The Windup Girl

Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl reminds me why I love science fiction, I think. It's set a few hundred years in a not totally implausible future, and contains an inventive plot, memorable characters, an immersive setting, and a denouement leaving room for a sequel, if necessary. Unfortunately, the "not totally implausible" future seems almost alarmist on Bacigalupi's part -- "if we're not vigilant, something like this could happen", as opposed to cyberpunk dystopias, which just seem to be, rather than requiring the downward spiral that the world of The Windup Girl does.

Bacigalupi's future Bangkok is richly detailed and imagined. The fruits of genetic engineering are seamlessly integrated without too much exposition, and the future Thai political structure is unfolded slowly, over the course of a few chapters. With a world like this, there's a lot of attention to be paid to setting, and our author does a good job there.

Plot-wise, The Windup Girl skips between several diverse characters working towards different ends. Some of them see the situation more clearly than others, and of course there's some information asymmetry there. The ending isn't totally satisfying, more of a setup to a sequel, but it resolves nearly all the plot threads.

The Windup Girl  is a fun, well-plotted science fiction novel. Is that enough to overcome the slight preachiness of the environmental message? Is it possible to write a novel in this setting without having it come across as slightly preachy? Would anyone write a novel in this setting that isn't intended to be preachy? Regardless of the answers to those questions, this is certainly a book worth picking up.

City of Bohane

Even though Kevin Barry's City of Bohane is set in the 2050s, I wouldn't call this a science fiction novel. For one, it isn't clearly until at least the middle third of the book the time period that it's set in, and for two, even this is clearly post-apocalyptic, there's no tech here -- just nothing digital, and nostalgia for the "Lost Time", where something clearly Very Bad(tm) happened.

City of Bohane is at once cinematic and musical. Cinematic in scope, and musical in dialogue. Scenes are sketched out as though there was a camera panning through them, and we see cuts that are worthy of a screenwriter. Here's one character talking to another in a shady bar-cut-here's a third character plotting-cut-here's someone else stalking the streets. Bang bang bang. Not that there are any guns in Bohane -- technology has definitely reverted. The only photography is with "a medieval Leica", movies are on reels, and there are no motor vehicles.

A strength of Barry's is pacing -- at least at first. He's very good at ratcheting up the tension as a specific event approaches (gang war, festival), but not so much at resolving the situation, and a feeling of anticlimax pervades. There's a lot to like here, but this isn't totally successful.

Ordinarily, describing something as "post-apocalyptic" would send me screaming for the exits, but City of Bohane is interesting enough to keep me engaged. That said, I'm not sure there's a there here -- it's readable, but this almost reads like a prologue to something that never gets going.