The Windup Girl

Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl is set in a dystopian future where genetic engineers are constantly fighting to create foods resistant to diseases that have contaminated the food supply. The Thai refer to the Western peddlars of the latest gene-spliced disease-resistant products as the calorie men, a reference to what is the critical resource in civilization. It is a post-carbon world, where elevators work by groups of ballast men run up the stairs to provide counterweight. Large levees around Bangkok keep the rising sea at bay. The value of life is low.

Anderson Lake is the representative of a calorie company in Thailand. He has taken over a factory building kink springs, a sort of mechanical energy storage device. But that is just a cover: his long term goal is to gain access to the country's seed supply so they can duplicate it. Thailand is run by two competing factions: the Trade Ministry, which promotes imports and foriegn investment, and the Environment Ministry, which controls import to prevent the next disease from ruining all the local crops.

Lake is intrigued when he is at a friend's club and meets Emiko, the title character, who is a Japanese manufactured person. She is designed to have tiny pores for smooth skin, which means she is ill-suited to the hot Thai climate. She is also designed to be subservient and is the perfect servant or prostitute. Not only does she not have any rights, but if the Environment Ministry captures her they would seize her as illegal biological material and mulch her. Lake finds himself becoming attached to Emiko and promises to help her get to a safe haven for windup people.

Lake is helped by his Chinese assistant Hock Seng, but who is secretly plotting to steal the plans for the kink springs and sell them to the biggest gangster in town. Lake also has associates with whom he connives to bring about political instability to further their plans. One of the biggest wild cards is Jaidee, a fervent Environment Ministry officer known as the Tiger. When the Tiger oversteps his bounds and burns entire shipments, it starts a cascade of events that threatens to bring down the Environment Ministry and propel Lake and his associates to a grand success, if they can survive the violence and disease outbreak.

The story is captivating and the language is vivid. There are all sorts of fascinating things about the world that get let out in bits. Megodonts used to provide power, zeppelins used to travel. The characters are well drawn with definite pasts and conflicting goals. Each character has a different view of the strange world and affects the plot in his or her own way. This is a story of personal tragedy, sacrifice, intrigue, and biology, with a bit of violence and sex thrown in. I found it moderately entertaining. B

Hull Zero Three

Hull Zero Three is a hard science fiction novel by Greg Bear. The story brings to life a classic science fiction concept: a large ship with slow acceleration moving toward a distant star. The ship in this case is composed of three hulls connected to a huge comet that provides fuel. The ship contains biological systems advanced enough to generate a vast assortment of creatures from its genetic Catalog, from astrogators to ship's engineers to biologists to cleaners to trackers. The humanoids and other creatures are implanted with memories for their jobs.

The story is from the first person point of view of a human who finds himself waking up in a birthing chamber and forced to run to chase heat and escape the cleaners that intend to take him to the recycling chamber. He is led by a young girl who has memories of the Ship and the Mother implanted in her. The man, who comes to be known as the Teacher, finds that Ship is not hospitable for his kind, though there are other creations who can move about easily and survive the harsh environments. Gradually the Teacher and the girl meet others who are trying to make sense of the Ship. They use their combined memories to try to figure out why the ships systems are not working properly and the cleaners are trying to kill them.

The mystery slowly comes together as they discuss their memories and observe the workings of the ship and the space outside. They find that their hull is damaged and another is nearly destroyed, apparently from the blast of a recent supernova. There is some sort of struggle between the ship's systems, the woman known as Mother, and the people who are a part of Destination Guidance. Destination Guidance was supposed to select an appropriate target and fade away to die, but something has gone wrong with their decision.

The descriptions of the ship and its systems are a central part of the story. It is a massive achievement of human design. The ship feels like it has its own life, its own desires. The goals of the hidden players in the story are carried out by the humans and other creatures that they have created on the ship. The Teacher and his friends have to come to grips with the fact that their memories are false and incomplete. They must figure out how to trust each other and themselves. The story is the mystery of the ship's systems, the people who control them, and the decision that led to the whole situation. B+