TCWriter

A brilliant piece of enviropunk, The Windup Girl is stunningly plotted and written, though I'll admit -- like most dystopian science fiction -- it can get a little depressing. Set in a post-industrial (post fossil fuel, post biodiversity, post high-speed transport) world beset by fast-mutating plagues and plant-killing diseases, The Windup Girl is one of those novels that creates a world so rich (or in this case, so soulless) that it's destined for classic status. Bacigalupi's plotting is wonderful and the characters are compellingly unclear. My one complaint has to do with letting the reader know what's going on; a few explanations don't appear until later in the book, and while I was engaged enough to read it, in a few cases, a little more knowledge would have been welcomed (I'm not talking about twists and late reveals, just basic backstory info).