I was really intrigued
by Bacigalupi’s world building and his incredibly pessimistic depiction of the
future of energy sources, climate change, and genetic engineering. All the
petroleum stores have been completely consumed, and everything is once again
powered by coal and animal labor (mainly the megadonts), or kink springs,
energy wound very tightly into springs, with no green energy in sight. There’s
an evolutionary arms race going on between disease-resistant gene-rip and blister
rust and cibiscosis not unlike our current battle with microbes and
antimicrobials. Sea levels have risen dramatically, swallowing up city after
city, and only the high sea walls keep Thailand from flooding. All in all, it
seems like a depressing yet plausible future if we continue along the same
trajectory of energy consumption.
Something else that stuck out to me while I was
re-reading the book was something that Hock Seng says along the lines of humans
never change. Nothing, especially human prejudice, ever changes. Take, for
example, Emiko, a windup, who is treated and viewed as being less than human
because she was genetically engineered. It's reminiscent of Under the Eaves
with the robot boy or Frankenstein’s monster. There always seems to be a line
where we say that someone is too different to be considered human.
That said, the character depth was quite astonishing, and it was a very satisfying dystopian novel, probably my favorite of everything we've read.
The fact about humans never changing also stuck out to me just because of the circumstances surrounding all of the characters. It is such as different setting where so much has changed, so it is fascinating to see the same amount of prejudice around people and how it has not changed even though the circumstances in the world have. So it brings up the question, what has to happen in order for humanity to change?
ReplyDeleteI feel like in terms of the setting's history they're in an age very much like our own in that there are crises but they are able for the moment to be ignored and so everyone is choosing to ignore them, at least in Thailand. They acknowledge that the levee pumps need to be replaced/repaired and that the next strain of blister rust is imminent but no one seems to have the impetus to do anything about it. In that way it definitely reminded me a lot of present day.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that this setting is related to the world we live in today. Especially when it discusses that water is pumped back into the sea with coal driven machines, and the people that are starving the world over. The majority of people in Thailand ignore these problems for the time being, just like the vast majority of Americans go on with their day to day life without consciously thinking about the impending dangers of the future, or current problems happening in third world countries.
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