The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (3 stars)

This novel won a bunch of awards (hugo, nebula, locus) and I can see why. It's unusual to get sci-fi set against a Thai cultural backdrop. The Thai references and setting I liked a lot: farang, Bangkok, Ayutthaya, takraw.

It's a dystopia where the climate has been destroyed and there is a fierce multi-national battle underway for access to seed banks to provide new genetic material for food. The wind-up part comes from everything being powered by animals that store energy into springs, even up to "spring guns". This part was pretty ridiculous, there's a large belief suspension required.

While this setup sounds interesting, I struggled to like it. I usually like grim dystopia's, but something about this one was very unsatisfying. There was no lack of grim-ness, perhaps I just couldn't buy into the spring thing. There's an awful lot of the novel devoted to Emiko overheating.

3 stars.