SF/F Books: Chapter Two - What Are You Reading?
- Thread starter Neroon
- Start date
Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl has been received with acclamation. (I have a vague notion it won the Hugo?)
So some detailed comments might be of interest.
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The novel is set in a future Thailand where global warming has raised sea level to the point it threatens to drown Bankgkok, Krung Thep, which only survives because of massive dykes and pumps. The limited machinery surviving is powered by coal or hyrdrogenated coal (Bacigalupi) but AC or even ice is a luxury. Oil is apparently defunct. Most trade is carried out by sailing ships.
Genetically reconstituted animals called mogodonts (think mumakil from LOTR,) or human beings power spring engines used for most mundane purposes. Food is scarce because agricultural companies deliberately engineer crop plagues so they can sell their resistant crops. Wood like teak provides the essential parts in this mysterious engines.
One of the characters is a "calorie man," agent of AgriGen, whose aim is to gain access to the seed bank the Thai monarchy wisely set aside. He also wishes to capture one of their best genetic engineers who has taken off to Thailand and offered his services to the Thai monarchy, presumably because they let him engineer a hermaphroditic lover or to be the competition or something mad scientisty.
Another is a New Person, a genetically engineered human with Labrador genes for docility, but she has tiny pores, so she can't survive the heat very well. She was abandoned by her Japanese owner, but a man named Raleigh keeps her in a Thai brothel which puts her on display in a sex abuse show, then rents her out.
There are some Thai characters engaged in corruption and power struggles and mutual murder and betrayal. One, the Tiger of Bangkok, is famed as the more or less only honest white shirt. The white shirts are paramilitary troops enforcing environmental restrictions, including quarrantines and massive destruction of contaminated or possibly contaminated areas, including whole villages. There are also the Thai bureaucrat who wants to open up trade and the regent for the child monarch.
In action terms, the plot essentially is: the trade bureaucrat is winning a sturggle against the Environment ministry, but the calorie man's attempt to bribe the regent with the windup girl's services goes awry when she suddenly discovers not only is she tired of being raped but able to kill in revenge. The death of the regent leads to mass violence and the defeat of the white shirt faction. A white shirt floods the city in a desperate ploy to snatch victory from defeat. The calorie man dies of the plague a yellowcard Chinese refugee from Muslims in Malaya allowed by his corruption to infest the factory used as cover. The mad scientist meets the windup girl and promises to create descendants for her. The end. The screen adaptation may have the old B-movie "The End?"
This plainly is not the stuff of 300+ pages, so it will be no surprise there is quite a bit of exposition of motives, as well as the to-ings and fro-ings of the intrigues.
Bacigalupi seems to be unaware that sailing ships are very unlikely to be able to carry enough seed to feed millions of people. It was very difficult for the Romans to feed Rome even with the calmer seas of the Mediterranean and the Nile serving as easier routes, and that was a matter of mere millions. Also, it is absurdly optimistic to imagine the US will lose its grip without a fight that will be unimaginably destructive. All the old steel will still be salvageable so the teak parts etc. don't ring true either. In other words, the willing suspension of disbelief rests not on plausibility, intrinsic or skillfully feigned. It rests on the desire to imagine a steampunk future, complete with native mahouts.
The steampunkishness applies to the characters as well. Bacigalup imagines a Disenlightenment sweeping the world. The Chinese yellowcard thinks of his clan and ancestors like a pre-Communist Chinese from the movies. The Thais are all loyal monarchists with nary a sentimental thought of democracy or socialism. The windup girl of course embodies the apprently eternal commitment of the Thais to the sex industry. The Thai scientists, allegedly good enough at their work to keep Thailand (under the wise guidance of King Rama XII of course,) independent of the agribusiness and even make scientific advances toward revivifying the ecology, but they naturally pray to statues (though ecumenically adding a caucasian!) The seed bank of course is in the hands of dedicated monks. How monasteries survive a global crisis is not immediately obvious. There is some sort of Grahamite Bible that some of the white people are into, so that there can be a nicely extreme nineteenth century style fundamentalist sect, etc.
All onstage white people are hopelessly villainous, though the calorie man at least has feelings for the windup girl. But the calorie man's predecessor was plainly an idealist and a decent human being (which naturally undoes him, this being that kind of book.) Also, the Chinese is flawed but human, and in the end, humane. The Tiger of Bangkok is an heroic martyr and the previously corrupt Captain Kanye achieves a glorious redemption. (She's the one who floods the city.) Other Thais are villainous to some degree, the regent egregiously so. The book is beyond crude racism, which inclines me to think that it is the commitment to Disenlightenment that drives this.
The most curious thing is that the martyred Tiger of Bangkok is the agent of Captain Kanye's redemption. Or more precisely, his ghost. It appears to be a ghost, inasmuch as the ghost seems to be privy to knowledge the Captain wouldn't have. Of course, even if it were supposed to be an hallucinatory expression of her ideas about what the Tiger would say to her, it is a horribly cliche approach. Real ghosts suddenly intervening in the plot are always questionable, particularly since we are not given to understand that the Hinduism and Buddhism blend in the book is actually to be taken seriously as genuinely in touch with the supernatural. Any story that doesn't realize real supernatural effects are not part of everyday religion and therefore must be addressed is just stupid.
Which is why it's dismaying this book has been so highly praised. I can only think it's the very backwardness it looks forward to that tickles the fancy of its admirers.
So some detailed comments might be of interest.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
P
A
C
E
The novel is set in a future Thailand where global warming has raised sea level to the point it threatens to drown Bankgkok, Krung Thep, which only survives because of massive dykes and pumps. The limited machinery surviving is powered by coal or hyrdrogenated coal (Bacigalupi) but AC or even ice is a luxury. Oil is apparently defunct. Most trade is carried out by sailing ships.
Genetically reconstituted animals called mogodonts (think mumakil from LOTR,) or human beings power spring engines used for most mundane purposes. Food is scarce because agricultural companies deliberately engineer crop plagues so they can sell their resistant crops. Wood like teak provides the essential parts in this mysterious engines.
One of the characters is a "calorie man," agent of AgriGen, whose aim is to gain access to the seed bank the Thai monarchy wisely set aside. He also wishes to capture one of their best genetic engineers who has taken off to Thailand and offered his services to the Thai monarchy, presumably because they let him engineer a hermaphroditic lover or to be the competition or something mad scientisty.
Another is a New Person, a genetically engineered human with Labrador genes for docility, but she has tiny pores, so she can't survive the heat very well. She was abandoned by her Japanese owner, but a man named Raleigh keeps her in a Thai brothel which puts her on display in a sex abuse show, then rents her out.
There are some Thai characters engaged in corruption and power struggles and mutual murder and betrayal. One, the Tiger of Bangkok, is famed as the more or less only honest white shirt. The white shirts are paramilitary troops enforcing environmental restrictions, including quarrantines and massive destruction of contaminated or possibly contaminated areas, including whole villages. There are also the Thai bureaucrat who wants to open up trade and the regent for the child monarch.
In action terms, the plot essentially is: the trade bureaucrat is winning a sturggle against the Environment ministry, but the calorie man's attempt to bribe the regent with the windup girl's services goes awry when she suddenly discovers not only is she tired of being raped but able to kill in revenge. The death of the regent leads to mass violence and the defeat of the white shirt faction. A white shirt floods the city in a desperate ploy to snatch victory from defeat. The calorie man dies of the plague a yellowcard Chinese refugee from Muslims in Malaya allowed by his corruption to infest the factory used as cover. The mad scientist meets the windup girl and promises to create descendants for her. The end. The screen adaptation may have the old B-movie "The End?"
This plainly is not the stuff of 300+ pages, so it will be no surprise there is quite a bit of exposition of motives, as well as the to-ings and fro-ings of the intrigues.
Bacigalupi seems to be unaware that sailing ships are very unlikely to be able to carry enough seed to feed millions of people. It was very difficult for the Romans to feed Rome even with the calmer seas of the Mediterranean and the Nile serving as easier routes, and that was a matter of mere millions. Also, it is absurdly optimistic to imagine the US will lose its grip without a fight that will be unimaginably destructive. All the old steel will still be salvageable so the teak parts etc. don't ring true either. In other words, the willing suspension of disbelief rests not on plausibility, intrinsic or skillfully feigned. It rests on the desire to imagine a steampunk future, complete with native mahouts.
The steampunkishness applies to the characters as well. Bacigalup imagines a Disenlightenment sweeping the world. The Chinese yellowcard thinks of his clan and ancestors like a pre-Communist Chinese from the movies. The Thais are all loyal monarchists with nary a sentimental thought of democracy or socialism. The windup girl of course embodies the apprently eternal commitment of the Thais to the sex industry. The Thai scientists, allegedly good enough at their work to keep Thailand (under the wise guidance of King Rama XII of course,) independent of the agribusiness and even make scientific advances toward revivifying the ecology, but they naturally pray to statues (though ecumenically adding a caucasian!) The seed bank of course is in the hands of dedicated monks. How monasteries survive a global crisis is not immediately obvious. There is some sort of Grahamite Bible that some of the white people are into, so that there can be a nicely extreme nineteenth century style fundamentalist sect, etc.
All onstage white people are hopelessly villainous, though the calorie man at least has feelings for the windup girl. But the calorie man's predecessor was plainly an idealist and a decent human being (which naturally undoes him, this being that kind of book.) Also, the Chinese is flawed but human, and in the end, humane. The Tiger of Bangkok is an heroic martyr and the previously corrupt Captain Kanye achieves a glorious redemption. (She's the one who floods the city.) Other Thais are villainous to some degree, the regent egregiously so. The book is beyond crude racism, which inclines me to think that it is the commitment to Disenlightenment that drives this.
The most curious thing is that the martyred Tiger of Bangkok is the agent of Captain Kanye's redemption. Or more precisely, his ghost. It appears to be a ghost, inasmuch as the ghost seems to be privy to knowledge the Captain wouldn't have. Of course, even if it were supposed to be an hallucinatory expression of her ideas about what the Tiger would say to her, it is a horribly cliche approach. Real ghosts suddenly intervening in the plot are always questionable, particularly since we are not given to understand that the Hinduism and Buddhism blend in the book is actually to be taken seriously as genuinely in touch with the supernatural. Any story that doesn't realize real supernatural effects are not part of everyday religion and therefore must be addressed is just stupid.
Which is why it's dismaying this book has been so highly praised. I can only think it's the very backwardness it looks forward to that tickles the fancy of its admirers.
Working on "The High King of Montival", part of S.M. Stirling's "Change" novels. Good stuff. Been working my way through the Song of Ice and Fire series as well, and plan on diving into A Feast for Crows after I finish my current book. And Amazon just dropped of the first Typhon Pact book, so that may slip in there somewhere, as it's about 800 pages shorter than the next Song of Ice and Fire book 
You have to really like Heinlein to get through that one. At least, as far as the ending goes...
Re-reading The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Finished Rudy Rucker's Postsingular a little while back. Interesting, but a bit of a struggle.
Re-reading The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Never said what you thought of the Heinlein...
ah, sorry didn't read your earlier reply. the only other Heinlein book i had read before Sunset was The Door Into Summer, which i thought was pretty good. i did enjoy Sunset. i assume the ending would have made more sense if i had read some of the other novels that connect with the story. also i did get a bit tired of Maureen's sexual exploits, but that's a minor gripe.
Just finished re-reading Vernor Vinge's The Cookie Monster.
Haven't started anything else yet.
Haven't started anything else yet.
I just started reading Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn. I've had the Thrawn trilogy on my shelf since it was published, and this is my first time actually reading it, lol. I even had all three books autographed by him, but hadn't cracked them otherwise. I don't know why, they just always wound up farther down my reading list than other things.
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