The Windup Girl

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The Windup Girl is a biopunk science fiction novel by Paolo Bacigalupi. It’s his debut and was published in 2009. The story is set in a near-future Thailand, where climate change has raised sea levels and oil is scarce. Biotechnology dominates industry, and powerful corporations control food through gene-modified seeds. Many seeds are sterile, so farmers must buy new seeds every season. Thailand stands apart by defending its seedbank, blocking foreign biotech and keeping its borders closed.

Bangkok, the capital, lies below sea level and relies on levees and pumps to survive. The country’s government is ruled by a young queen in name, with three top leaders who clash over protecting Thai independence versus embracing outside influence.

The book follows several characters:
- Anderson Lake, a corporate “hitman” for the AgriGen company, who is secretly trying to locate Thailand’s seedbank while running a factory that makes a new kind of energy storage device.
- Emiko, a windup girl—an illegal, genetically engineered human used as a servant and companion. She lives in fear of discovery and knows secrets about the seedbank.
- Hock Seng, Emiko’s handler, a Chinese refugee who wants to regain his old status by stealing designs for the kink-spring energy device.
- Jaidee Rojjanasukchai, captain of Bangkok’s White Shirts, the honest law enforcers who try to resist corruption.
- Kanya, Jaidee’s successor, who becomes entangled in the government’s power struggles.
- Gibbons, a renegade scientist who helps uncover a dangerous new plague linked to the kink-springs.

Plot in brief: Anderson and Hock Seng chase the seedbank, while Emiko hopes to find safety for her kind. Jaidee fights against corrupt ministers but is killed, becoming a martyr and triggering civil unrest. A new plague from the kink-spring factory causes chaos. The seedbank’s monks move the seeds to a secure location, and Bangkok is deliberately flooded, forcing the city to relocate to Ayutthaya. In the political turmoil that follows, Akkarat rises, then loses power and is sent to life as a monk. Anderson dies from the plague he helped create, and Emiko is found by Gibbons, who plans to use her DNA to help create a new, fertile group of “New People.”

Awards and reception: The Windup Girl won the 2010 Hugo Award for Best Novel (a tie with The City & the City), the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and several other major prizes. Critics praised its ambitious world-building and writing, though some questioned the science and how it portrays certain cultures.