The Sword and Laser discussion

What books does The Windup Girl make you think of, for similar themes or storylines? The one I keep thinking of, and I might go back and read again, is The Possibility of an Island by Michel Houellebecq. (Of course, I read the English translation). It is about a man, Daniel, interspersed with the stories of his clones that continue his life after he is gone. But there is a lot about what constitutes humanity, how much control you should have over your life, etc.

While I have not read The Possibility of an Island You mentioned that it was about a man with stories of his clones that continue his life. It reminded me of Kiln People where a short lived copy is stranded after the death of his original.

Being copies they are always trying to report back to their original, so that the memories can be uploaded and so, they would 'live on', but that can no longer happen. So what is left?

And like Windup girl, the copies are completely subjugated. There are property laws to 'protect' them but the fines for damages are rather low, so there is always constant danger to the copies.

All of these are exploring humanity by seeing what they do to other people. In order to try to find out what humanity is, authors are often trying to also trying to say where we will go, and what our impact will be to the future. Humanity, spirituality and religion are interlinked, but in different levels.

Windup Girl dealt mostly with Humanity, and had characters that were all flawed. Kiln people tried to go more into religion and what comes next.

I found myself initially thinking of Blade Runner, but more and more I'm finding parallels to Heart_of_Darkness. Strangers in a strange land; civil unrest; a fat, sweaty farang-messiah-chieftain. Boats. I could go on.

aldenoneil wrote: "I found myself initially thinking of Blade Runner, but more and more I'm finding parallels to Heart_of_Darkness. Strangers in a strange land; civil unrest; a fat, sweaty farang-messiah-chieftain...."

If you're into that, Perdido Street Station is probably for you!

The Windup Girl reminded me a lot of early Ian McDonald, especially The Broken Land and Evolution's Shore. Both of those are out of print, but River of Gods would be a good choice too. It captures a future India much the way The Windup Girl portrays a future Thailand.