So I have finished Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi. I have had WindUp Girl on my bookshelf for awhile now (I got through the first few chapters last semester and then the hectic semester schedule and my inability to read more than 2-3 pages without falling asleep meant it sits there still). But this was a good return to his writing. I taught the story "The People of Sand and Slag" last spring and let's just say that he has an incredible eye for describing dystopian futures. Ship Breaker is set on a drowned gulf coast and the main characters work at stripping the rusting hulk like remains of container ships, oil tankers and the like. Nailer, the protagnoist, works light crew -- meaning that he climbs into tiny spaces to pull out copper wiring , helping to produce bits of salvage brought in by other memebers of his crew to meet their daily quota.
I liked the first half best, which detailed Nailer's life, his work, his abusive, drug-addicted father, the "half-men" -- genetic mixes of humans, dogs, tigers -- bred to protect those who pay the shipbreakers for their dead end work. Nailer's greatest hope is either to make it to heavy crew (unlikely for his size) or to make his own "lucky strike" -- to happen on some pocket of oil or stash of salvage large enough to establish him as a dealer in salvage and not just a scrapper for salvage. The second half takes up Nailer's possible lucky strike and love interest a "swank" whose gleaming white clipper ship wrecks near Nailer's beach during a "city-killer," a massive category 6 (8?) hurricane.
The upshot for me: great worldbuilding, excellent dystopian details (you can't swim in oil -- true? who knows, but visions of drowning in oil were very clearly outlined), and a satisfying ending. An added plus -- good musings on the meaning of family and the meaning of obligation and promise. So now I will return to Wind Up Girl at some point (but still, still I want to reread The Years of Rice and Salt -- any takers?
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