Pump Six and Other Stories

Not an easy read. Dark and dystopic.

Loved every single story!! They were all so different and yet all human-centered dystopias which is my favourite thing ever.

He's so good. And so depressing.

Bleak, clear-eyed and unblinking, Paolo Bacigalupi forces us to look our future directly in the face. At the end of the story that gives this collection its name, the protagonist, a Quixotic factotum who finds himself in charge of the titular mechanical Rocinante (and possibly civilization itself), says “I chose a book at random and started reading.”

Those us back here in the coalmines of the 21st century would do well to do the same. This is the book to start with.

Wow, short stories with big impact.

Read a second time for book club.

Interesting extrapolation of the near future. A set of stories with a common theme related to the equivalent of the privacy wars against people (citizens) who are unlicensed to produce grain/other wheat-type-staple crop.

Wonderful dark short stories of too-imaginable futures.

I think the short story is the author’s better medium. I enjoyed Pump Six way more than The Windup Girl, even with several of the stories taking place in the same world as his novel. This is a really strong collection, and as long as you don’t mind fairly depressing dystopian/post-appocolyptic stories, this is a great read. “The Fluted Girl” was I think my favorite of the tales, while "The People of Sand and Slag" is enough to make any animal lover disparage for the human race.