The people have spoken, and we’re reading Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker for September’s Book Club. If you weren’t around for the poll, here’s how I described it:
The Verge Reads: get your schedule for ‘Ship Breaker,’ our September Book Club pick
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
Paolo Bacigalupi specializes in environmental disasters in the best possible way; if you read SF, you might remember his novel The Windup Girl. Ship Breaker’s protagonist lives by breaking down pieces of a better world, stripping metal from ships that no longer work in a flooded world without oil. Instead of combustion, the world runs on springs and genetic engineering, led by a few Monsanto-like companies that travel the globe on clipper ships.
To give a little more context, it’s a young adult novel from an author best known for his non-YA stories, dealing with climate change, income inequality, and the future of food. I reviewed its (loosely defined) sequel, The Drowned Cities, last year. If you want to join in, here’s our reading schedule:
- September 6th: Chapters 1 – 6
- September 13th: Chapters 7 – 12
- September 20th: Chapters 13 – 18
- September 27th: Chapters 19 – 25
Check out our discussion starting next week at the Book Club forum and at our Goodreads group.
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