The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

The Windup Girl by multi-award winning Paolo Bacigalupi is published in December 2010 by Orbit (£7.99). Time Magazine named The Windup Girl as one of the ten best novels of 2009. The book won five of 2010’s SF awards: Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook and the John W Campbell awards.

“Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen’s calorie representative in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, he comb’s Bangkok’s street markets in search of foodstuffs long thought to be extinct. There he meets the Windup Girl – Emiko – now abandon to the slums. She is one of the New People, bred to suit the whims of the rich.

Lake becomes increasing obsessed with Emiko. Conspiracies breed in the heat of political tensions… But no one anticipates the devastating influence of the Windup Girl.”