Excerpt from The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

The Qwillery is thrilled to share with you an excerpt from the 2nd Edition of The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi.

The Windup Girl

Paolo Bacigalupi

Night Shade Books

May 2015

1.

         “No! I don’t want the mangosteen.” Anderson Lake leans forward, pointing. “I want that one, there. Kaw pollamai nee khap. The one with the red skin and the green hairs.”
         The peasant woman smiles, showing teeth blackened from chewingbetel nut, and points to a pyramid of fruits stacked beside her. “Un nee chai mai kha?”
         “Right. Those. Khap.” Anderson nods and makes himself smile. “What are they called?”
         “Ngaw.” She pronounces the word carefully for his foreign ear, and hands across a sample.
         Anderson takes the fruit, frowning. “It’s new?”
         “Kha.” She nods an affirmative.
         Anderson turns the fruit in his hand, studying it. It’s more like a gaudy sea anemone or a furry puffer fish than a fruit. Coarse green tendrils protrude from all sides, tickling his palm. The skin has the rust-red tinge of blister rust, but when he sniffs he doesn’t get any stink of decay. It seems perfectly healthy, despite its appearance.
         “Ngaw,” the peasant woman says again, and then, as if reading his mind, “New. No blister rust.”
         Anderson nods absently. Around him, the market soi bustles with Bangkok’s morning shoppers. Mounds of durians fill the alley in reeking piles and water tubs splash with snakehead fish and red-fin plaa. Overhead, palm-oil polymer tarps sag under the blast furnace heat of the tropic sun, shading the market with hand-painted images of clipper ship trading companies and the face of the revered Child Queen. A man jostles past, holding vermilion-combed chickens high as they flap and squawk outrage on their way to slaughter, and women in brightly colored pha sin bargain and smile with the vendors, driving down the price of pirated U-Tex rice and new-variant tomatoes.
         None of it touches Anderson.
         “Ngaw,” the woman says again, seeking connection.
         The fruit’s long hairs tickle his palm, challenging him to recognize its origin. Another Thai genehacking success, just like the tomatoes and eggplants and chiles that abound in the neighboring stalls. It’s as if the Grahamite Bible’s prophecies are coming to pass. As if Saint Francis himself stirs in his grave, restless, preparing to stride forth onto the land, bearing with him the bounty of history’s lost calories.
         “And he shall come with trumpets, and Eden shall return . . .”
         Anderson turns the strange hairy fruit in his hand. It carries no stink of cibiscosis. No scab of blister rust. No graffiti of genehack weevil engraves its skin. The world’s flowers and vegetables and trees and fruits make up the geography of Anderson Lake’s mind, and yet nowhere does he find a helpful signpost that leads him to identification.
         Ngaw. A mystery.
         He mimes that he would like to taste and the peasant woman takes back the fruit. Her brown thumb easily tears away the hairy rind, revealing a pale core. Translucent and veinous, it resembles nothing so much as the pickled onions served in martinis at research clubs in Des Moines.
         She hands back the fruit. Anderson sniffs tentatively. Inhales floral syrup. Ngaw. It shouldn’t exist. Yesterday, it didn’t. Yesterday, not a single stall in Bangkok sold these fruits, and yet now they sit in pyramids, piled all around this grimy woman where she squats on the ground under the partial shading of her tarp. From around her neck, a gold glinting amulet of the martyr Phra Seub winks at him, a talisman of protection against the agricultural plagues of the calorie companies.
         Anderson wishes he could observe the fruit in its natural habitat, hanging from a tree or lurking under the leaves of some bush. With more information, he might guess genus and family, might divine some whisper of the genetic past that the Thai Kingdom is trying to excavate, but there are no more clues. He slips the ngaw’s slick translucent ball into his mouth.
         A fist of flavor, ripe with sugar and fecundity. The sticky flower bomb coats his tongue. It’s as though he’s back in the HiGro fields of Iowa, offered his first tiny block of hard candy by a Midwest Compact agronomist when he was nothing but a farmer’s boy, barefoot amid the corn stalks. The shell-shocked moment of flavor—real flavor—after a lifetime devoid of it.
         Sun pours down. Shoppers jostle and bargain, but nothing touches him. He rolls the ngaw around in his mouth, eyes closed, tasting the past, savoring the time when this fruit must once have flourished, before cibiscosis and Nippon genehack weevil and blister rust and scabis mold razed the landscape.
         Under the hammer heat of tropic sun, surrounded by the groan of water buffalo and the cry of dying chickens, he is one with paradise. If he were a Grahamite, he would fall to his knees and give ecstatic thanks for the flavor of Eden’s return.
         Anderson spits the black pit into his hand, smiling. He has read travelogues of history’s botanists and explorers, the men and women who pierced the deepest jungle wildernesses of the earth in search of new species—and yet their discoveries cannot compare to this single fruit.
         Those people all sought discoveries. He has found a resurrection.
         The peasant woman beams, sure of a sale. “Ao gee kilo kha?” How much?
         “Are they safe?” he asks.
         She points at the Environment Ministry certificates laid on the cobbles beside her, underlining the dates of inspection with a finger. “Latest variation,” she says. “Top grade.”
         Anderson studies the glinting seals. Most likely, she bribed the white shirts for stamps rather than going through the full inspection process that would have guaranteed immunity to eighth-generation blister rust along with resistance to cibiscosis 111.mt7 and mt8. The cynical part of him supposes that it hardly matters. The intricate stamps that glitter in the sun are more talismanic than functional, something to make people feel secure in a dangerous world. In truth, if cibiscosis breaks out again, these certificates will do nothing. It will be a new variation, and all the old tests will be useless, and then people will pray to their Phra Seub amulets and King Rama XII images and make offerings at the City Pillar Shrine, and they will all cough up the meat of their lungs no matter how many Environment Ministry stamps adorn their produce.
         Anderson pockets the ngaw’s pit. “I’ll take a kilo. No. Two. Song.”
         He hands over a hemp sack without bothering to bargain. Whatever she asks, it will be too little. Miracles are worth the world. A unique gene that resists a calorie plague or utilizes nitrogen more efficiently sends profits skyrocketing. If he looks around the market right now, that truth is everywhere displayed. The alley bustles with Thais purchasing everything from generipped versions of U-Tex rice to vermilion-variant poultry. But all of those things are old advances, based on previous genehack work done by AgriGen and PurCal and Total Nutrient Holdings. The fruits of old science, manufactured in the bowels of the Midwest Compact’s research labs.
         The ngaw is different. The ngaw doesn’t come from the Midwest. The Thai Kingdom is clever where others are not. It thrives while countries like India and Burma and Vietnam all fall like dominoes, starving and begging for the scientific advances of the calorie monopolies.
         A few people stop to examine Anderson’s purchase, but even if Anderson thinks the price is low, they apparently find it too expensive and pass on.
         The woman hands across the ngaw, and Anderson almost laughs with pleasure. Not a single one of these furry fruits should exist; he might as well be hefting a sack of trilobites. If his guess about the ngaw’s origin is correct, it represents a return from extinction as shocking as if a Tyrannosaurus were stalking down Thanon Sukhumvit. But then, the same is true of the potatoes and tomatoes and chiles that fill the market, all piled in such splendid abundance, an array of fecund nightshades that no one has seen in generations. In this drowning city, all things seem possible. Fruits and vegetables return from the grave, extinct flowers blossom on the avenues, and behind it all, the Environment Ministry works magic with the genetic material of generations lost.
         Carrying his sacked fruit, Anderson squeezes back down the soi to the avenue beyond. A seethe of traffic greets him, morning commuters clogging Thanon Rama IX like the Mekong in flood. Bicycles and cycle rickshaws, blue-black water buffaloes and great shambling megodonts.
         At Anderson’s arrival, Lao Gu emerges from the shade of a crumbling office tower, carefully pinching off the burning tip of a cigarette. Nightshades again. They’re everywhere. Nowhere else in the world, but here they riot in abundance. Lao Gu tucks the remainder of the tobacco into a ragged shirt pocket as he trots ahead of Anderson to their cycle rickshaw.
         The old Chinese man is nothing but a scarecrow, dressed in rags, but still, he is lucky. Alive, when most of his people are dead. Employed, while his fellow Malayan refugees are packed like slaughter chickens into sweltering Expansion towers. Lao Gu has stringy muscle on his bones and enough money to indulge in Singha cigarettes. To the rest of the yellow card refugees he is as lucky as a king.
         Lao Gu straddles the cycle’s saddle and waits patiently as Anderson clambers into the passenger seat behind. “Office,” Anderson says. “Bai khap.” Then switches to Chinese. “Zou ba.”
        The old man stands on his pedals and they merge into traffic. Around them, bicycle bells ring like cibiscosis chimes, irritated at their obstruction. Lao Gu ignores them and weaves deeper into the traffic flow.
         Anderson reaches for another ngaw, then restrains himself. He should save them. They’re too valuable to gobble like a greedy child. The Thais have found some new way to disinter the past, and all he wants to do is feast on the evidence. He drums his fingers on the bagged fruit, fighting for self-control.
         To distract himself, he fishes for his pack of cigarettes and lights one. He draws on the tobacco, savoring the burn, remembering his surprise when he first discovered how successful the Thai Kingdom had become, how widely spread the nightshades. And as he smokes, he thinks of Yates. Remembers the man’s disappointment as they sat across from one another with resurrected history smoldering between them.

The Windup Girl
Night Shade Book, May 5, 2015 (2nd Edition)
Trade Paperback and eBook, 480 pages

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel, a new edition of the breakout science fiction debut featuring additional stories and an exclusive Q&A with the author.

Anderson Lake is AgriGen’s Calorie Man, sent to work undercover as a factory manager in Thailand while combing Bangkok’s street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history’s lost calories.

Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. Emiko is not human; she is an engineered being, 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 this chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bioengineered plagues run rampant across the globe.

What happens when calories become currency? What happens when bioterrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits and forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? Bacigalupi delivers one of the most highly acclaimed science fiction novels of the twenty-first century.

In this brand-new edition celebrating the book’s reception into the canon of modern science fiction, accompanying the text are two novelettes exploring the dystopian world of The Windup Girl, the Theodore Sturgeon Award–winning “The Calorie Man” and “Yellow Card Man,” and an exclusive Q&A with the author describing his writing process, the political climate into which his debut novel was published, and the future of science fiction.

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound

Paolo Bacigalupi On Tour

5/26/15: Denver, CO - Tattered Cover, reading, Q&A, and signing

5/27/15: Boulder, CO - Boulder Bookstore, reading, Q&A, and signing

5/29/15: New York, NY - BEA

5/30/15: Boston, MA - Brookline Booksmith, reading, Q&A, and signing

6/2/15: Chicago, IL - Anderson’s Bookshop, reading, Q&A, and signing

6/3/15: Salt Lake City, UT - The King’s English, reading, Q&A, and signing

6/4/15: Phoenix, AR - Changing Hands Bookstore, reading, Q&A, and signing

6/6-6/7/15: San Francisco, CA - Bay Area Literary Festival

6/6-6/7/15: San Francisco, CA - Borderlands, signing

6/8/15: San Diego, CA - Mysterious Galaxy, reading, Q&A, and signing

6/9/15: Los Angeles, CA - Vroman’s, reading, Q&A, and signing

6/10/15: Portland, OR - Powell’s Bookstore, reading, Q&A, and signing

6/11/15: Seattle, WA - University Book Store, reading, Q&A, and signing

6/18/15: Crested Butte, CO - Rumors Coffee and Tea House, reading, Q&A, and signing

You may find times and addresses at the Author's website here. 

Upcoming

The Water Knife
Knopf, May 26, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 384 pages

WATER IS POWER

Paolo Bacigalupi, New York Times best-selling author of The Windup Girl and National Book Award finalist, delivers a near-future thriller that casts new light on how we live today—and what may be in store for us tomorrow.

The American Southwest has been decimated by drought. Nevada and Arizona skirmish over dwindling shares of the Colorado River, while California watches, deciding if it should just take the whole river all for itself. Into the fray steps Las Vegas water knife Angel Velasquez. Detective, assassin, and spy, Angel “cuts” water for the Southern Nevada Water Authority and its boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her lush, luxurious arcology developments can bloom in the desert and that anyone who challenges her is left in the gutted-suburban dust.

When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in Phoenix, Angel is sent to investigate. With a wallet full of identities and a tricked-out Tesla, Angel arrows south, hunting for answers that seem to evaporate as the heat index soars and the landscape becomes more and more oppressive. There, Angel encounters Lucy Monroe, a hardened journalist, who knows far more about Phoenix’s water secrets than she admits, and Maria Villarosa, a young Texas migrant, who dreams of escaping north to those places where water still falls from the sky.

As bodies begin to pile up and bullets start flying, the three find themselves pawns in a game far bigger, more corrupt, and dirtier than any of them could have imagined. With Phoenix teetering on the verge of collapse and time running out for Angel, Lucy, and Maria, their only hope for survival rests in one another’s hands.  But when water is more valuable than gold, alliances shift like sand, and the only truth in the desert is that someone will have to bleed if anyone hopes to drink.

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound

About Paolo

Photo by JT Thomas Photography.

Paolo Bacigalupi’s writing has appeared in WIRED Magazine, High Country News, Salon.com, OnEarth Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. His short fiction been anthologized in various “Year’s Best” collections of short science fiction and fantasy, nominated for three Nebula Awards, four Hugo Awards, and won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best science fiction short story of the year. His short story collection PUMP SIX AND OTHER STORIES was a 2008 Locus Award winner for Best Collection and also named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly

His debut novel THE WINDUP GIRL was named by TIME Magazine as one of the ten best novels of 2009, and also won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards. Internationally, it has won the Seiun Award (Japan), The Ignotus Award (Spain), The Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis (Germany), and the Prix Planète-SF des Blogueurs (France).

His debut young adult novel, SHIP BREAKER, was a Micheal L. Printz Award Winner, and a National Book Award Finalist, and its sequel, THE DROWNED CITIES, was a 2012 Kirkus Reviews Best of YA Book, A 2012 VOYA Perfect Ten Book, and 2012 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist.

He has also written ZOMBIE BASEBALL BEATDOWN for middle-grade children, about zombies, baseball, and, of all things, meatpacking plants. Another novel for teens, THE DOUBT FACTORY, a contemporary thriller about public relations and the product defense industry was a both an Edgar Award and Locus Award Finalist.

His latest novel for adults THE WATER KNIFE, a near-future thriller about climate change and drought in the southwestern United States.

He currently lives in Western Colorado with his wife and son, where he is working on a new novel.

Website  ~  Facebook  ~  Twitter @paolobacigalupi  ~  Google+