83 books
—
50 voters
Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “The Windup Girl” as Want to Read:
The Windup Girl
(The Windup Universe #1)
by
Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko...
Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; ...more
Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; ...more
Get A Copy
Paperback, 361 pages
Published
May 1st 2010
by Night Shade
(first published September 2009)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Reader Q&A
Community Reviews
Showing 1-30

Start your review of The Windup Girl

Long, scorching days are science fiction/fantasy weather. Back when I was in middle school, after quitting baseball but not quite when I could take the L across town to Wax Trax, I would walk the four or five miles to the Harlem-Irving Plaza a couple times a week. The mall had a Waldenbooks, and off to the right about three quarters toward the back (if you were standing at the entrance) stood the science fiction/fantasy section. I would take my hard-earned cash from umpiring t-ball games (actual
...more

“We rest in the hands of a fickle god. He plays on our behalf only for entertainment, and he will close his eyes and sleep if we fail to engage his intellect.”
In Paolo Bacigalupi's imagined future, Bangkok has become a simmering stew pot of paranoia, brutality, despair, and betrayal. Genetic manipulation has brought the world to the brink of extinction. With great advancements also came tragic mistakes. Blister rust, Cibiscosis, the Genehack weevil brought death and famine. The very compani ...more

In Paolo Bacigalupi's imagined future, Bangkok has become a simmering stew pot of paranoia, brutality, despair, and betrayal. Genetic manipulation has brought the world to the brink of extinction. With great advancements also came tragic mistakes. Blister rust, Cibiscosis, the Genehack weevil brought death and famine. The very compani ...more

The Story of Goldilocks and the Three Authors
Once upon a time, a little girl named Goldilocks decided to go for a walk in the forest. Very soon, she came upon a house made of books.

She knocked at the door but no one answered, so being a rather bold and sassy little girl, she walked right in.
At the table in the kitchen, there were three science fiction novels. The first one was called The Wind-Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. Goldilocks began to read. “Ugh!” she exclaimed, “This plot is too cold, no ...more

Mar 10, 2012
Nataliya
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Nataliya by:
Catie
My grandmother reads food labels to see if they contain any genetically modified products. I used to laugh at it. Now, after reading The Windup Girl, I'm tempted to take a closer look at the food labels myself.

Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl is a bleak and depressing story set in the future run by calorie monopolies, where genetically modified products and manufactured foodborne plagues have wiped out the foodchains, wars are waged for precious seeds, and quarantines for food-borne diseases a ...more

Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl is a bleak and depressing story set in the future run by calorie monopolies, where genetically modified products and manufactured foodborne plagues have wiped out the foodchains, wars are waged for precious seeds, and quarantines for food-borne diseases a ...more

Jun 07, 2010
February Four
rated it
did not like it
·
review of another edition
Recommended to February by:
Hugo Awards
Caveat: I am Malaysian, and I am a Hugo voter who is reading the Hugo consideration edition. I hated the book so much I stopped reading it without even getting to the titular character Emiko. Make of that what you will.
Here is my biggest problem with this book: the name of my country is MALAYSIA. Not Malaya. MalaySIa. I don't mind as much if Andersen Lake gets it wrong--he's portrayed as an asshole who doesn't bother to get the local cultural details right anyway, and he seems quite racist to me ...more
Here is my biggest problem with this book: the name of my country is MALAYSIA. Not Malaya. MalaySIa. I don't mind as much if Andersen Lake gets it wrong--he's portrayed as an asshole who doesn't bother to get the local cultural details right anyway, and he seems quite racist to me ...more

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi is a biopunk novel that won the Hugo Award in 2010 along with China Mieville’s The City & the City.
I picked up the book because I also enjoyed City and the City and because I was intrigued by the genre “Biopunk”. The novel is full of referenced to “gene ripping” and DNA experimentation and also a great deal of examples of how such experimentation can go terribly wrong as some new invasive species have taken over as readily as kudzu on a roadside hill in Alaba ...more
I picked up the book because I also enjoyed City and the City and because I was intrigued by the genre “Biopunk”. The novel is full of referenced to “gene ripping” and DNA experimentation and also a great deal of examples of how such experimentation can go terribly wrong as some new invasive species have taken over as readily as kudzu on a roadside hill in Alaba ...more

Oct 20, 2016
Kevin Ansbro
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Kevin by:
Apatt
"She can barely remember the last time she slept without pain or fear, and she is groggy with it. The rooms are dim, lit only by the glow of the street's gaslights flickering alive like fireflies."
As I begin my review, I would like to 'fess up and state that dystopian novels really aren't my thing. Prior to reading this, I felt dystopian to be a by-word for introspective, poorly-written tosh.
I even swore an oath that I would rather tip Tabasco onto my eyeballs than ever read anything resembl ...more
As I begin my review, I would like to 'fess up and state that dystopian novels really aren't my thing. Prior to reading this, I felt dystopian to be a by-word for introspective, poorly-written tosh.
I even swore an oath that I would rather tip Tabasco onto my eyeballs than ever read anything resembl ...more

I just realized something, neologisms - like bow ties - are cool. Explaining made-up words in a glossary or through infodumps is uncool. Nowadays sf authors seem to delight in making up new words and leave the readers to figure out their meaning through context. Depending on the skill of the author this can be an exercise in frustration or a lot of fun for the readers who like a bit of challenge.
Plenty of newly minted words in The Windup Girl, plus lots of Thai words which are equally unexplaine ...more
Plenty of newly minted words in The Windup Girl, plus lots of Thai words which are equally unexplaine ...more

Interesting and provoking. Misleading title; I kept waiting for the story to focus more on the wind-up girl. Perhaps it should have been called The Company Man.
It's one of those dystopian allegories where she represents something or other to a guy that is involved in exploiting the world. I think. I should have wrote a better review. Interesting message, uncomfortable delivery.
His vision of the future is very dark, and I think he spends a lot of time, in all his works, exploring the fractures i ...more
It's one of those dystopian allegories where she represents something or other to a guy that is involved in exploiting the world. I think. I should have wrote a better review. Interesting message, uncomfortable delivery.
His vision of the future is very dark, and I think he spends a lot of time, in all his works, exploring the fractures i ...more

Wow, this book was immensely unsatisfying.
And for the life of me, I don't know why it's won so many awards, accolades and general love from so many people.
The story takes place in Bangkok, after the "Contraction" (both peak oil events and the general destruction of the ecosystem, complete with plagues cause a collapse in society as we know it and quality of life), where a host of not-quite-interesting characters interact. Everything from eco-terrorist types trying to keep their country clean and ...more
And for the life of me, I don't know why it's won so many awards, accolades and general love from so many people.
The story takes place in Bangkok, after the "Contraction" (both peak oil events and the general destruction of the ecosystem, complete with plagues cause a collapse in society as we know it and quality of life), where a host of not-quite-interesting characters interact. Everything from eco-terrorist types trying to keep their country clean and ...more

Try to picture a world where big corporations own the rights to the food we eat, and engineer it specifically so that the seeds can't be reused. Picture a world where the natural resources are steadily depleting, but everyone is still trying to act as if nothing is wrong. Picture a world where technology is barely managing to address the problems of the moment, and perhaps won't be able to keep up in the face of unexpected catastrophes.
That wasn't too hard now, was it?
The best science fiction i ...more
That wasn't too hard now, was it?
The best science fiction i ...more

This is my top favorite book in the fantasy genre, it blew me away. The world he created felt so genuine and real. If you are a fantasy reader give this one a whirl, you won't be disappointed.
No but it is near future after GMO has ruined the world. I don't know if your into fantasy but this is a fantastic book. It swept the scifi awards, The Hugo Award for best Novel, Nebula Award for Best Novel John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, Seiun Award for Best Translated Nove ...more
No but it is near future after GMO has ruined the world. I don't know if your into fantasy but this is a fantastic book. It swept the scifi awards, The Hugo Award for best Novel, Nebula Award for Best Novel John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, Seiun Award for Best Translated Nove ...more

The Windup Girl belongs to a very specific category of novels that make my heart ache as if it were being ripped open from the inside; said category being, great-concept-poor-excecution.
At page 100 (around 25% into the book) I still had to figure out what all the fuss was about. While I should have been eagerly wondering what was going to happen next, the one question that haunted me was "Why am I even reading this?", or, "What's the point of the whole thing?". I think the book failed to get my ...more
At page 100 (around 25% into the book) I still had to figure out what all the fuss was about. While I should have been eagerly wondering what was going to happen next, the one question that haunted me was "Why am I even reading this?", or, "What's the point of the whole thing?". I think the book failed to get my ...more

Nov 28, 2009
Kemper
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
sci-fi,
playing-god
The wife got me a cool gadget for Christmas. It’s a LED flashlight that is powered by turning a little crank on it so I won’t be cursing a lack of fresh batteries when I need it. In The Windup Girl, I could make some money by cranking that flashlight for someone.
It’s set in Thailand after corporate warfare between agricultural firms went biological. In the process of trying to taint the other guy’s crops, most of the world’s food supply is now perpetually at risk of being overwhelmed by the next ...more
It’s set in Thailand after corporate warfare between agricultural firms went biological. In the process of trying to taint the other guy’s crops, most of the world’s food supply is now perpetually at risk of being overwhelmed by the next ...more

This is the kind of book that unceremoniously dumps you in the middle of a teeming, noisy world and demands that you sink or swim. Oh, and that noise that I mentioned? Yeah, it’s all slang, and in about five different languages – none of which you can understand. My advice is just try to float with it. Don’t stress out if you can’t understand half the words, or the vague references to “the incident” or “the situation in Finland.” All will come clear…trust me.
This story is set in a futuristic Tha ...more
This story is set in a futuristic Tha ...more

Mar 07, 2018
Mario the lone bookwolf
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science-fiction-new
Biopunk is, unfortunately, such an underrepresented genre compared to steampunk and other Sci-Fi subgenres with a potential that has to be unleashed.
I could imagine such a setting in a real dystopian, Mad Max Style world where everything is based on biological technologies and nothing technical can be used anymore. Probably with different ideologies regarding the use and development of biology as the main power blocks.
In the case of this novel, many problems such as peak oil, super pests and ra ...more
I could imagine such a setting in a real dystopian, Mad Max Style world where everything is based on biological technologies and nothing technical can be used anymore. Probably with different ideologies regarding the use and development of biology as the main power blocks.
In the case of this novel, many problems such as peak oil, super pests and ra ...more

6.0 stars. The most recent addition to my list of "All Time Favorite" novels. This is Science fiction "noir" AT ITS BEST. By "noir" I mean science ficiton (and fantasy) books that are characterized by: (1) a dark, dystopic world; (2) main characters that are "grey" as oppossed to black or white when it comes to morals; (3) plots that involve complicated questions of morality and characters doing the right thing for the wrong reason and vice versa.
Prime examples for me (all of which are also on ...more
Prime examples for me (all of which are also on ...more

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.

When it comes to sci-fi, I have plenty of caveats: plethoras of men, mounds of white people, all of the worth submersed in several provocative "ideas" built up by science and a great deal of solipsism. It took Le Guin's phenomenal The Dispossessed to give the genre a place in my further reading, and while this book doesn't measure up in terms of prose and thought experiments, it hits that international flavor that TD doesn't, something realistic future fiction should always aim for. Unless the n
...more

What? I haven't said anything about this book yet?
I've now read this book for two different book clubs. And I'm working on reading everything that Bacigalupi's ever published. The Windup Girl won the Hugo and the Nebula, and well-deserved both.
What makes this book so excellent?
Well, first, it posits a frightening, fully believable, and wholly realized future. Set an indeterminate amount of time from now, not all the details are filled in. The Expansion (a time period that we're obviously in rig ...more
I've now read this book for two different book clubs. And I'm working on reading everything that Bacigalupi's ever published. The Windup Girl won the Hugo and the Nebula, and well-deserved both.
What makes this book so excellent?
Well, first, it posits a frightening, fully believable, and wholly realized future. Set an indeterminate amount of time from now, not all the details are filled in. The Expansion (a time period that we're obviously in rig ...more

3.5 stars
Unfortunately, I ended up enjoying The Windup Girl significantly less I than I thought I would.
I blame it on two things:
1) the narrator read this novel way too slowly for my taste;
2) the world of the novel was a little too familiar after reading Ship Breaker and Pump Six and Other Stories. Bacigalupi's version of the future where natural resources are exhausted and the world is enslaved by genehacking "calorie men," who have total control of food and energy supply and who are the sour ...more
Unfortunately, I ended up enjoying The Windup Girl significantly less I than I thought I would.
I blame it on two things:
1) the narrator read this novel way too slowly for my taste;
2) the world of the novel was a little too familiar after reading Ship Breaker and Pump Six and Other Stories. Bacigalupi's version of the future where natural resources are exhausted and the world is enslaved by genehacking "calorie men," who have total control of food and energy supply and who are the sour ...more

I don't know if I've ever read a book quite like The Windup Girl. Normally, I try to situate a book I've just read in relation to other books, no matter how tenuous and personal the connections may be (I can't explain why I always think of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as a more interesting version of On the Road, for instance.)
But this, I'm at a loss. Nothing springs to mind. It so rarely happens, but The Windup Girl stands alone in my mind
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due t ...more
But this, I'm at a loss. Nothing springs to mind. It so rarely happens, but The Windup Girl stands alone in my mind
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due t ...more

Updated review, after a re-read in November 2018.
--
Imagine a future where we have actually run out of oil and fossil fuel, where genetically modified food has gotten completely out of control, where people have figured out a way to make genetic weapons that ruined other countries’ harvests, and foodborne plagues have screwed up every level of the food chain and killed millions. Calories are now the most sought-after currency: clean calories, that is. Anderson Lake, the sort-of main character of ...more
--
Imagine a future where we have actually run out of oil and fossil fuel, where genetically modified food has gotten completely out of control, where people have figured out a way to make genetic weapons that ruined other countries’ harvests, and foodborne plagues have screwed up every level of the food chain and killed millions. Calories are now the most sought-after currency: clean calories, that is. Anderson Lake, the sort-of main character of ...more

I absolutely had to read this after reading Paolo Bacigalupi's collection of short stories Pump Six and Other Stories. Two of the stories in the collection are set in the same world as The Windup Girl and both resonated deeply with me. I found the collection hard to read and impossible to put down. I couldn't leave Paolo's imagination just yet and so I had to read this novel next. I'm so glad I did.
This story is set in a not impossible, or frankly unlikely, version of our current world. It is se ...more
This story is set in a not impossible, or frankly unlikely, version of our current world. It is se ...more

Jun 16, 2012
Clouds
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science-fiction,
pub-2000s,
science-fiction-stand-alone,
5-star,
hugo,
reviewed,
nebula,
read-in-2013

Following the resounding success of my Locus Quest, I faced a dilemma: which reading list to follow it up with? Variety is the spice of life, so I’ve decided to diversify and pursue six different lists simultaneously. This book falls into my HUGO WINNERS list.
This is the reading list that follows the old adage, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I loved reading the Locus Sci-Fi Award winners so I'm going to crack on with the Hugo winners next (but only the post-1980 winners, I'll follow up w ...more

Aug 30, 2014
Rusty's Ghost Engine (also known as.......... Jinky Spring)
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Full review @Scaredy Engines End of Line Library
Five QUINTILLION stars! Seriously though it has been such a long time since I stumbled across a book I love this much and to top it all off it’s set in a place I visited a lot on holiday while growing up: Bangkok!
But this wasn’t the Bangkok we all know, it was one that is a result of the aftermath of global warming and what humans are doing to the planet. I read this book while on holiday in Thailand so I got a deeper experience of the many culture ...more
Five QUINTILLION stars! Seriously though it has been such a long time since I stumbled across a book I love this much and to top it all off it’s set in a place I visited a lot on holiday while growing up: Bangkok!
But this wasn’t the Bangkok we all know, it was one that is a result of the aftermath of global warming and what humans are doing to the planet. I read this book while on holiday in Thailand so I got a deeper experience of the many culture ...more

Well... That was interesting. I really had no idea what this book was actually going to be about when I started it, and even if I had read the description or reviews, I don't think it would have helped much. I just finished this book, after being immersed for a full week in this world, a plausible future Earth, and I'm thinking that I'll be pondering the lessons and themes in this one for a while yet. There's just so freaking MUCH to this book... It's hard to say that it's about any one thing. I
...more

3.5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum http://bibliosanctum.com/2015/08/28/b...
This was a great book. And the only reason I’m not rating it higher is because I’ve read better from Paolo Bacigalupi. If I had read this a few years ago, I think I would have enjoyed it unconditionally, but of course that’s not what happened. Instead, I read The Water Knife earlier this year and loved it, and as I usually do when I read an amazing new book by an author I’ve never read before, I went and picked up a bunc ...more
This was a great book. And the only reason I’m not rating it higher is because I’ve read better from Paolo Bacigalupi. If I had read this a few years ago, I think I would have enjoyed it unconditionally, but of course that’s not what happened. Instead, I read The Water Knife earlier this year and loved it, and as I usually do when I read an amazing new book by an author I’ve never read before, I went and picked up a bunc ...more

Aug 13, 2011
Angela
rated it
did not like it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
hugo-nebula-winners
Overall: Disappointing that this should have won the Hugo/Nebula. For a number of reasons.
THE GOOD
Bacigalupi's worldbuilding is great: he imagines a far future Kingdom of Thailand, where risen sea levels + GMO mayhem have managed to destroy the planet. This biopunk dystopia feels desperate, immediate and urgent, and, on a meta level, it's a scathing commentary on (fair) trade, ag subsidies in the US/Europe, the American food industry and people (such as myself) burning up the atmo in environment ...more
THE GOOD
Bacigalupi's worldbuilding is great: he imagines a far future Kingdom of Thailand, where risen sea levels + GMO mayhem have managed to destroy the planet. This biopunk dystopia feels desperate, immediate and urgent, and, on a meta level, it's a scathing commentary on (fair) trade, ag subsidies in the US/Europe, the American food industry and people (such as myself) burning up the atmo in environment ...more

I read this to sample a bit of steampunk. Not what I was expecting. I kinda had in mind an alternate Universe with steam powered technology and Zeppelins. What I got instead was a future dystopian world...
"when whole kingdoms and countries are gone. When Malaya is a morass of killing. When Kowloon is underwater. When China is split and the Vietnamese are broken and Burma is nothing but starvation. The Empire of America is no more. The Union of the Europeans splintered and factionalized."
Steam is ...more
"when whole kingdoms and countries are gone. When Malaya is a morass of killing. When Kowloon is underwater. When China is split and the Vietnamese are broken and Burma is nothing but starvation. The Empire of America is no more. The Union of the Europeans splintered and factionalized."
Steam is ...more
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Hugo & Nebula Awa...: The Windup Girl (spoilers allowed) | 73 | 37 | Jun 05, 2020 10:10AM | |
Hugo & Nebula Awa...: The Windup Girl (no spoilers, please) | 57 | 43 | Jun 02, 2020 06:52AM | |
SciFi and Fantasy...: "Windup Girl" First Impressions--No Spoilers | 34 | 480 | May 01, 2020 05:40AM | |
Tampa Nerd Night ...: The Windup Girl – November 2015 | 1 | 3 | Mar 30, 2020 05:07PM | |
Beyond Reality: The Windup Girl (12/19): Finished Reading (spoilers) | 9 | 27 | Dec 29, 2019 12:11PM | |
UPEP Reading Grou...: Book 8: The Windup Girl | 1 | 2 | Dec 07, 2019 09:39AM | |
Around the Year i...: The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi | 2 | 32 | Oct 24, 2019 10:21PM |
Paolo Bacigalupi is an award-winning author of novels for adults and young people.
His debut novel THE WINDUP GIRL was named by TIME Magazine as one of the ten best novels of 2009, and also won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards. Internationally, it has won the Seiun Award (Japan), The Ignotus Award (Spain), The Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis (Germany), and the Grand ...more
His debut novel THE WINDUP GIRL was named by TIME Magazine as one of the ten best novels of 2009, and also won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards. Internationally, it has won the Seiun Award (Japan), The Ignotus Award (Spain), The Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis (Germany), and the Grand ...more
Articles featuring this book
Science fiction and fantasy have spawned some of the most imaginative plots and settings in existence. Makes sense, given that these genres are...
255 likes · 101 comments
25 trivia questions
More quizzes & trivia...
“We are nature. Our every tinkering is nature, our every biological striving. We are what we are, and the world is ours. We are its gods. Your only difficulty is your unwillingness to unleash your potential fully upon it.”
—
58 likes
“Politics is ugly. Never doubt what small men will do for great power.”
—
50 likes
More quotes…