Re: The Windup Girl

I first encountered The Windup Girl, at last year’s Readercon, when Paolo Balcigalupi read the first chapter. It paints a vivid picture of a factory in a future Bangkok, where genetically modified elephants are used like mill donkeys to wind massive springs to store energy. It’s a world where generippers have destroyed food supplies and […]

Re: The Gambler

In “The Gambler,” by Paolo Balcigulpi, Ong is a Laotian who fled a despotic regime. His father was an idealist who believed in Thoreau, civil disobedience, and publishing broadsheets denouncing Laotian politics. His mother was a realist who escaped with Ong after his father was arrested. Now Ong is in LA, working for Milestone Media—a […]