Got this at the library sale for $1 with an eye to trading it for more, and then decided to read it. From what little I've read about Windup Girl, I think this is in the same or a similar world, no more fossil fuel and much higher sea level.
The protagonist is a ship breaker, working in a yard where old ships are cut up - much like today in Pakistan, except this is Mississippi. After an enormous hurricane, he finds a wrecked ship with a still living rich girl in it, and helps her. She's on the run and then he goes with her.
It's pitched as YA, and typeset for it (larger print and lots of whitespace) and has a second book following which I'm getting from the library, because this one ended abruptly. The abrupt ending made me wonder if he hadn't intended it as YA, but the publisher pushed that. With normal sized font and margins, it would probably come out as a single book of 300-400 pages, instead of over 300 for just the first book. It made me think of Gibson's Count Zero - that had a young protagonist, so I wonder if it would have been pitched as YA if it were published today. This world is grimmer than Gibson though; it seems there are pretty much only the very poor and the very rich.
The world-building was well done, and the book moved along well. He's a good writer. Have to wait for the second book to see if he ties it up well, or if he is just starting a series. That would piss me off.
The protagonist is a ship breaker, working in a yard where old ships are cut up - much like today in Pakistan, except this is Mississippi. After an enormous hurricane, he finds a wrecked ship with a still living rich girl in it, and helps her. She's on the run and then he goes with her.
It's pitched as YA, and typeset for it (larger print and lots of whitespace) and has a second book following which I'm getting from the library, because this one ended abruptly. The abrupt ending made me wonder if he hadn't intended it as YA, but the publisher pushed that. With normal sized font and margins, it would probably come out as a single book of 300-400 pages, instead of over 300 for just the first book. It made me think of Gibson's Count Zero - that had a young protagonist, so I wonder if it would have been pitched as YA if it were published today. This world is grimmer than Gibson though; it seems there are pretty much only the very poor and the very rich.
The world-building was well done, and the book moved along well. He's a good writer. Have to wait for the second book to see if he ties it up well, or if he is just starting a series. That would piss me off.
the hands that guide me are invisible
