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The Windup Girl

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The Windup Girl

Written by: Paolo Bacigalupi
Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
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About this listen

Earphones Award Winner (AudioFile Magazine)

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; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.

What happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism's genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? In The Windup Girl, award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi returns to the world of The Calorie Man (Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award-winner, Hugo Award nominee, 2006) and Yellow Card Man (Hugo Award nominee, 2007) in order to address these poignant questions.

BONUS AUDIO: In an exclusive introduction, author Paolo Bacigalupi explains how a horrible trip to Thailand led to the idea for The Windup Girl.

©2009 Paolo Bacigalupi (P)2009 Audible, Inc. Adventure Dystopian Genetic Engineering Hard Science Fiction Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Fiction Biography

What the critics say

  • Hugo Award, Best Novel, 2010
  • Nebula Award, Best Novel, 2009
  • Best Books of 2009, Publishers Weekly
  • 10 Best Fiction Books of 2009, Time magazine
  • Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy 2009, Library Journal
"Paolo Bacigalupi's debut sci-fi novel is a stunner, especially as interpreted under the careful ministrations of narrator Jonathan Davis. The novel postulates a corrupt near-future society in Southeast Asia, where powerful corporations vie for control over rice yields by wielding bioengineered viruses as tools for profit." ( AudioFile)
" The Windup Girl will almost certainly be the most important SF novel of the year for its willingness to confront the most cherished notions of the genre, namely that our future is bright and we will overcome our selfish, cruel nature." ( Book Page)
"A classic dystopian novel likely to be short listed for the Nebula and Hugo Awards" ( SF Signal)
All stars
Most Relevant
This is not the typical type of book I would read, I'm mostly into Science Fiction and magic based books but I must say I'm glad I gave this book a try, it was a pretty good story. You will read reviews about rape in this book and in fact there are some rape themed scenes, but this is a book about a dystopian future, I will also point out that the windup girl whom is abused was engineered to be a sex companion, its up to you how you want to think of the sexual assaults. I for one understood it as her being misused from her original intended purpose of being a sexual companion. The windup girl was only every raped by another female, The male companions had to pay for there pleasure.

Not the norm for me but a Good Story

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The Windup Girl is environmental dystopia of the highest order and also a fun fish-out-of-water romp in the vein of James Clavell - unfortunately like Clavell's lesser novels, there is a lot of scheming and trampling but not much to drive the plot forward. In the final analysis the warning sticks around after the characters and the story are long gone. But unmissable just the same. #Audible1

Fantastic world-building - but the plot sags

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A tornado of contemporary fears whipped up from timeless, conflicting priorities. Engaging, entertaining, and fascinatingly foreign and familiar, all so musical in its miseries and fictions made manifest and unbreakably real by a confluence of towering talents...

Still ringing in my ears and making me sweat...

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It is a detailed story of “survival”. All sides truly believe they are “right”!!
I read the book a few years back however in listening
I now have a clear understanding of the complexity of this story !
The author has created a masterpiece !!

UNIQUE

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found it hard to get through. probably could've been half as long and tell same story

a little long winded

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