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Enthralling and deeply provocative, Bacigalupi's tale is convincingly set in a struggling Southeast Asia after world civilization has been wrecked and restored with the end of fossil fuel-based industrial society. This "civilization" remains tenuous and retains the basic political tensions of the previous era, however. In this brave new world a cast of richly defined indigenous and foreign characters plays out old and new dilemmas. The Windup Girl is a cutting-edge work that exemplifies the best of what imaginative fiction--what excellent fiction in general--can and ought to be.

Among recent treatments of globalization, domestic inequality and the fate of the American middle class, THE SERVANT ECONOMY stands out for its clarity and frankness. Its author, founding president of the Economic Polity Institute, offers a comprehensive historical narrative that explains how and why the U.S. has entered--and now, must learn to manage for the future--a period of absolute economic and political decline (its twilight of empire), the pains of which the governing elite will attempt to fix wholly on the backs of the great majority. From the inflation caused by Johnson's failure to raise taxes to fund the Vietnam War to Reagan's undermining of unions and the achievements of the New Deal, from Clinton's accommodation of the financial elite to Bush II's rampant corruption and military expansionism, Faux's analysis spares neither political party nor does it mince phrases in pinpointing the the persons and policies responsible for the trajectory that led to the Great Recession and threatens much the same, or worse, in years to come (Reagan left "Americans Abandoned," Obama is "Stuck in the Sandpile"). The author's deep pessimism about the country's coming decades, especially regarding the day-to-day lives of the middle and lower classes who have already suffered thirty years of income stagnation and dwindling opportunity, is mitigated by a single political recommendation: a mass effort to remove the influence of corporations on the U.S. election process.

A post-modern Conrad dazzles and delights, tackling the big-ticket issues--globalization, poverty, sociopathy, destiny--with wit, insight, and climactic bite. "Slumdog Millionaire" minus the sugar.