Quick review of The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

The Windup Girl is one of the most imaginative dystopian science fiction novels I have read. It has fantastic world-building and is peopled with flawed characters who primarily look out for themselves. The novel is set in a future Thailand in a near-apocalyptic world, where the Thais try to cope with climate change, rising sea levels, running out of fossil fuels, and famines caused by diseases attacking genetically engineered crops.

Thailand is a holdout from food conglomerates who want to introduce genetically engineered crops into the kingdom and get access to the Thai seed bank that the Thais have used to create disease-resistant crops. Added to this mix are windup people or clones, servants created with jerky movements, hence the label windup.

The plot has four main strings: a battle between the trade ministry, who want to open Thailand to overseas food conglomerates, and the environmental ministry, who don’t. The second plot revolves around a conglomerate agent’s attempts to access the seed bank. A third plot is the plight of a windup girl who has been abandoned to degrading work in a brothel and her attempts to escape her predicament. The final plot is that of a Chinese Malay who escaped slaughter in his own country and is attempting, through dubious means, to survive as a despised foreigner in Thailand. All the stories intertwine, and the novel comes to a satisfying conclusion.