Paolo Bacigalupi
Autore di The Windup Girl
Sull'Autore
Paolo Bacigalupi won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards for his debut novel, The Windup Girl, which was published in 2009. His short story collection Pump Six and Other Stories was a 2008 Locus Award winner for Best Collection and his young adult novel Ship mostra altro Breaker won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature and was finalist for the National Book Award. His work has also appeared in High Country News, Salon.com, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. (Bowker Author Biography) mostra meno
Fonte dell'immagine: Paolo Bacigalupi at the 2012 Texas Book Festival, Austin, Texas, United States.
Serie
Opere di Paolo Bacigalupi
Yellow Card Man (novelette) 25 copie
The Tamarisk Hunter 11 copie
Small Offerings 11 copie
Pop Squad 6 copie
Pocketful of Dharma (novelette) 4 copie
Mika Model [short story] 4 copie
The Pasho (novelette) 3 copie
Softer 2 copie
Shooting the Apocalypse 1 copia
Opere correlate
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Seventeenth Annual Collection (2004) — Collaboratore — 232 copie
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction September/October 2019, Vol. 137, Nos. 3 & 4 (1991) — Collaboratore — 15 copie
Everything Change: An Anthology of Climate Fiction — Interview with — 10 copie
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 1972-08-06
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- USA
- Luogo di nascita
- Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
- Luogo di residenza
- Western Colorado, USA
- Attività lavorative
- science fiction writer
fantasy writer - Organizzazioni
- Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Utenti
Discussioni
GROUP READ -- THE WINDUP GIRL by Paolo Bacigalupi in The 12 in 12 Category Challenge (Agosto 2012)
THE WINDUP GIRL - Discussion Thread ***Possible SPOILERS*** in The 12 in 12 Category Challenge (Marzo 2012)
Recensioni
Liste
Five star books (1)
5 Best 5 Years (1)
To Read (1)
Sense of place (1)
Best Dystopias (1)
Ghosts (1)
Nebula Award (1)
Science Fiction (1)
Asia (1)
Boy Protagonists (1)
Best Cyberpunk (1)
Absolute Power (1)
Strange Cities (2)
io9 Book Club (1)
Science Fiction (2)
Urban Fiction (2)
Favourite Books (1)
Reading 2016 (1)
Climate Change (1)
Unread books (1)
First Novels (1)
Premi e riconoscimenti
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Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 38
- Opere correlate
- 47
- Utenti
- 15,430
- Popolarità
- #1,472
- Voto
- 3.8
- Recensioni
- 849
- ISBN
- 213
- Lingue
- 14
- Preferito da
- 28
Despite the title, this is more a “biopunk” novel than a steampunk work. It is dark, disturbing, and allegorical. There are no real heroes but there are plenty of irredeemable villains.
Set in Thailand in a dystopian future, there is a global food shortage brought on by the mutation of genetically modified seeds and the collapse of the petroleum industry. These seeds are controlled by a few megacorporations, referred to as “calorie companies”, who grant exclusive licencing for the use of their seeds on a country-by-country basis. These geneseeds are highly regulated, ostensibly to control for any further lethal mutations. Therefore, any new or “lost” seed strains are contraband and highly sought after.
Bacigalupi does an excellent job describing the fetid, corrupt, desperate environment in Thailand. Using the third-person omnicient narrative voice, we enter the story of each of the three main characters mid-arc. It is up to the reader to extrapolate information and piece together what is really going on. There is a liberal use of Thai words that adds to the flavour and authentic feel.
Through the first 120 pages the novel slowly lays out the power struggles among the government ministries, the royal house, the purist police, and the various high powered merchants and megacorps. There are oblique references to the Expansion, the Contraction, and the coal wars - all hinting at a globe-spanning environmental disaster. The Kingdom of Thailand stands apart from the other Southeast Asian countries. Through a disciplined, fascistic nationalism, those in power protect the Kingdom against the greedy foreigners who first destroyed all the food and are now charging crazy rates for "taint free” food.
There are strong allegorical elements: what happens at the individual level mirrors what is happening at the community, corporate, and national level. For example, the megodonts – elephantine hybrids bred for mindless labour – and the cheshires – feral cats that evolved an ability to literally blend into the background hint at both the man-made and environmentally-pressured mutations interleaved with daily living. Bacigalupi has a rich, lyrical writing style: In referring to the political infighting between the Ministries of Trade and Environment: “A storm is coming, full of water spouts and tidal waves.”
The intersecting threads that link the several main characters just begin to be revealed half way through the book. Until then, these disparate threads have to be held in the reader’s mind – utterly foreign languages and customs in a newly constructed world. Eventually through discrete revelations, some pieces begin to come together to create the bigger picture. I had several “oh, that’s what’s going on” moments as the individual bits began to tie together.
The titular character does not appear until two-thirds into the novel. Called Emiko, she seems to represent the Struggle for Self-Identity. As a genetically created human, in Thailand she is an abomination. She cannot walk the streets in daylight for fear that she will be raped, beaten, or picked up by the authorities and “mulched” back to her component organs. The book describes in graphic detail the sexual and emotional humiliations and degradation Emiko goes through on a daily basis at the strip club where she is housed.
Sadly, I did not find myself caring about any of the characters. Key world-building elements that would have helped put their actions in a better context were not revealed until well after the first 150 pages. This information would have served the story better to have been in a prologue. Too many times, when characters would spend time in spiritual reflection, I found myself asking, “Yeah, so?”
This book is less driven by characters than by larger ideas of ecological ownership, politics, global history, indentured servitude, morality, and social responsibility. Published only four years ago, the issues it raises and forecasts give it contemporary relevance.
This book was both a 2009 Nebula Award winner and tied for a 2010 Hugo Award for best novel. This book also won the 2010 Compton Crook Award and the 2010 Locus Award for best first novel.
Though very well written, this award winning book is not structured in a way I enjoy. It is a non-subtle warning of what may happen if food production is allowed to become fully industrialized, put in control of a few global corporations, and genetically manipulated... a dark and violent future.
… (altro)