The Windup Girl

Paolo Bacigalupi strikes a sweet spot for a brand of fiction I like to call survivalist SF. He starts with a premise that's been used since the Golden Age of science fiction: humanity is on the brink of extinction. Not only does Bacigalupi use this familiar predicament to write a super exciting story with great characters, but he builds an intriguing history of how humanity has gotten itself into such a mess.

Bacigalupi does a far better job than I ever could detailing the privations suffered by survivors in Bangkok, and dropping intriguing nuggets of information on blister rust, cibiscosis, Calorie Men, White Shirts, and Yellow Cards. I'd rather focus on what makes the Windup Girl stand out in the field of survivalist SF.

When reading science fiction about life after large scale disaster, I sometimes end up depressed, dreading the story, and counting the pages until I make it to the grueling end. I didn't have this reaction to the Windup Girl because the story is just as much about the beginning of a new chapter in humanity as it is about the end of the old. As in much survivalist SF, most characters in the Windup Girl are motivated to save their own skin, and convergence of their struggle to survive meets in vicious conflict. But not all characters are driven solely by the urge to save their own lives- some are worried for their families, their friends, their people, their country, and some even risk their lives for personal and religious values.

And perhaps the thing that tickled me the most about the Windup Girl was Bacigalupi's use of motif. From the dangerous, coiled DNA of a mutating plague, to kink spring energy technology, to the stutter-stop movements of the title character, to the tightly wound plot, Bacigalupi really embraced the idea of winding things up- and the repeated motif brought a touch of literary quality that put his book above much of the other survivalist SF I've read.

There were a few minor disappointments as I read the novel. Bacigalupi's portrayal of Buddhism proved that he has observed the difference between street Buddhism in Thailand and the Western intellectual interpretation practiced, for instance, at a well-to-do Zen center in downtown San Francisco. However, Bacigalupi's attempt to make Buddhist characters despise engineered beings based on lack of a soul was not at all consistent with Buddhism, and seemed a little silly to me. And one final point: although the prose was good throughout the novel, the use of the word "blossom" to describe every blow, gunshot, or injury drove me a little crazy.

The Windup Girl ranks 2,918 in Books on Amazon.com. It is not available for the Kindle.