The Windup Girl cover art

The Windup Girl

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Windup Girl

By: Paolo Bacigalupi
Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
Try Premium Plus free

Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $31.99

Buy Now for $31.99

About this listen

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.

©2009 Paolo Bacigalupi (P)2009 Audible, Inc. Adventure Dystopian Genetic Engineering Hard Science Fiction Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Fiction

Critic Reviews

  • 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
"Paolo Bacigalupi's debut sci-fi novel is a stunner, especially as interpreted under the careful ministrations of narrator Jonathan Davis. The novel postulates a corrupt near-future society in Southeast Asia, where powerful corporations vie for control over rice yields by wielding bioengineered viruses as tools for profit." ( AudioFile)
" The Windup Girl will almost certainly be the most important SF novel of the year for its willingness to confront the most cherished notions of the genre, namely that our future is bright and we will overcome our selfish, cruel nature." ( Book Page)
"A classic dystopian novel likely to be short listed for the Nebula and Hugo Awards" ( SF Signal)
All stars
Most relevant
amazing story, one of the best I've read
voice actor at first grated, like he was trying to sing it as a love poem, but got used to it and his ability to give different characters voices ( so you know who is talking) is unmatched

so if he annoys you at first please stick with it! it's great

amazing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I can see how the setting of this book garnered interest — a future Thailand surviving climate change, genetic carnage and ruthless exploitation from multinational companies. But the execution makes this a dour reading experience.

First, the characters the author chose to develop are unlikeable, and the potentially likeable ones are very two-dimensional, including the titular Windup Girl. I felt the author confused descriptions of abuse with character development.

The style also makes this a tedious read with much repetitive exposition. While the author poses some interesting questions, such as natural vs constructed life, the examples he chooses to illustrate these issues are simplistic and confusing only for the book's characters.

Finally, the science fiction part requires too much suspension of disbelief. For example, in the future, people eschew solar and wind energy and batteries to generate and store energy and instead create gene-modified mammoths for energy production! The behaviour of rapacious multinationals seems spot-on, though.

Potentially interesting, but dour and disengaging

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It reminds me of William Gibson - a realist?!?!
It is understandable why this book won several awards - something fresh and real!

Enjoyable post apocalyptic story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A stunning read which has insights into alarming but often accurate possible futures mankind. Paola close observation of the current world I feel allows him to extrapolate believable futures.

Stunning read of our possible future

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I didn't expect to like this book but really enjoyed it! Well written, with an excellent narrator, the story made me think about my use of resources and what may occur once fossil fuels have been exhausted. The author writes an excellent narrative, very descriptive and kept me engaged for the entire book.

Surprisingly good.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Awesome dystopian future novel, The Windup Girl paints a depressing but intriguing picture of a resource-deprived world, making it a particularly resonant read post-COVID. The novel's complex concepts, like kink spring power capacity, can be a bit challenging to grasp. However, the story is captivating and deeply immersive. I would recommend this book to any fan of dystopian fiction.
My actual rating: 4.2/5

Awesome dystopian future novel

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I read this book a number of years ago and was very pleased to find it on audible. A unique storyline and a gripping tale of intrigue. Wonderfully written characters.

I wish there was more!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I really felt like there was a possible back story here that could have better explained what was going on. I liked the concept but often found myself floundering and not really knowing what was going on.

This should be the second book in a series

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book is a thoughtful inquiry into our possible future with big questions surrounding GMO's and their place in Bacigalupi's future world. Bacigalupi turns the question of GMO's on its head, reasoning that they are an extension of nature and imperative to the survival of his future society. All of this is very interesting and combined with a host of gritty characters the book is a great read. Bacigalupi's character development is thorough but could easily be criticised for slowing down the story and dragging out the middle section of the narrative. The other negative is the brutal sexual abuse suffered by the windup girl, it's enough to caution readers with a trigger warning, there's a scene in chapter 3 and chapter 29 but the rest of the book is ok. Overall, this book is worth the read, persist through the middle section to be rewarded by an interesting twist at the end.

Thoughtful book of a future dystopia

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
author got ridiculed. but how the story was elaborately told, amazing. would recommend to all.

beautiful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.