This review was originally posted at Christa's Hooked on Books ---> http://christashookedonbooks.blogspot... 
 In the future our world is falling apart. Food is scarce, so calories become the latest currency. Some countries don't make it; India, China, Malaysia. They just couldn't feed their starving populations. Thailand has managed to protect their seed-bank and still has food, but they are still threatened by blister rut, American calorie companies and internal government breakdown. In the midst of all people are still managing to live their lives. 
 Anderson Lake, an American calorie man, posing as a manager of a Thai factory. His mission? To find out more about Thailand's food supply and their ability to produce foods long thought extinct. Dedicated to his job and showing no mercy to those who get in his way, it seems like Anderson may accomplish what he was sent there to do. Then he meets Emiko. Emiko is a Japanese wind-up girl. While highly prized in Japan, in Thailand they are feared and hated. Programmed to obey, she is purchased by a whorehouse after her Kyoto master abandoned her in the country. She dreams of freedom and even she is surprised how far she will go to get it. 
 I didn't realize how much I wanted a book like this until it was in my hands. It's been awhile since I've read a well written, gritty science fiction novel, in the spirit of the Golden Age. Bacigalupi draws us a world that seems extreme yet not impossible. When the oil age is over who will be prepared? As you're introduced to the characters and the settings you're drawn into a complex and layered story, moving from character to character almost flawlessly. 
 Emiko and Anderson are two of the central characters but they are by no means the only ones. There are so many fascinating characters in this novel. There's Hock Sen, Anderson's yellow card employee, Jaidee, Tiger of the Environment Ministry, and Kanya, his second in command. None are neglected or unnecessary, each one serving an important part in the development of the story. I particularly liked Hock Sen. Though for the most part he is conspiring and despicable man he has such a heartbreaking past and such a will to survive you can't help but admire him a little bit. 
 This is easily one of the best books I've read this year. It's well crafted and written. It doesn't hold back. There are some parts of this book that are dark and disturbing. Some that are really hard to read. But it should be hard to read. This is a future where our environmental resources have been exhausted, where people are hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Bacigalupi isn't heavy handed or preachy, he has simply shown us a vision of what the future might hold. Definitely a book that will keep you thinking long after you've finished.