SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

So, did you like the book? The writing style? The story? The ideas? Now that you're done, share your final thoughts.

I recently finished The Grapes of Wrath and was particularly struck by this line and how it applied to Paolo Bacigalupi's book: "Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby those fruits may be eaten." Crazy ...

"Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby those fruits may be eaten."

Nice! Timely coincidence.

I weighed in with my final thoughts in another thread, but will repost them on this one as well. It's a good book and I am definitely interested in reading more from this author. And wasn't Windup Girl a sequel of sorts to one of his previous books?

Also, going back to your quote from The Grapes of Wrath for a moment, I am reminded of a line or two from Windup Girl, and I wish I could quote it if only I had the book onhand, when Hock Seng reaches the top of the Yellow Card tower to meet with... what's his name? Sheesh, I am already forgetting names. But he reflects on the calories that must be excreted to reach the top. It's a great moment when many points converge, I think. I like how it ties the biology, the flesh, and human nature with consuming calories and energy. It also expresses the difficulty in creating new systems whereby those fruits may be eaten.

Wolfie: I think Windup Girl was in the same world as two of his previous short stories.
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I really liked the book; liked the writing style and the story. Not a 5 for me, but something I would read again in the future.

Good to know. I see now that those are in Pump Six and Other Stories.

Mawgojzeta wrote: "Wolfie: I think Windup Girl was in the same world as two of his previous short stories.
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I really liked the book; liked the writing style and the story. Not a 5 for me, but something I..."

I found the two stories "The Calorie Man" and "Yellow Card Man" available for free download on the Nightshade books site: http://www.nightshadebooks.com/downloads

Reading them now!

I enjoyed the book, if the is the right word to use. It is quite dark and disturbing. Yet, I was fully engaged in the story throughout.

The pacing was very slow and methodical and typically this would annoy me. However, there is something about the narrative style that worked for me. The pacing reminded me a lot of Guy Gavriel Kay whose work I love despite the slow story telling.

The world building was superb. I could almost feel the swelter of the Thai heat while reading/listening. It all felt very real, even the genetically enhanced creatures.

As for the characters, this is one of those books where there really isn't a "good" guy. They all have their agendas and pursue them selfishly, even if they have moments of goodness. (view spoiler)[ Even as a paragon of integrity, Jaidee ruthlessly takes pleasure in enforcing his will. The only character for which I truly had sympathy was Emiko, whose flaws were a result of genetic compulsion. (hide spoiler)]

And then there is so much food for thought about the ramifications of genetic manipulation, human/species rights, abuse of power, corruption, and the mismanagement of resources.

I rated this book 4 stars.

I read the book awhile ago. It's definitely mostly a philosophical book so I am careful about who I recommend it to. It is dystopia in the real sense of the word. I was glad I read it, but I think Atwood's series is better in terms of contemporaries of this genre.

Are you talking about the Madd Addam series?

Yes, Madd Addam.

I loved that series!

I think I prefer The Windup Girl in that the distorted future tech hasn't gotten quite so far "out there" as, say, the Crakers. It made the world building a little more real to me.

Regardless, there are definitely some similar concepts.

I really liked this one. It had an immediacy driven by the closeness of the crises portrayed to what is happening right now in the real world. Bacigalupi's world is threatening to be our future. His handling of the issues of GMO crops, DNA-edited humans and the setting of Thailand as opposed to NY all lead to a cohesive statement about our environment, our biological place within it, and how we affect it every day. Not to mention how those effects ripple back upon us. Without fossil fuels, the transportation systems depicted in the novel were inventive and original.

just couldn't get into the novel.

I pushed through it, the concept was interesting, but I had a hard time with the pacing. I think I remember that the writing was good, but I distinctly remember struggling with it at times.
I get all excited about new ideas, but sometimes find the writer is being so artistic it's a hard read.

it was something new, in that I never really bonded to any character. the story seemed dark, warm and sticky and I didn't expect anyone to make it out alive, when she did....I was pleased. loved "the water knife" by same author.

I wanted to like this book, but I had to force myself to read it all the way through. As others have mentioned, I found the writing style, particularly the pacing frustrating to the point of distraction.

I really enjoyed this book and didn't notice the pacing (which means I was too involved with the story to care).
I liked all the characters even when I hated them and the whole world came alive for me.

I had recently read Oryx and Crake and it felt so dated I actually checked the publishing date to be sure it wasn't written in the 1960s.
When I read Wind-up Girl I realised this was the type of world building I had been looking for.

I just finished this earlier today and I liked it pretty well. I won’t rank it among my favorites, but I enjoyed the unique (in my experience) setting and found the story fairly interesting. I rated it 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 stars here.

I thought the pacing was uneven in the earlier parts, and it took a while before it consistently held my interest. Then toward the end, (view spoiler)[all the chaotic destruction triggered my “too much chaos, just kill them all” reaction that I get sometimes when it feels like events are completely out of control and too widespread to realistically recover from (hide spoiler)]. I did like the ending itself pretty well, though.

I liked Jaidee although sometimes I thought his methods were overkill. Emiko was kind of pathetic, but also sympathetic, and some of the reveals about her were interesting. Anderson was an ambiguous character which made him interesting to read about. (view spoiler)[I never entirely made up my mind whether he meant well and was trying to better things for the entire world but with a “the ends justifies the means” mentality, or if his only real concern was meeting his company’s objectives whatever the cost. He did show some compassion to both Emiko and Hock Seng at times, so I kind of lean toward the former explanation. (hide spoiler)] I disliked Hock Seng pretty much without reservation, even before I realized he was the same character from one of the short stories in the Pump Six and Other Stories anthology. (view spoiler)[His treatment of Mai redeemed him a little bit, but not too much. We never really find out what happens to him in the end after he decides to go back for Mai, but it would have been fitting if he’d died from the same disease that killed Anderson since his decisions seem largely responsible for the things that happened with that. (hide spoiler)]

I used some spoiler tags because the title of this thread doesn’t warn of spoilers. It seems kind of obvious that they would exist in a “final thoughts” thread, but better safe than sorry I guess.

It's interesting that many like Jaidee. When I heard "white shirts," I thought of Nazi brown shirts and Fascist black shirts. Jaidee resisted the bribery and corruption that was so common in the government. But if you were one of a targeted group in Nazi Germany, wouldn't you prefer a brown shirt you could bribe over an idealistic one? Without government corruption, Emiko would be mulched, Hock Seng would be beaten to a pulp, and Anderson would have to pull out of Thailand. And that's the general trend after Jaidee becomes a martyr and the white shirts start taking their ideals seriously.

I mentioned in the other thread that what I hated most about this world was it's plausibility. Well, minus the quite specific genetic engineering, I came accross this article today published 2/22/2016 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/wor...

It's already here...

Not just what I expected. I found it definitely interesting, but as a whole, it felt a bit incomplete, like some parts were missing and some of the characters were not developed enough. Still, a good story, and an interesting read.

The "white shirts" thing is a direct commentary on current Thai politics.

Dilek wrote: "Not just what I expected. I found it definitely interesting, but as a whole, it felt a bit incomplete, like some parts were missing and some of the characters were not developed enough. Still, a go..."

I agree Dilek, about some of the characters not seeming to be complete parts of a full story arc. I found that (view spoiler)[Hock Seng's character was fantastically drawn but then he just...walks off the stage and we hear no more of him. I liked Anderson's character as well but something was missing from his backstory, it was too vague to understand him completely. Same with Gibbons. And although I appreciate Emiko's arc being a sort of mirror of the future of the city, she was introduced late and somehow also seemed incomplete. (hide spoiler)]. Despite the flaws I really appreciated the vividness of the world that Bacigalupi created.

The world is so dark and oppressive, so without hope that the characters despaired that their relatives could not reincarnate because it would be punishment to be reborn in this world.
The mistreatment of Emiko was so disturbing I had a hard time continuing the book.
The plausibility of the biological engineering screw ups so thought provoking . That is why there was so much protest about releasing genetically engineered mosquito's to combat zika virus . Who knows what the long term consequence of trying to make nature better will be. It could very well be the world of The Windup Girl.

Paolo Bacigalupi is one of my favorite authors. He has a gift of showing what could happen in the near future. I really loved not only the science fiction in this book, but the political intrugue.

The portrayals of Hock Seng and Anderson beautifully illustrate humans' tendency to chase short term self interest to the point of absurdity/tragedy despite morality, despite the environment, despite common sense.

In the end - what's going to survive? Something that's not human, that's what. Very dark vision but unfortunately not unrealistic.

I tried to read this for a second time. First time I got 21% through the audio book and this time 37% but I decided this is just not the right book for me. I may try again one day in the Spring or Summer, but I found it supremely depressing. I like a tiny bit of hope in my dystopias.

yes, very grim and plays up some of our worst traits as human beings—yet excellent characterizations. one of my top sci-fi books.

Everyone says the world-building is top-notch, and I see why. But does it make sense? In 2009, when the novel was published, renewable energy generation was accelerating, and the understanding of the remaining oil supply was that it would be plenty to get us through quite a few more decades, even without renewables. In the book (so far) there is no discussion of how renewables failed, and they seem to rely mostly on the remaining coal supply, muscle power from megadonts, and algae-powered kink springs (how do these work?). It's hard to imagine a future in which the energy supply is not dominated by renewables.

The Thai words everywhere are annoying. I don't mind a few here and there where appropriate and repeated often enough to be clear on the meaning, e.g. wai and farang. But others are unable to be understood.

Can anyone comment on Thai superstition? I know almost nothing about Thai culture, but it seems far-fetched to me that it would be necessary to pay monks to pray on the premises of a factory to reassure workers.

Its my experience that when you have any kind of priest, (Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist) that when they come to a home, business or whatever to do any special service that you pay them. Money, food, something.

Jennifer wrote: "Its my experience that when you have any kind of priest, (Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist) that when they come to a home, business or whatever to do any special service that you pay them. Money, food, some..."

Somewhere in the ether of my imperfect memory, I recall that this does occur--including feng shui analysis.

Ryan wrote: "In the book (so far) there is no discussion of how renewables failed, and they seem to rely mostly on the remaining coal supply, muscle power from megadonts, and algae-powered kink springs (how do these work?). It's hard to imagine a future in which the energy supply is not dominated by renewables."

I'd agree with this analysis to a large degree. How about gunpowder? Why do we have the "disc" (IIRC) guns?

I don't doubt that you would have to pay religious authority to pray for you, I was just amazed that Thais would be so superstitious as to require that in the first place. Being from the West, I'd never heard of this.

I loved this dark, sad little apocalypse story.

it reminds of of Houston during Harvey.

Don wrote: "it reminds of of Houston during Harvey."

Totally.

I was just talking to some friends about this book. One hated it. I liked it. The other hasn't read it, but has read The Water Knife. Which is another dark story.

This is one of my favourite novels.

Unlike some of the other commentators, I didn't find it overly "dark," but I think it lacked the "forced optimism" that a number of science fiction novels have. There was no specific altruist in the novel and more a bunch of regular "folk" trying their best in very difficult times.

Reading it, I didn't blame anyone for the selfish actions they undertook, but I didn't cheer them on either. They simply felt very normal. Each person was driven by their own motivation(s) and took whatever steps the thought necessary to achieve their goals.

The one thing I really loved was how it tackled the political crisis from a number of different perspectives. So, you could see how each type of person had to deal with the turmoil presented - rather than the action being primarily focused on the decision makers.

It's my go to novel for how to handle a multi-cultural milieu in a science fiction setting.