"Clockwork Girl" was drawn by Zhang Zhong when he first arrived in New York. He spent some time transcribing it, and then spent some time changing the characters.
The story of this book mainly takes place in Bangkok, which Zhang Zhong is not prepared to modify, because this background has a great impact on the plot.
The author Paul Bacigalupi is an American, but he loves Eastern culture and has a good understanding of Southeast Asia and China.
He majored in East Asian studies at university and lived in China after graduation, studying Chinese in Kunming and BJ, so his works often have a strong oriental background.
After Zhang Zhong made some revisions to this book, the oriental background is more solid.
This book is very famous. As soon as it was published that year, it quickly won almost all fantasy literature awards, including the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award.
Some people say that this book is a dystopian novel, but this is actually not accurate.
What dystopian novels mainly embody is that the proliferation of material civilization is higher than spiritual civilization, the spiritual dependence is extremely controlled by material, and the human spirit has no real freedom in a highly developed technological society.
This type of novel usually describes the proliferation of human science and technology, which on the surface improves human living standards, but in essence masks a weak and empty spiritual world.
But "Clockwork Girl" is different. The story takes place in the near future - an almost apocalyptic time background.
In the 23rd century, petrochemical energy has been exhausted, and humans have to use simple and crude bioenergy as power. Global warming has caused sea levels to rise, and a large number of coastal cities have been submerged.
Genetically modified genes are abused, mutant viruses are ravaging the human world, and species are dying.
Trade between countries was cut off, the gap between rich and poor widened infinitely, and the world's resources and financial resources were concentrated in the hands of a few grain companies that held key genetic technologies.
Judging from these backgrounds, this novel is more like a doomsday novel, with more emphasis on anarchy and chaotic social order.
The story takes place in Thailand because of its remote geographical environment.
This small and inconspicuous country was able to maintain its unique biological resource advantages and narrowly escaped the catastrophe of national destruction.
The royal family and government are still able to maintain their rule, appear tough, and resist multinational corporations that covet local biological resources.
During the time period when the novel takes place, the government and companies, companies and companies, citizens and foreign refugees, barely formed a fragile balance.
But this balance was broken by the clockwork girl and a few inconspicuous characters.
An interesting thing about the narrative technique of this book is that it uses pov.
The so-called pov is point of view. Translated into Chinese, it means point of view character writing technique. When describing the same thing, you can freely choose the richest perspective.
This technique is not uncommon and appears in many works. On Earth, when many fantasy fans see POV, the first thing they think of is "A Song of Ice and Fire", because this book is an extreme use of POV.
There are too many POV characters to count. Moreover, in "A Song of Ice and Fire", the name of each chapter is the name of a character, and this character is the point of view character of this chapter.
In fact, "The Code of Along the River During the Qingming Festival" is also an ultimate POV novel.
POV appeared very early, and it is not unusual. However, few works used it in such a big way in the past. (In fact, some POV is also mixed into online articles now, which is similar to the transition storyboards in movies, and it is used by many readers.
I generally don’t buy it.)
This writing technique tests the author's narrative skills on the one hand, and the patience of the reader on the other.
In fact, although there are many POVs in "The Code of Along the River During the Qingming Festival", the story narrated in the book can basically be explained in one chapter and one chapter, so the readers will not be so tired when reading.
But in a book like "The Wind-up Girl", the whole story is just one, and it goes around and around. Some readers who are not patient enough may feel that there are too many details and are redundant, and then lose the patience to continue reading.
Of course, the advantages of POV are also obvious. On the one hand, it increases the flexibility of the narrative, and on the other hand, it is very convenient for later modifications and plot additions and deletions.
If this technique is used well, it can give readers a strong sense of involvement and easily trigger the reader's brain to form visual effects, because it itself is somewhat similar to the expression techniques of film and television dramas.
Moreover, this method is suitable for stories with many characters and magnificent scenes, such as "A Song of Ice and Fire" and "The Code of Along the River During the Qingming Festival".
Secondly, this method can also describe a matter "fairly". The reason why it is said to be fair is that the perspective here is not the perspective of God given by the author, but the perspective of the parties involved, that is, the perspective of the viewpoint character.
…
After the name "Clockwork Girl" came out, netizens started a program they couldn't escape from every time - guessing the story through the book title.
[Needless to say? Listening to this name, you know it must be my big league customized novel. 】
[It’s shameless to pet dogs upstairs. Can your dog petting alliance ask Zhang to rewrite a customized novel? 】
[Ahem, people are making fun of me.]
[Haha, don’t take it seriously, but when I saw the title of this novel, I had just played a game of Clockwork. At that time, I thought I was hallucinating from playing too many games. 】
【Clockwork Girl——Orianna.】
[The protagonist must be a robot. His whole body is covered with clockwork. It’s over. When I think of clockwork, the enchanting figure of Orianna pops up in my mind. 】
【Me too.】
[Clockwork: A device that drives a machine. It winds up a sheet steel bar and uses its elasticity to gradually loosen it to generate power...]
The discussion this time is getting more and more skewed, and everyone is linking to the popular game Dog Petting League.
Someone even made a story cover and introduction, which spread on the Internet.
On the cover, there is a picture of the game character Orianna. She has blue eyes, a steel body, and her whole body is covered in parts.
[Introduction: Oriana was once a curious girl with flesh and blood. However, an accident in the lower areas of Zaun indirectly caused her to become seriously ill. Her declining body had to be replaced with sophisticated artificial organs, one after another, until
There is no human flesh in her body anymore. She made herself a wonderful brass sphere, which is both a companion and a bodyguard.]
This is the simplest introduction, and some people directly brought out Orianna’s complete background story.
People who play games will naturally recognize who this is when they see this cover and introduction, and they also know that it is funny.
But other people who don't play games were really frightened when they saw this picture and introduction.
For a while, some readers really thought that the protagonist of "The Wind-Up Girl" was Orianna, an authentic Piltover girl.