The Windup Girl

The Windup Girl takes place in future Thailand, when the cataclysmic repercussions of climate change have resulted in plagues, extinctions, and policies of political and economic isolationism. People live in the "Age of Contraction" or "post-Expansion," when nations pull away from one another for their own survival during this famine. Except, of course, the greedy corporate machines who seek to gain a stronghold in isolated, independent Thailand through promises of "gene-hacked" wheat and "gene-ripped" soy.

Science seems to respond to the pressures of contraction with strange solutions: giant, gene-manipulated elephants (megadonts) replace machinery; mutated algae slime replaces oil; dangerous methane replaces electricity; DNA is modified with gears and switches to replace humanity with windup people; combustible dirigibles replace airplanes; and light-refracting cheshires replace household cats (Why? And who financed that project?). This isn't quite steampunk, but what is it? Gene-punk? Spring-punk?

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