An excellent book set in an interesting near future. It’s the 22nd century, but the collapse of oil and ravages of engineered plagues have knocked technology way back. Carbon emissions are also a big problem, with the sea nearly drowning many cities– and having drowned several others. The setting is great; an intriguing mix of various threads of today extrapolated forward.
The characters fit the setting and are well done. Tan Hock is very sympathetic, despite also scheming and cheating– often tough to make work for me as a reader. Anderson is a good gaijin– focused on home and what success means there, tangled in the local situation but also somewhat above it. Kanya and Jaidee provide interesting takes on the Environmental Ministry, anchoring the carbon emissions and making their effect concrete. Emiko, the windup girl of the title, is wonderful– but she goes through terrible things. I know that when I recommended the book to my wife, it was with the caution that her character is horribly abused on screen– degradation is a core part of her experience.
Their interactions are sometimes surprising, sometimes seem a little contrived as they cross paths, but they show and experience a very tumultuous time in the City’s history, from very complimentary points of view. Unlike many large cast books, I never wanted to skip past a character’s experiences to get to the next.