The Windup Girl

The setting of the novel is Bangkok, Thailand, sometime in the distant future. The protagonist, Anderson Lake is head of SpringLife factory, which develops energy sources and is fueled by megadonts, or gigantic, “gene-hacked” and “elephant-derived animals” genetically disinterred from the Pleistocene Age; they possess four tusks that have been sawed off for the factory workers’ safety (8). The Earth’s population is starving and depends upon genetically-modified food such as TotalNutrientWheat, SoyPRO and HiGroCorn. The ocean-levels have risen, and while Bangkok has constructed walls to prevent flooding, other coastal cities such as New York and New Orleans have vanished under the sea. The climax of the chapter consists of an ill-treated megadont that revolts, smashes up the factory, and grabs Anderson with its trunk. It is on the verge of killing Anderson, but he has previously managed to shoot it with “toxins concentrated from AgriGen research on wasp venom” (19). Convinced he will be converted into “jelly under the foot of an oversized elephant” (19), Anderson instead witnesses the pitiful death of the dumb and exploited animal. As the chapter ends,