[書蠹]曼谷的發條女孩 by Paolo Bacigalupi

譯者：王寶翔（卡蘭坦斯）

2011年科幻小說閱讀本數：11

這本是2010年星雲獎得主。一個名不見經傳的作家能這麼快被引入台灣，得歸功於譯者也是科幻小說愛好者卡蘭坦斯了，也因此翻譯完全可以放心。作者在故事裡刻劃出一個近未來世界的景象，不過因為讀者只能從書中角色對話中揭露的枝微末節來拼湊從現代到書中時代發生的事件，要融入恐怕得花些時間。所幸光是隨著作者的步調走就已經精彩的令人不忍釋卷。

本書也讓人一窺國際大獎作品的水準。引用貓昌前輩轉述國外關於本書的評論：「... But in an odd way, it is a novel which counterpoints Atwood very well. She has people in (more-or-less) our world entering the future and being disturbed by it. Bacigalupi's characters, whether farang exploiters or ruthless politicians, live in that future. They are just not versions of us living in a world we are anxious about but people born in that world who have to make moral choices based upon that world as it is, not as we would like it to be. Awful things happen in The Windup Girl but it is not necessarily inhabited by awful people. Which may be the most unsettling thing about it.」≪發條≫一書背景上承作者過去發表的短篇，書末又留有伏筆，除了希望出版社能夠把前作補完，也期待作者能夠繼續擴充這個迷人的世界。