Book Review: "The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi

The Windup Girl is a fascinating story about the energy crisis, genetic engineering, post-human development, and political maneuvering in a futuristic (yet all-too-close) Thailand. While this is a story with a lot of futuristic details and effects, the characters retain a modern sense of behavior and ethics, from the traitorous Anderson Lake and the conniving Hock Seng to the heroic Jaidee and the idealistic Emiko. This last character is the eponymous Windup Girl, a genetically modified servant who, though she may appear to be insignificant to the overarching plot, ends up with her own stake in the changes taking place in Thailand. Let's get started!

Setting

This story is set in Thailand, though a Thailand with some very surprising changes. In this Thailand, peak oil has come and gone, and society has been forced to come up with new alternative sources of energy. This leads to some really cool devices that these people use; the ones that stuck in my mind were the computer that's powered with a foot pedal like a sewing machine, the spring guns, and the clockwork style air conditioning. With this reliance on springs comes the natural question of how these things are wound. The answer in the small scale is human power (necessitating the control of food calories the same way gasoline is controlled), and the answer in the large scale is megodonts (scientifically revived mammoth-like creatures). This is what I love most about good science fiction: lots of small details making the world feel real and lived-in.

This does, however, come with the caveat that the language in the book can be a bit dense. Okay, I'll admit it. There's a lot of Thai used throughout the story (again, to make it feel like a real place), and at times, I wasn't always sure what each word meant. In fact, for a while, I thought farang (foreigner) meant "upper-level business executive." (Those were the only people they ever used it for!) I'm still not totally sure what khun means, to be honest. It's probably like "sir," near as I can tell. But for all that, I think the Thai code switching actually works really well. Like I said, it sounds like how Anderson and Jaidee would talk in this world. The Thai (and other languages) is mostly reserved for when no other word would quite be appropriate.

I'd love to bring up the food corporations and the New People here, but I think those are better reserved in the plot and character sections, respectively.

Characters

This story mainly revolves around four characters: Anderson Lake, a food corporation leader who is undercover as a businessman in charge of a spring factory; Hock Seng, Lake's scheming second-in-command who is trying to overcome prejudice and gain his lost business; Emiko, a New Person who dreams of a village outside of Thailand that is entirely populated by New People; and Jaidee and his team of government officials, called "white shirts." Each of these characters has their own backstory, motivations, and goals, but they all get tangled up in the end into a perfect catastrophe. Watching each character succeed or fail, rise to glory or crash and burn, is what makes this story shine.

Anderson Lake is a character I don't think I've ever seen equal to in a story before. I'll try to keep the spoilers down to a minimum, but it's kind of a shock when you realize that he's totally the villain of this story. Maybe it's because he's the first character introduced, or maybe it's the fact that his behavior is so sympathetic, but he seems like such a nice guy until you think for an extended period of time about anything he ever does. It's... odd, I guess, to follow around the villain and have it seem like he's a hero just like the others. Maybe he is. That's what makes Bacigalupi such a talented writer.

Hock Seng, by contrast, is a scheming, weasely traitor, but at the same time, when you learn about who he was and how he has fallen so far, it's hard to be so tough on him. He is a yellow card, a displaced Chinese businessman whose only goal is to get back his old life. He's... not really heroic, but he is sympathetic. And I mean, it's not like Anderson Lake really wanted those blueprints anyway. So while he may not be using the best methods to get what he wants, Bacigalupi makes it clear that this is the only method he's got. Can you fault him for that?

Emiko. Emiko is quite the character. She's what's called a New Person, though you won't hear that term used much in the story. Instead, she's called a "windup girl," a "heechy-keechy," and various other derogatory terms to mock her creation. You see, New People are genetic constructs, created by the Japanese to act as servants and caretakers for the aging population. You may notice that this is the exact same reason as to why the Japanese have been working on making robots. You may also notice that the "advantages" Emiko has been given (stuttering motion, smooth skin, an ingrained need to follow commands, a tendency to overheat under exertion) are all things commonly associated with robots. I highly doubt this is a coincidence. Though she's made of flesh and bone, Emiko is a robot made to serve. Her place in this society is a major focal point of the setting, as well as whether or not she truly has a soul.

In any case, Emiko's character entirely revolves around suffering. It is heartbreaking to watch her be forced into decision after decision without her desires coming into play. She is bound to this world, and she has no way of fighting back.

Lastly, Jaidee. There's so much to his character that can't be said without spoilers, but one thing I can say is that he is one of the few characters who is almost entirely heroic. He's part swashbuckler, part only good cop in a town of crooked ones, part hero to the masses. He's the story's moral center, really, the one who seems to be pointing Thailand in the right direction. Although he may be too daring for his own good, you can't help but love him.

Plot

The plot of this story is really well-organized. It starts with each character fitting into the puzzle alone (with the exception of Hock Seng), then slowly the stories begin to come together. I'll try to summarize the character's starting motivations here just to get the idea of the complexity set up. Anderson Lake wants to find where the Thai kingdom is hiding its stockpile of plant seeds so that his company can make more effective crop breeds that can withstand both the natural diseases and the competitor's bioterrorism strains that ravage crop fields and profit margins alike. He's trying to run a spring company as cover, but Hock Seng wants to steal the factory's blueprints in order to sell them to the highest bidder and start a new company from the ashes of his old business in China. The spring company, however, is sabotaged by Jaidee's attacks on the corrupt Trade Ministry, leaving Lake and Hock Seng more desperate than ever. And during all of that, Lake runs into Emiko and falls hopelessly in love with her.

Okay, I lied. Though it might seem like these characters are having isolated stories, it turns out they're woven together practically from page 1. There are twists and turns and all sorts of surprises, but they deserve to go behind spoilers. If you don't want to see them, skip ahead to the conclusion section below.

Spoilers

 Man, I never expected where this story was going to go. Bacigalupi takes every expectation you have about this world and these characters and turns them on their head. Jaidee gets sent away from his family and exiled to a monastery. You expect him to break out and lead a rousing revenge mission... and he does. Then you expect him to slice and dice his way through the guards... and he does. You expect him to make it to Akkarat, the guy who pinned him... but he doesn't; he gets caught. Then you expect him to make a daring escape... but he doesn't. Then you expect him to dodge the bullet-disks... but he doesn't. Then you expect him to survive the fall, do the classic "regroup before the next big attack..." but he doesn't. He dies, and suddenly his entire arc falls apart. The hopelessness and moral gray of the other characters seeps into his story, as Kanya takes over and reveals she was a mole and helped in his downfall. It's such a shocker that I almost cried right there.

So much of the story is like that. Emiko, the battered pseudo-robot, suddenly turns into a death machine and slaughters the most powerful man in Thailand. Anderson Lake makes a deal with Akkarat to plunge Thailand into war. Hock Seng covers up a pandemic, only for Lake to stick his arm into the contaminated water baths and die spitting up blood. The white shirts crack down on the populace after Jaidee dies, leading to all-out civil war. Believe me, this story is a rollercoaster, and it will keep you hooked until the last page. I mean, within the last twenty or so pages, Kanya makes a huge U-turn power play and undoes the wrapped-up-in-a-bow ending that everything had been leading up to.

Conclusion

This story absolutely deserves all the awards it's won. This is a complex, detailed world inhabited by real, three-dimensional characters acting through a multi-faceted, dramatic story. Running through it all is a cutting opinion on the way our society is headed. Are we doomed to lose our oil-powered utopia? Will we create windup beings, and will they be so maligned? Will the future of the food business turn to bioterrorism and a genetic arms race? If these sorts of questions intrigue you, keep you up at night, then definitely give this book a shot. On the other hand, if all of the complexity and terminology woven through this book sounds challenging to you, then this may not be the book for you. For what it's worth, I could hardly put it down.