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The Windup Girl
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 19 hrs and 34 mins
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The Windup Girl
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Publisher's Summary
Earphones Award Winner (AudioFile Magazine)
Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories.
There, he encounters Emiko...Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.
What happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism's genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? In The Windup Girl, award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi returns to the world of The Calorie Man (Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award-winner, Hugo Award nominee, 2006) and Yellow Card Man (Hugo Award nominee, 2007) in order to address these poignant questions.
BONUS AUDIO: In an exclusive introduction, author Paolo Bacigalupi explains how a horrible trip to Thailand led to the idea for The Windup Girl.
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What the critics say
- Hugo Award, Best Novel, 2010
- Nebula Award, Best Novel, 2009
- Best Books of 2009, Publishers Weekly
- 10 Best Fiction Books of 2009, Time magazine
- Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy 2009, Library Journal
What listeners say about The Windup Girl
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Tim Pozza
- 2019-10-29
Still ringing in my ears and making me sweat...
A tornado of contemporary fears whipped up from timeless, conflicting priorities. Engaging, entertaining, and fascinatingly foreign and familiar, all so musical in its miseries and fictions made manifest and unbreakably real by a confluence of towering talents...
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Doug Ross
- 2019-04-02
Not the norm for me but a Good Story
This is not the typical type of book I would read, I'm mostly into Science Fiction and magic based books but I must say I'm glad I gave this book a try, it was a pretty good story. You will read reviews about rape in this book and in fact there are some rape themed scenes, but this is a book about a dystopian future, I will also point out that the windup girl whom is abused was engineered to be a sex companion, its up to you how you want to think of the sexual assaults. I for one understood it as her being misused from her original intended purpose of being a sexual companion. The windup girl was only every raped by another female, The male companions had to pay for there pleasure.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- David Feldman
- 2018-09-13
Fantastic world-building - but the plot sags
The Windup Girl is environmental dystopia of the highest order and also a fun fish-out-of-water romp in the vein of James Clavell - unfortunately like Clavell's lesser novels, there is a lot of scheming and trampling but not much to drive the plot forward. In the final analysis the warning sticks around after the characters and the story are long gone. But unmissable just the same. #Audible1
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- hdamoca
- 2019-08-09
Wish I loved it, I didn't.
I tried to like this, I tried to slog through, but nope, just didn't care for it at all. Only got a couple chapters in, it just wasn't my cuppa tea.
I liked the narrator, though. That's pretty much all I can say, it was on sale so I wasn't out a lot.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Wendy
- 2022-03-03
The last half is good
I found it really hard to get into and it took a long time to really get any of the characters. About halfway through, it picked up and I loved it after that. I'm the only one in my book club that finished it because everyone else got bored in the first half. The performance was okay. The volume was all over the place though. Turning it way up to hear the quiet parts and then LOUD PARTS ALL OF A SUDDEN! That was annoying. But I really enjoyed the last half of the book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- legalos3
- 2019-03-30
UNIQUE
It is a detailed story of “survival”. All sides truly believe they are “right”!!
I read the book a few years back however in listening
I now have a clear understanding of the complexity of this story !
The author has created a masterpiece !!
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Bill L.
- 2019-03-13
a little long winded
found it hard to get through. probably could've been half as long and tell same story
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 2020-03-03
Engaging voice reading and story!
Fantastic voice acting.. very wide range and engaging. great character development and detail! a great look at how food corporations would run the world and control the economy
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- girorv
- 2019-03-15
What a world !
The world building in this story is really the best part. Mr. Bacigalupi took me there. What a world. Felt somewhat like the apocalypse and the dinosaurs . What with the heat and the mastodons. The people , however , not so well developed. Emico, sure after being a slave , she would want to find freedom . The rest of the cast are just fall prey to the usual motive of greed, and ambition, the captain of the white shirts is such a shining star. It moves alongs so it kept my interest, wondering really where is he going with this. The narration was very good. A lot of american accents for Thai people though, but it set in the future.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Norman
- 2022-12-13
Get out while you can
This is the kind of story SF readers classify as "If This Keeps On." Globalism, man-made climate change, rising sea levels, GMOs, nationalism, and invasive species have all combined to create a world no one want. Thailand is on the rocks, and everyone seems to be trying to salvage the wreck. Or make sure it sinks!
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