This is pretty wonderful -- hence all the awards. Bacigalupi creates a future world that's rich and complex without ever dropping big info-dumps into the narrative. It's a dystopia where the effects bioengineering and capitalism destroyed the society that we have today, dropping things back into a combination of pre-oil energy (clipper ships, windmills) and advanced biological manipulation. It's disturbingly believable, alas. It took me a bit to get engaged with the characters, but once I was it absorbed me.