Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi

This is something some readers of science fiction loves, and some are not found of, I find myself in the first category, mainly because I feel it creates a more believable narrative in most stories. Bacigalupi tentatively explores his worlds, through characters that seldom take the role of “reporter from the future”. The use of personal narratives is very efficiently used to convey the experience of the brave new worlds explored, without ever leading us into the trap of over explaining the settings. Ecological disasters, capital interest ahead of the greater good, dehumanization and so on, but I find the perspectives to be refreshing in this collection. If you have read a lot of science fiction, you will probably recognize a few of the base themes here. This is a common enough phenomenon in much high ranking modern science fiction and it is done with great skill by Bacigalupi.

The stories explored in the collections all have some common denominators, and an element of man versus the world is present in many of the texts. In this collection we find both “The Yellow Card Man” (nominated for a Hugo Award) and “The Calorie Man” (Winner of a Sturgeon Award), both of them in the same fictional universe as The Wind Up Girl. Pump Six and Other Stories consists of ten short stories, some of which take place in the same fictional universe, a universe the author explored in the novel The Wind Up Girl, a novel that was awarded, amongst other awards, a Nebula Award.

Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi