Paolo Bacigalupi

"I'm inoculated against diseases that haven't even been released yet."

Spoken by one of the main characters, a Calorie Man who works for a multinational agribusiness, this quote aptly describe the world of The Windup Girl.

It's late 22nd century Thailand, the combustible fuel age is over, all energy is derived from labor, springs, and, essentially, calories. The western agribusinesses have destroyed most of the world's food supply, and control everything through sterile seed stock. Except in Thailand.

Bacigalupi has created such a believable world, one that is completely immersive, and yet one that does not overwhelm the story. Great SF book for/of our time.… (mer)

It’s 200-ish years in the future, and the oil and coal supply have mostly collapsed. Agriculture has completely privatized, and several companies own the rights to most of the world’s food supply and sabotage their competitors with deadly blights. Anderson Lake works for an agriculture company, currently undercover in Bangkok pretending to run a kinetic energy factory. Emiko is an artificial human - a windup - designed for servitude and currently occupied as a sex worker. Kanya is high up in the environmental ministry, cracking down on businesses and importers that violate quarantine protocols, and fighting corruption in her own ranks. Hock Seng is a refugee several times over, currently working for Anderson Lake and waiting until he can cut and run. When the Thai ministry of trade decides that money is more important than ecology and declares war on the environmental ministry they, and everyone else, are caught in the middle.

Interesting ideas here, but they are already pretty dated and the plot falls very flat. Why is there no solar or wind power in this post-oil future? Despite being the title character, Emiko doesn’t really do anything until close to the end. It’s very violent and sexist and racist in that early-00s way … it clearly doesn’t agree with them but it’s still showing them to the reader. The only real thing this story has to say is about corruption, so an American author deciding to set it in SE Asia is a bad look.
I didn’t hate the story overall, but it went on too long and eventually ended up where I wished it had begun instead - Bangkok has flooded, Kanya considers her internal conflict, and Emiko is free - though I wish she had made it out of the city to the rumored encampment of other windups.… (mer)