GMO Espionage Fuels Environmental Thriller “The Windup Girl”

Science fable about the environment can get preachy , so Paolo Bacigalupi ’s hard SF novel The Windup Girl is a welcome modification . limit in Thailand ’s hereafter , the book follows scientist spy hunting good genomes in a world smash by GMO disease .

In the custom of politically - minded backbreaking SF writers like Iain M. Banks and Ian McDonald , Bacigalupi follows the interconnect account of several people caught up in great societal teddy . In the case of The Windup Girl , they ’re all caught in the genome industry ’s vane : We have a covert “ kilocalorie man ” called Anderson who stress to sniff out uncontaminated genome for a Monsanto - esque multinational forebode AgriGen ; a “ white-livered calling card ” Taiwanese refugee mention Hock Seng who is trying to climb to the top of the zip - generator bootleg market in Thailand ; Environment Ministry cushion scout group Jaidee and Kanya , whose job is to protect Thailand from polluted genomes , foreign imports , and dirty muscularity ; and the mysterious bawd Emiko , a genetically - engineered “ windup ” person abandon by her former proprietor in Thailand , where GMO people are illegal .

We follow these characters through every eschelon of Thai smart set , from backroom meetings between government officials to backroom performances at the strip baseball club where Emiko is fetishistically degraded every night . The action takes place in the weeks leading up to a clash between the Trade Ministry – who want to open Thailand up to business with AgriGen and other multinationals – and the Environment Ministry , which has fought to keep Thailand and its ultra - valuable seed bank set apart from other nations ( and ecosystem ) . The globe is still recoup from a series of diseases that ravaged crop and humans alike , so exposure to foreign hoi polloi and aim can be deadly . ship’s company like PurCal and AgriGen have cornered the market on disease - costless strain of rice and straw , sell to countries where “ blister rust ” and GMO beetles have deoxidise food supplying to dust .

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Thailand ’s seed depository financial institution , a collection of heirloom semen from long - nonextant plant species , has allow the commonwealth to remain sovereign from the multinationals . The Environment Ministry ’s “ livid shirts , ” pass by Jaidee , have burned all the contaminated fields and even recruited shady foreign factor hackers to aid synthesise new , disease - resistant crops . But now meter are changing . The palace is starting to support Trade , and calorie men like Anderson are in secret offering them moneymaking hand to share the seed bank building in commutation for military and financial financial backing .

As these major role player jockey for genome power , we watch as they miss obvious ways they could make Thailand fertile again through other means . Anderson the calorie man has a covert operation to hide his material identity element : He run a factory that is endeavor to prepare extremely efficient crick springs , or greenish batteries that influence like sentry springs – wind them up , and as they slowly unwind they release enough vigor to powerfulness cars , sheet , or mill . Anderson thinks the factory is neat top because the unexampled kink springs will never work , and he can churn these useless item out perpetually without drawing attention to himself . Meanwhile his supporter Hock Seng knows the crick spring can work , and that they will overturn energy engineering . He has plan to steal the kink bounce programme and trade them to a local form crime chemical group to get rich . Little does he recognise his boss does n’t give a crap about the twirl springs , and little does his boss know that he ’s sit on a goldmine far more worthful than an AgriGen declaration with the Thai political science .

As tensions mount , Trade takes violent retribution against Environment . fury commence bubbling up on all sides . And somehow Anderson meets Emiko , beginning a foreign affair with the completion that has an unexpected event on the futurity of Thailand .

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One of the strengths of The Windup Girl , other than its challenging graphic symbol , is Bacigalupi ’s Earth building . you’re able to practically taste this future Thailand he ’s built , especially when Anderson chance upon a newly - engineered fruit in the marketplace and try out to figure out what genes went into its construction . We ’re given just enough backdrop to understand the economic and environmental factor that created this world , but Bacigalupi does n’t bog us down in eternal treatment of ecosystems and fuel wasting disease .

And there are several moments where the unvoiced SF here merges deftly with a magical realism that congratulate it nicely . Thailand is obsess by GMO cats call in “ cheshires , ” created as souped - up pets , whose fur is contrive to merge chameolon - ilk into the desktop . This has made them unstoppable predators , and they ’ve eaten every other puppet in their niche . But at sure points , it almost seems as if these creatures are seep through walls . Which is n’t surprising when you consider that Jaidee ’s trace is a major character , and that Emiko has been improbably organise to have jerky , mechanical movement like a windup dolly .

Indeed , Emiko is as much a charming realist creation as Jaidee ’s ghost . Created in Japan as a secretarial assistant , where windups are legal , she is impossibly beautiful and obedient due to a ball of dog genes in her desoxyribonucleic acid . Her pores have been made minuscule to give her fluent skin , which means she overheats well . And her dopey “ stammer stop ” movements , which mark her as GMO to everyone who behold her , are consummate genomic fantasy . She is half - doll , half - frankenwhore – a fabulation who nevertheless seems dead suitable to a story set in a res publica where ghosts play a role in national politics .

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While Bacigalupi ’s blending of grueling science and magical Platonism work beautifully , the novel occasionally sags under its own weight . At a sure point , the subplots feel like tagents that involve cut . And many of the military activeness chronological succession are drawn out far too long : We feel like we ’re follow an endless engagement in dull - motion , which put down the sense of urgency at the heart of this novel . But this is Bacigalupi ’s first published novel , and a spate of these problems feel like the narrative thoat - clearing of somebody whose next piece of work will be more polished and well - paced .

Like all science fiction , The Windup Girl is obviously about the geopolitics of the present , where Monsanto tries to supercede local seedstocks with its own , and many governments teeter between the politics of isolationism and global capital . And yet Bacigalupi never slides into moralism or judgement . All his characters have their flaws and larger-than-life moments . Nobody is clean , and there are no heroes who want to write the surround or bad bozo who need to destroy it . Ultimately that ’s what makes this debut novel so exciting . It ’s rare to get a writer who can create such well - shade character while also building a weird novel future world .

The Windup Girl ( corrupt it ! ) comes out this month fromNight Shade Books .

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