Award-winning Debut

The Windup Girl
Paolo Bacigalupi
Night Shade Books (2009)
Hardcover, 368 pages
Rated 4 Stars of 5 Possible

The Windup Girl depicts a world in which cloning is not only permitted, but has become common place. The clones are genetically altered so that their movement is not smooth or graceful and this betrays their artificial status. The author has touched upon sensitive issues, such as racial abuse, from our own world in this high-tech science fiction novel.

The novel starts slow, and builds suspense from the beginning, yet remains interesting enough that it's hard to put down... and it gets better as the reader turns the pages. Many of the characters are only superficially developed, and these would have been more interesting if they had been developed more in-depth. The Windup Girl is not a "fluffy" read and requires concentration from the reader to fully understand what's happening. In fact, one almost needs to take notes at a few points because a lot happens in the story.

In the end, I felt I needed to deduct one star for the sometimes lengthy and apparently unnecessary descriptive passages in which little is happening to further the ends of this otherwise interesting tale.

This review, for which I have not received any financial compensation, has been posted on Dragon Views, Amazon.com and LibraryThing.