The Windup Girl chapters 13 - 14

Chapter 13:

Jaidee remembers meeting and courting his wife. Then he goes to the Ministry to make an apology for being a thieving, destructive jackass. The punishment is harsher than I expected but actually more in line with real-life consequences. He did, after all, accept bribes (even if he didn't keep his end of the bargain) and destroy private property. (He also beats private citizens up.) Most of the cargo he torched was legit. He's sentenced to nine years doing penance as a monk while his children are relegated to Ministry care.

The most appalling facet of his public apology? Foreigners are present.
"Foreigners inside the Ministry compound. Traders and factory owners and Japanese, sunburned sweating stinking creatures, invading the Ministry's most sacred place." P.142.

The horrors! And yet I really think we're supposed to like this guy. Honestly, I see what he's trying to do but when it's offensive with one set of races it doesn't magically become okay when you flip things. At least I hope he's trying something that intelligent rather than trying to accurately portray Thai people because that would just be offensive. I mean it's already offensive but...Let's move on.

Chapter 14:

The aftermath of Jaidee's demotion from Anderson's POV. The foreigners who lost cargo have been paid reparations and one of them acts like a drunk idiot. Anderson talks with Carlyle and meets with Trade Minister Akkarat. Akkarat has a rivalry with Jaidee's boss, Pracha. Anderson and Akkarat talk about a possible deal: support from Anderson's company in exchange for samples from Thailand's genetic seed bank.

"Your people have tried to destroy mine for the last five hundred years."

"Ever since your first missionaries landed on our shores, you have always sought to destroy us. During the old Expansion your kind tried to take every part of us. Chopping off the arms and legs of our country...With the Contraction, your worshipped global economy left us starving and over-specialized." P.150. 

Somebody, either Akkarat or Paulie, has a very tenuous grasp on history and logic. This is just...silly. He's conflating Americans with all Westerners which is a very simplistic and unfair way of viewing things. Not all Americans have a white, Christian, European background and we certainly have nothing to do with anything that the Europeans did. Also, I missed the part where our country has done bad things to Thailand or forced them to specialize. Agency, remember? God forbid countries be held accountable for their own decisions. I mean, somebody pull out the tiny violin. And again, the imputation that free trade is evil. WTF?

Okay. I also read Andrea Camillieri's The Snack Thief. Montalbano gets a case where a man is knifed in the elevator of his apartment and this leads him to a shooting on a fishing boat, a Tunisian cleaning woman and her four year old son. The plot was a bit confusing but at the end there's one of those "Let me sum up" speeches which helps immensely.

Right now I'm reading Have Mercy on Us All by Fred Vargas. I read The Chalk Circle Man and enjoyed it once I realized it was almost a parody of police procedurals. The main character Adamsberg relies more on intuition than interviews or forensics. He lets others handle that. There is much more philosophizing and musing on the meaning of life and things but it's engrossing all the same. In both books the crime starts with odd but non-criminal things that disturb Adamsberg enough to look into them. Inevitably they both turn into something deadly. The book I'm reading now has a guy pretending he's releasing the plague on Paris, complete with disturbing messages and preventative symbols painted on doors.

It's a good thing that Vargas was on my list of authors to read before I read Patrick Anderson's review of her most recent book to be translated into English. Here's what he said: "Although Vargas is hugely popular in Europe, she remains largely unknown in the United States, a discrepancy I must attribute to the high degree of intelligence, sophistication and perversity that informs her fiction."

Lines like this reveal a hell of a lot more about the people who write them than about the subject of the sentence. Pat is either trying to shame people into reading the book by telling them they're too dumb to like it or he's congratulating himself and others who already read the books for being smart enough to appreciate them. The first isn't going to work. I don't know why critics seem to think that telling people they're stupid heathens will get them to read things the critics like but it doesn't allow for personal taste. "You don't like it? Well, I guess you just didn't understand." *Sigh* I encountered this attitude so much during the time I worked in the museum that I'm immune to it now. It's silly and childish. There's a difference between understanding something and liking it. If someone doesn't like something you enjoy it isn't a personal attack on you. And really, you don't need other people's confirmation that a book or work of art really is good before you enjoy it. Telling people they aren't intelligent if they don't like something is mean-spirited.

 The second reason he could have included that sentence can be summed up by a line from The Princess Bride: "Yes, you're very smart, now shut up."

 (I was always amused when tourists would ask me if I "got" Mark Rothko. What they were really asking me was, "Is it all right if I don't like Rothko?" I would explain Rothko's color fields as best I could with the disclaimer that I don't personally like them. People sometimes need reassurance that they aren't philistines if they don't like something considered great. Acting all snobbish about it will just push people away since they won't want to reveal themselves to disdain and then they have no incentive to learn anything new since the work will just bring feelings of shame and embarrassment.)

The Windup Girl Chapters 12

Chapter 12:

 Anderson yells at Hock Seng over the loss of their equipment at the airfield because somehow Jaidee's douchey behavior is the fault of his employee. Something about not paying bribes. Hock Seng continues to be a conniving jackass. Dog Fucker takes Hock Seng to meet the Dung Lord, a Thai with influence of some sort. The Dung Lord made it possible for the Chinese Malayan refugees to be in Thailand in the first place. Hock Seng offers him a deal; stolen kink spring wonder formula (from that danged safe) for a ship to restart his trade empire. Yeah, everything is run by spring. You wind them up and get power from the conversion of "calories to joules". Algea is involved in some way.

 It turns out Hock Seng murdered the yellow card who had the factory job before him. "You were starving. There was no other way. p.136. Really? I guess I'll just have to take your word for it considering we're never shown anything to support or refute your rather hysterical claim. This is a problem with the book in general. Paolo isn't very good at showing. He says the food supply is decimated, people starve, the world is in turmoil but all he shows us is people eating. Coffee, whiskey, noodles, rice, crab, laab mu, gaeng gai, salad, gaeng kiew wan, octopus, "markets full of vegetables", snack sellers, som tam, nam plaa prik, chile-laden pork, bamboo tips, rice beer. These and other references are scattered throughout the text. Nobody is shown having difficulty getting food. This gives the impression that people are indeed getting enough to eat. The same with the yellow cards. Yeah, we take a walk with Hock Seng through the slums but we don't see much more than a depressed area with people going about their daily lives, not well-off but getting along. You say they're all on the edge but I'm not convinced. Also, this book is boring and soulless.

 In other news I just finished Murder at the Savoy by Wahloo and Sjowall.

I liked this book like I've enjoyed the other ones but the ending and moral was a bit odd.

A businessman named Palmgren is murdered by a man who calmly walked into a hotel dining room, shot his victim, and then escaped through a window. Investigations show that Palmgren was kind of a jackass (to put it mildly) when it comes to his business dealings. He trades in arms with African dictators (this book came out in the early '70s), he ruthlessly managed his factories by closing down nonproductive ones rather than retooling them, and he was also a slum lord. Possibly. There wasn't much description of the conditions his tenants lived in actually.

Anyway, to give away the plot of the book, it turns out he was shot by a former office worker in a factory that was shut down two years before. The man took to drinking and started getting into fights with his wife. The building manager reported him to various civic authorities for noise violations and possible child endangerment and he was brought before the temperance board several times for his drinking. Times had changed since he'd gotten his office job 12 years before and he no longer had the training to get a "real job", as his wife puts it. Which means he was turning down jobs he thought were beneath him rather than taking one and getting the training he needed to find something better.

The building manager (this is a Palmgren owned building where factory workers were housed) eventually evicts him. (The detectives speculate that there was a conspiracy headed by Palmgren to get him out so the apartment could be rented out at a higher price. No facts towards this but...no facts towards this.) His wife (described as slovenly and wearing sleazy clothing) separates from him and he gets a lower paying job in another town. Because he obviously has no part in his downward trend (you know, the drinking, the spurning lower paying jobs, the fights, the fact that yes, drunken, argumentative daddy is not good for the kiddies) he's pitied by the detectives who muse how terrible it is that Palmgren's cronies will go on business as usual while this poor, battered man will spend the best years of his life in prison. The main character Martin Beck muses that nobody will miss Palmgren and that he hopes the murderer will get off lightly in his sentencing.

Bull. Shit. I don't care that Palmgren is a jackoff who (inadvertently) helped ruin this guy's life. I hate having to harp on the idea of responsibility and agency but really. The murderer contributed to his own downfall. He did not deal with his misfortunes well. The idea that the taking of a human life is not a tragedy because nobody will miss them is disgusting and more than a little disturbing. Yes, Palmgren is not a good man but that doesn't give anybody the right to decide that he doesn't get to exist any longer. I would argue that killing him is a far worse crime than shutting down a non-productive factory and having a building manager that doesn't like your face. I really hope nobody would argue me on this point but apparently '70s Wahloo and Sjowall would.

The introduction says that this book displays the ugly side of the left at the time and I have to agree. Capitalist business practices can be ugly (especially when gone to the extremes as they have in this book. I mean, gun running?) but what's presented here is only one side and I would still say that cold-blooded murder is worse for society.

Whew. It was a good book. The moral just bothered me a little.

The Windup Girl chapters 9 - 11

Chapter 9:

Emiko wakes and bathes.
 "She's pours a ladleful over her head. Water courses down her face, runs over breasts and ribs and thighs, trickles onto hot concrete. Another ladleful, soaking her black hair, coursing down her spine and curling around her buttocks." P. 102. I only quote this because I question not just the purpose of this scene but Emiko's entire presence in this book. 100 pages and two short scenes.
 We learn that she is routinely raped and tormented in her shared apartment. Yippee. She walks down to the seawall to find out about passage north but no luck. She has to disguise the way she moves because windups without papers are "mulched". A man accosts her. He fought windup soldiers and since she's a windup he tries to kill her. She runs, gets overheated, and is rescued by (of course) Anderson Lake.

 Chapter 10:

So Anderson rescued Emiko and now they ride together in his rickshaw. They talk and then he starts to make out with her while wondering if she wants to or just can't say no. Ask her, you moron!
 This feels like something out of the '70's. Beautiful Asian courtesan/prostitute is rescued by strong, stoic, blond-blue-eyed-white man in exotic location. Gag. Also, is there no oil left? If they can create truly marvelous wonders of genetic engineering why can't they come up with an energy substitute? Okay, Paulie, if oil is a no go for us, (message story, remember?) what are we supposed to do? Also, why Thailand? Or why not a Thai protagonist?

 Chapter 11:

 Jaidee muses on how stupid the Malayan Chinese (no, I don't know why it's not Malaysian) were to not integrate and become Muslim, unlike the Chaozhou Chinese who assimilated into Thai society, taking Thai names. He believes the "yellow cards" are at fault for not anticipating their own slaughter. He thinks about this while assaulting a Chaozhou Chinese for backtalk. Then he gets called to the Environment Ministry over the cargo burning. Someone has kidnapped his wife. His boss says he'll have to make an apology and accept demotion if they want to try to get her back.

 More limited background but still no idea what state the rest of the world is in. I still don't understand how anyone would continue to allow these "calorie companies" such control. Since I'm not a cynical twit I don't actually think any country would allow this or just bend over and take it from another country. How come only Thailand has managed to create new food?

 There's also an anti-capitalism vibe running through this. "We haven't had heeya like this since the last Expansion. Money at any cost. Wealth at any price." P.127. Yes, of course, because if you forcibly limit people's ability to make money they would settle down and devote themselves to artistic pursuits. Wars would disappear! Peace on Earth, goodwill towards men! No one would ever again attempt to gain power or control over others. Really, I'm all for regulation of business and such but come on. Be realistic.

 Also the amount of detail used to say "Look! We're in Thailand! isn't this exotic!" is irritating. Take this sentence: "She wears the same blue pha sin that she had on when she made him a breakfast of gang kiew wan..." P.126. Pha sin seems to be a type of skirt. Maybe, maybe, you can justify the repeated use of the italicized pha sin. But why do we need to know what he had for breakfast except to add a foreign detail? There are a lot of foreign words introduced without translation that obviously have equivalent English words like: fish, foreigner, skirt, sir, yes, ghost, gangster, fun, canal, side street, why, karma, dharma, hot heart... This is silly. Maybe more on this later.

The Windup Girl Chapters 7 - 8

Mah bunny, Charlie, tries to eat the coffee table.

Chapter 7:

 Jaidee and Kanya stop disease-resistant pineapples from being smuggled in (the fuck? Don't they need stuff like that? Explain stuff, Paulie!) and then they bitch about how awful the world is and how it's all the fault of those terrible foreigners over a lunch of snakehead pla. Ahh!! Frankenfish! A wonderful reminder that invasive species go both ways. Jaidee is surprised to learn that his men are resentful that his rogue ways net them nothing but career stagnation and that he doesn't share the money he steals. He protests that they know it's there whenever they need it but I guess his men don't know how to read minds.

 This is one of those books that portrays all Westerners as the source of all men's ills with the poor brown and yellow people helpless against their greedy ways, incapable of any agency and certainly not fucking up their own genetic engineering projects. Everything the exotic Thais and Japanese create is wholesome and good for society (including the secretaries doubling as sex dolls, I guess) and everything Western (read: American) companies create is corrupt and imperialistic. Oh, blow it out your ass, Paulie. You do know this is a very neo-colonial, dare I say racist, world view? Also, I don't believe vegetation is that pathetic and incapable of adaptation. It'll be here long after we've gone. Haven't you seen The Happening? No? Good. That movie was terrible.

 Chapter 8:

 The next 15 pages are spent in a bar patronized by foreigners (farang, in italics, often) called The Sir Francis Drake. They bitch about losing their cargo to Jaidee's arson spree and how hard it is to be exploitationist smugglers. Anderson learns that ngaw is probably Rambutan. Carlyle, a big Trade man who involves himself in politics, comes in. He tells Anderson that a change in government is coming. Thailand uses a system of pumps to keep the sea from flooding the city (it's immersed other low lying cites like New York and New Orleans) and Carlyle has the necessary repair equipment in a warehouse in another country. He intends to hold it hostage so he can pressure the Thai government to allow laxer trade laws. He also lets Anderson know that he's onto him because most of Anderson's equipment originates in Des Moines. (Why? Why doesn't his company set things up so he can order from India or something?) Carlyle wants to make a deal. Anderson decides to kill him. Eventually.

 Also, Grahamites. A new sect of Christianity set against generipping. They also hate global trade because "food should come from the place of its origen, and stay there." p. 93. Apparently global trade causes famine. The food companies and their "calorie men" out of Des Moines engineer sterile crops so that people have to keep buying them. They export all over the world where they sterilize native crops. And this is somehow legal even after the practice has caused widespread devastation all over the world. Trade and politics! My God, this is boring.

 I'm also reading The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Two cousins in 1939 want to make their own comic to capitalize on Superman's popularity. Joseph Kavalier managed to escape Prague with the help of an old escape artist, smuggled to Lithuania in a coffin containing the golem. Samuel Clayman lives in New York City, dreaming of making his fortune as a cartoonist. When his cousin Joe turns out to be a trained artist he realizes the two of them have a shot at success. So far it's a fine read. This is not a book to rip through. The prose takes its time to set things up and explain background. There's a great explanation of the start of comic books and Superman's beginnings.

The Windup Girl Chapters 5 - 6

Chapter 5:
Anderson sits in his apartment and looks at pictures of fruit.


Chapter 6All right, all right. He comes across an old photo of a couple of men standing next to a roadside fruit stand upon which sits a pile of ngaws. However, there's no caption to tell him what the fruits were originally called. Anderson sits there, naked, in the heat, on his apartment's balcony and silently rages at the "fat, self-contented fools" (read: us, now) because they dare to look happy and have plenty. The outrage! How dare they not be clairvoyant! How dare they be content and pleased with their lives. Anderson wishes he could drag the men out of the image so he can yell at them, out of jealousy, and then murder them. Which is apparently what he did to Yates, the last guy to run the cover factory, though admittedly Yates drew first.
He figures that Gi Bu Sen is actually Gibbons, a former agricultural company generipper who supposedly died in a fire.

Okay, here's what I've gleaned. Our time is known as the Expansion. We were all horrible, self-centered individuals who behaved extravagantly. Then the oil supply ran out and the Contraction happened. The book takes place in the 22nd century. I think. Clippers and dirigibles are used for travel, Megadonts and "kink springs" for power. Crop diseases (released by Western companies) have wiped out a lot of the food supply and somehow global trade has collapsed. Which seems silly as even before steam there was global trade, it was just slower. For all this talk of lack of food, there's no sign of it. Show, don't tell, Paulie.


Also, I was right about not liking Anderson.


Chapter 6:
Hock Seng waxes philosophical about slums and banks while raiding his cash stash and we fade into a flashback of his escape from Malaya. All his family died and his workers turned on him out of fear for their own safety. The "Green Handbands" took over Malaya and blamed the Chinese and Buddhists for their trouble? Possibly? And the emerald headwear are Muslims? Or something.


Hock Seng takes his money for a meeting with "Dog Fucker" (Literal or metaphorical? A mystery for another chapter), underling of the "Dung Lord", who immediately places himself as a bad guy by claiming to have fucked Hock Seng's messenger to death. Thanks for that Paulie. We're not going for subtlety, are we? Also, Hock's sorrow at his past troubles seems to be more about the destruction of his trade empire and less at the massacre of his family. Paolo isn't very good at emotional content.

The Windup Girl cliff notes again chapters 2 - 4

Chapter 2: The aftermath of Anderson killing the megadont as told by his employee and 2nd in command, Hock Seng. Hock Seng is a "yellow card", a Chinese Malayan(No, I don't know why not Malaysian, Paulie doesn't like explaining stuff) refugee from the "Incident". Yellow Cards are allowed to be in Thailand but they're not allowed to take jobs that could conceivably go to Thais so they seem to primarily be beggars.

 The megadont rampage and death caused oodles of damage that will require more money from the investors for repairs, bribes, and brahmins/feng shui practitioners. In 8 pages Hock Seng refers to his boss as "foreign devil" or just "devil" 16 times, as yang guizi(foreign devil) 18 times, and even simply as "the creature" several times. Also, to him, Thais are lazy and stupid. He plots to steal proprietary blueprints from the main office. (An entire page is devoted to him wondering if the safe got left open in the chaos. It didn't.) I'm not sure if he's supposed to be an antagonist or just an asshole but he lets us know Anderson is a blond with "watery devil pool eyes." And he compares foreigners to aliens and petulant children. (Is this supposed to turn Western stereotypes about Asians and Westerners on their heads or is that just me? Because that's not clever.) I'm pretty sure we're supposed to dislike him but that's actually not clear yet. Anderson does kind of act like a petulant child but we still haven't had much substantial from his point of view.

 So recap. Damage is assessed (not good), megadont is cut up for transport, Hock Seng is a bigoted jerk who plans to steal from his employer.

 Chapter 3: An introduction to Emiko, the titular Windup Girl. She's a New Person, genetically engineered in Japan as a secretary (glanced over) and elite sex doll (important part). Her skin is so smooth that her pores are too minuscule to allow much sweating and she easily overheats in the tropical environment. She moves in jerky movements due to her programming and is basically unable to say no. Can you see where this is going?

She was sold to the unappreciative Raleigh to work in his club/brothel where she is regularly abused by patrons and co-workers alike. She hates her life. So. This chapter she is humiliated, raped on stage with a dildo, and brought to "papa-san's" office to meet with a gold-haired foreigner with corpse-pale skin and acid pool blue eyes. (Hello, Anderson.) She's ordered to tell him about a customer she had who told her about his gene-ripping aunt and a gene engineer name Gi Bu Sen. Anderson tells her that there are Windup enclaves to the North where her kind live free. She regains the will to live.

 Chapter 4: New character! Captain Jaidee Rajjanasukchai works for the Environment Ministry. He protects Thailand from farang(foreigners) and trade. Dirty, dirty trade. He and his 2nd, Kanya, are at the airfields shaking down customs officials from the Ministry of Trade. 200,000 baht to let in the foreign crates without inspection. And that's twice these guys have had to pay a bribe. But what's this? Oh no! Jaidee is the "Tiger of Bangkok", protector of the Kingdom and completely un-bribable. Though apparently he isn't above stealing. He has his men raid the dirigibles and burn the cargo.

When he gets home his wife worries he goes too far but he remarks that he is in the child queen's good graces which makes him harder to touch. So he hates foreigners and free trade, the root of all evil, and he's willing to be pissy about it. You know, I don't like any of these characters. They are all contemptuous of anyone they perceive as "other" and are very self-righteous about it. I don't know about Anderson yet as his chapter didn't actually give us much of a look at him personally but I'm willing to bet he's similar. Though it won't be presented as such, I'm sure. Also, stop peppering foreign, italicized words throughout the text for no real reason. Yes, we're in Asia. It's exotic. I get it.

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi cliff notes chapter 1

Sunrise a couple days ago

Chapter 1: I'm still looking for more steampunk and this book is often recommended alongside Boneshaker so why not. However this takes place in the future which sort of defeats the purpose of steampunk. Oh, but there's a twist! (Isn't there always.) The oil supply has run out...or something. I'm not sure. So now things are run by manpower or megadont power. Computers are operated by foot treadle. (Can you generate enough power old-fashioned sewing machine style to run a word processor?) The food situation is messed up, somehow. Corporate conglomerates (in America, of course) rule food supplies with an iron fist. Fresh fruit and vegetables are extinct, I'm not really sure about animals, they aren't mentioned. Crop diseases are out of control. Calorie is king! Apparently. Hopefully that'll be run by us in more detail.

 Our main character, Anderson Lake, is operating a fake business in Thailand so he can scout the generipping done there to bring back old foods. Yeah, gene engineering is rampant which must be the source of the food problem. So he buys a funny-looking fruit called a ngaw and goes back to his cover spring-making factory where the process of kink spring manufacture is explained in way too much detail and then he gets flattened by a megadont. (He'll be fine.)

 I hadn't read the main cover blurb or the inside flap but I did after a couple pages. "...astute social commentary in poignant, revelatory prose" gushes Publishers Weekly. Oh dear, Paulie's got a Message. The windup girl is apparently going to be a genespliced, creche grown sex doll created for a Japanese businessman. So what I've gleaned so far is: Soulless, scheming corporate American business drones ruin and run the world food supply; Shifty-eyed, lazy, betelnut-chewing Thais create new food in an exotic, superstitious, literarily exploitable location; the Japanese are perverts. Well, that about covers it. I don't know about this one. We'll see.

Iain Banks sucks so let's move on

I just finished Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. I really liked Sci-Fi and Fantasy when I was younger but for some reason it just hasn't appealed to me in the last few years. However, recently I've been craving something implausible but grounded in reality. Therefore: Steampunk. My last foray into the genre was with Soulless by Gail Carriger. That didn't go so well. There are only so many times I can read the same joke in 100 pages and the romance plot was silly, rushed, and took up far too much space. Boneshaker seems quite popular so I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did.

 Seattle, 1880. Back East the Civil War rages on, kept going by British interference and Jackson not being killed. 16 years prior to the events in the book a giant drilling machine plowed through downtown Seattle leaving devastation in its wake and releasing a toxic gas from underground. This gas, Blight, kills and corrupts, raising the dead as canabalistic creatures known as "rotters." (The word Zombie wasn't in use colloqially at the time.) The area was evacuated and a huge wall was built around the area to trap both Blight and rotters.

 Briar, the widow of the man who caused this sorry mess, works in the water purification plant and cares for her teenage son, Zeke. Zeke is convinced that his father didn't unleash Hell on Earth merely to rob a few banks, so he finds his way into the closed city to prove it. Unfortunately an earthquake collapes the tunnel he had used so Briar sets off after him by airship. Inside they seperately discover those people who stayed behind either because of sheer tenacity or because there's profit to be made through looting and the Blight-derived drug lemon sap. Over this wasted territory, where walking the street requires a gas mask and a gun, looms the sinister Dr. Minnericht. He has his own domain where he runs his crew, making crazy inventions and Blight drugs, and many of the locals are in debt to him one way or another. Briar and Zeke make their way through this dangerous area, moving from safe spot to safe spot, meeting those people who live there, who prove both help and hindrance.

 Okay, I liked this book. Briar is a capable woman, tough and good with a gun but still human. She's a nice change from the tough female character that seems written to out-male most men. Briar worries, frets, cries, and becomes afriad but she really holds her own both verbally and physically. Zeke does something stupid in that "I'm practically a grown-up, of course I know what I'm doing" way that teenagers have to kick-start the book but he figures out fairly quickly that he's in over his head. He's pretty resourceful, in his own way, and recognizes when he needs help. I never wanted to smack him so I'd say his characterization was well done. The other characters were memorable and interesting. The plot was dynamic and the action scenes were exciting. I had fun. I liked the ending. I like the way Priet lets main characters do bad things and doesn't excuse them for it. The rotters are an animal-like, putrefying horde, inexorable and full of menace. They and the Blight form an ever-present threat throughout the book. There aren't that many clockwork devices but there are a few neat ones to set the tone and of course there are the airships. I could have used more gadgets though Swakhammer's armored and masked bulk made up for that a bit.

 The one thing I don't get is why no one had gone in with masks to exterminate the rotters in those 16 years. Yeah, I get that territory status and the Civil War made things difficult out West but you'd think the locals could have mustered a few zombie hunting expeditions in that time. Cut the numbers down anyway. Oh, and what were the Chinese doing in there? They couldn't have just been in there to pump air down from the sky so why did they stayed in the closed off city? That aside; good book and I'll be reading more of her stuff.