a life of degradation and suffering -- I get it. Point made. We don't need a - literal -- blow by blow.
I'm also concerned about the depiction of the Asian characters in this novel. They feel cartoonish -- too very, very good, too very very bad, and even when Bacigalupi tried to introduce complications, they feel like cartoonish complications. I was deeply uncomfortable with a lot of that ...
I'm trying to be fair in my rating for this novel. It's a curate's egg of a book: excellent, in parts. If you are intrigued by my description of Bacigalupi's bleak future, I'd suggest trying his short fiction, some fine novellas collected in "Pump Six and Other Stories."
5-stars for the technical details of Bacigalupi's post-petroleum world, in which bleakly nihilist cyberpunk meets clever steampunk. Power in this world comes straight from "calories," the sheer brute strength of the human under-class, and genetically modified beasts such as the mastodon-like megadonts. The tension generated by animal- and man-power is stored in cleverly engineered "kink-spring" batteries, which power almost everything. Where battery power won't supply a solution, human ingenuity comes into play: high status buildings keep their elevators running by using human ballast as counter-weights; computers are powered by foot treadles, like old-fashioned sewing machines; travel, unless you are very wealthy and have access to a coal-diesel vehicle, is by rickshaw or sail.
It would all be very very clever, and sometimes even quite elegant, but this is a world in which horrors abound: thoughtless genetic tampering has resulted in widespread disease and cancers, and whole species of plants and animals have been wiped out. Combined with climate change and rising sea levels, this has resulted in untold death and misery everywhere: the collapse of the United States and the European Union, and the destruction of small countries all over the globe. Every page reveals some horror or other, and the terrible thing is that it's all horribly plausible (especially now ... oh, yes, hello from 2020, especially now ...)
A future version of the Kingdom of Thailand is holding back the misery and destruction -- just -- and holding on to its independence from foreign powers and agriculture conglomerates because of its cunningly protected seed bank, which allows the government that rules in the name of a saintly and popularly adored Child Queen, to feed its population with produce that hasn't been tainted by the modifications that have wreaked so much havoc. But this independence in always under threat from the evil gene-ripping conglomerates, and their shadowy reps, the "calorie men."
So far, so terrifically good. But then, we need a plot to justify all this, and that's where things go off the (megadont-powered) rails. Bacigalupi juggles the perspective of five characters, whose personal dramas and ulterior motives play out against the background of an attempt by an agri conglomerate to undermine the existing Thai government, exploit an ambitious opposition, and get its hands on the seedbank. That sounds good, doesn't it? -- and in the final quarter of the book, when it gets to the point, it is: a quite exciting, and thoughtful rendering of how a revolution might be triggered, how the various actors (good, bad and totally self-serving) might misread cues, misunderstand evidence, act selfishly, and set responses in motion that they subsequently have no control over.
BUT to get to that point, you have to get though a lot of buildup that feels increasingly ... awkward, and like spinning its wheels. I mentioned the "scenes of a sexual nature" -- trust me, I'm not squeamish, but I genuinely feel that they were wildly, and offensively, overdone. Emiko, the windup girl of the title, is a genetically modified humanoid who has been created to be a rich man's plaything, and her abandonment in Bangkok has resulted in a life of degradation and suffering -- I get it. Point made. We don't need a - literal -- blow by blow.
I'm also concerned about the depiction of the Asian characters in this novel. They feel cartoonish -- too very, very good, too very very bad, and even when Bacigalupi tried to introduce complications, they feel like cartoonish complications. I was deeply uncomfortable with a lot of that ...
I'm trying to be fair in my rating for this novel. It's a curate's egg of a book: excellent, in parts. If you are intrigued by my description of Bacigalupi's bleak future, I'd suggest trying his short fiction, some fine novellas collected in "Pump Six and Other Stories."
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