Reading The Windup Girl
Note: This post contains some spoilers for The Windup Girl , but it does not reveal everything in the novel by any means. A couple of months ago I came across this article listing 17 science fiction novels that changed the genre. The list includes such great titles as Stranger in a Strange Land , Dune , Foundation , Dhalgren , Slaughterhouse-Five , and Neuromancer . Scanning the list, I realized I had read every book mentioned (and own almost all of them) with the exception of two. One of the two, The Windup Girl , caught my eye because it was published in 2009, the most recent book on the list. I had not heard of it before and decided to pick up a copy. The novel is exceptionally well-written by author Paolo Bacigalupi . The prose is expressive, entertaining, sometimes technical, sometimes poetic, and it guides the reader into the vivid world where global warming and various diseases have wrecked havoc on humanity's food supply, the environment, and where plagues arise thre