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" Originally, 'The Windup Girl' started as a short story - a very gnarly, complicated short story set in Bangkok that didn't work very well. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

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" When we live the 21st-century good life, almost every aspect of it is predicated on not looking at the implications of what we're up to. Happiness at this point has a lot to do with not looking, so you don't feel complicit in some vast and awful enterprise. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I was interested in political failure here in the U.S. The way we're failing to work together to solve even our smallest problems, let alone the complex ones. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" All the definitions people want to put on you in terms of what kind of writer you are come with hidden meanings. If you're writing science fiction, you're writing rocket ships. If you write dystopian fiction, it's inequity where The Man must be fought. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" There are parents who are really angry that I decided to portray people who have come into the country illegally as decent human beings. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I'm less crazy and unhappy when I'm writing. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I think there are narratives going on all the time that we think of as tangential - up until they turn out to be deciding factors in our lives. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" The loneliest Chinese man I ever met lived halfway up the Three Gorges, in Sichuan Province. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" The young adult category is particularly interesting to me in terms of science fiction and fantasy tropes. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" By nature I'm sort of an introvert. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" Sometimes when we label something dystopian fiction, I feel like we're trying very hard not to use the words 'science fiction,' because science fiction has those horrible connotations of rocket ships and bodacious babes. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I think that we live in a highly specialized, technologically advanced society. Highly developed societies tend to have very remote understandings about what underlies our prosperity. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" The sources and research I use for my inspiration aren't your typical sci-fi subjects, but it's really driven by obsession and personal anxiety more than trying to take up the sword and do what's right. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" As an author, you're really grateful for the people who are supporting you, but on some other level, that can be a dangerous echo chamber. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" We're all happier when we know less, because the details are frightening and haven't really improved much. The more you pay attention, the more horrifying the world is. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" As far as 'Windup Girl' becoming a hit - none of us expected that. 'Night Shade' was just hoping not to lose their shirts, and I had grown up hearing from everyone that science fiction didn't sell, so all of our expectations were very low. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" When somebody keeps telling you, 'This book is amazing,' you sort of have this pleasing instinct to say, 'Oh, let me make you happy again; let me do that trick again.' "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" Mostly I sat down and said, 'I'm not going to write a boring story.' And that actually, surprisingly, solves most of your problems. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" The conclusion I came to was that even if I couldn't sell books, I still liked the process of writing. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" Everyone in China knows The Topics. The television stations and newspapers run the same state-generated stories all across the country, and the Chinese form their opinions based on these somewhat controlled sources. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" When I was writing 'The Windup Girl' and 'Ship Breaker,' I was writing those simultaneously, so I was an unpublished writer, not really having that full sense that these books would go out in the world, that they would be successful, that there would be an audience and that there would be fans of those stories. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I have friends who are science journalists, and I'm seeing stories of theirs or talking with them about ideas that they're pitching. Certain kinds of science are around me all the time, like climate change and biology. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" As a kid, I always liked reading stories where I had a power-projection fantasy. I wanted to be inside of a story where I had power and influence, was going to rise to power, was going to somehow influence my society. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I say I write extrapolations. I look at data points and ask what the world could look like. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" When we talk about dystopias, especially in young adult fiction, a lot of them are essentially science fictional futures. They aren't necessarily tied to the traditional concept of dystopia. And so in that space, my impression is that kids love reading about weird, wild, adventurous places, and dystopia fits that bill. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I'm definitely writing my fears. It's almost therapeutic to at least voice a terror, to say, 'I'm worried that Lake Powell looks low and Lake Mead looks even lower.' "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" Science fiction has these obsessions with certain sciences - large scale engineering, neuroscience. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

Science Fiction

" As a writer, you should care about reluctant readers. You want these kids to feel like books are amazing and cool and that they're an escape. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" Fiction is optimistic or unrealistic enough to demand that there should be a meaningful narrative. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" Novelists want to be published and need a publisher to decide to print 20,000 copies. So you need to entertain on some level. I want to reach out and connect. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" Economies are embedded inside ecosystems. Companies dependent on tourism, for example, are affected by low rainfall - there's less snow for skiers, and forest fires are more intense. "

Paolo Bacigalupi