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steveatwaywords's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Bacigalupi's Wind-Up Universe is both perverse and too plausible, an extension of our current neo-liberalism and capitalist colonialism partnered against against bio-engineering and ecocatastrophe. Even so, apart from so many dystopic universes, Bacigalupi has fully realized his broader space into stories thick with despair and suffering, grotesque anti-empathy ( The decision of one set of characters to eat a suffering dog out of curiosity rather than allow themselves to find companionship ), and ignorant decadence. Even so, the stories never lapse into bathos or overt sentiment.
The stories here do not always strike equally well, and readers must sometimes work diligently to enter the different settings in each. But for hard science fiction with an astute pessimism, I can think of few as memorable. Bacigalupi has the same reach of vision as a Ted Chiang, but whereas Chiang's work finds himself frequently into fantasy and myth, "Pump Six" finds us more often in the quiet margins of tomorrow's newspapers.
This book seems (as it is numbered #0.5 and #0.6 of a series) a fit introduction to his novel "The Wind-Up Girl," which I am now ready to read!
The stories here do not always strike equally well, and readers must sometimes work diligently to enter the different settings in each. But for hard science fiction with an astute pessimism, I can think of few as memorable. Bacigalupi has the same reach of vision as a Ted Chiang, but whereas Chiang's work finds himself frequently into fantasy and myth, "Pump Six" finds us more often in the quiet margins of tomorrow's newspapers.
This book seems (as it is numbered #0.5 and #0.6 of a series) a fit introduction to his novel "The Wind-Up Girl," which I am now ready to read!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Animal death
Moderate: Classism, Animal cruelty, Gore, Xenophobia, Sexual content, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, Gun violence, Domestic abuse, Colonisation, Torture, War, and Physical abuse
This is a collection of stories of a future after environmental catastrophe and social breakdown; it is not an easy read for its disturbing visions.
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