I started this book wi­th hi­gh ho­pes. After all, this was a book by a new-ish au­thor that had won Hu­go Award for Best No­vel (2010), Ne­bu­la Award for Best No­vel (2009), Lo­cus Award for Best First No­vel (2010), John W. Cam­pbe­ll Me­mo­rial Award (2010), Comp­ton Crook Award (2010) Comp­ton Crook Award (2010), Goodrea­ds Choi­ce Award No­mi­nee for Scien­ce Fic­tion (2009). Im­pres­si­ve, uh?

We­ll, I do­n't know what they saw in it. Sha­llow cha­rac­ter­s, per­va­si­ve fa­ta­lism dis­gui­s­ed as dep­th, mpro­ba­ble slang ust be­cau­se it soun­ds cool (win­dup gir­l? Rea­ll­y? Tha­t's how they wi­ll ca­ll ge­ne­ti­ca­lly en­gi­nee­red hu­mans in the fu­tu­re? Win­dup­s? Yeah, ri­gh­t).

Oh, and it's fu­ll of orien­ta­lis­m. And of things like im­planting ge­ne dogs in­to win­dups to make them lo­yal and sub­ser­vien­t. And ghos­ts. Oh, cra­p, al­most no­thing in this no­vel wo­rked for me. Most pa­ges had me sla­pping myself on the fo­re­hea­d.

I am­not against a so­lid do­se of weir­d. I like weir­d. I read Mié­vi­lle, for cra­p's sake. But this is not weir­d, it's con­tri­ve­d.

And do­n't get me started on the en­d. The end is su­ch an ob­vious ana­lo­gy to Eden it al­most ma­de me puke. It's like the end of Ba­ttles­tar Ga­lac­ti­ca, but set on the fu­tu­re. And wi­th lad­y­bo­ys.

I had a be­tter ti­me rea­ding H. Ri­der Ha­ggar­d's "A­llan Qua­ter­mai­n", whi­ch I saw men­tio­ned in the awe­so­me se­ries "The vic­to­rian Hu­go­s". Old and date­d? Su­re. But I would vo­te for it ins­tead of "The Win­dup Gir­l" eve­ry da­y, and twi­ce if they let me.