The Windup Girl

Anderson Lake is the Calorie Man for AgriGen in Thailand. Anderson searches Bangkok's street markets under the guise of a factory manager for food items that are believed to be extinct in an attempt to harvest the abundance of calories that have been lost to time. He meets with Emiko there.

Emiko is the Windup Girl, an oddly lovely being. Emiko, one of the New People, is not human; rather, she is a manufactured entity that was raised in a creche and programmed to fulfill the opulent demands of a businessman in Kyoto before being cast out onto the streets of Bangkok. In a terrifying near future when calorie businesses govern the world, the oil era has gone, and the side effects of bio-engineered diseases run wild throughout the planet, the New People—who are seen as soulless people by some and demons by others—are slaves, warriors, and toys of the affluent.

What happens if calories start to have value? What happens when genetic drift brought forth by bioterrorism pushes humanity toward the brink of post-human development, and when bioterrorism itself turns into a weapon for corporate profits? Paolo Bacigalupi, the award-winning novelist, creates one of the most critically regarded science fiction books of the twentieth century.