I found ”The Fluted Girl” more than exquisite, ”The Tamarisk Hunter” and ”Small Offerings” excellent, ”Pump six” very good, ”The Calorie Man” and ”The Yellow Man” just good (weaker than the ”Windup Girl” novel, and having read that one first these seemed less good than they actually are), ”A Pocket full of Dharma” good-ish, the rest from bad to really, really bad. ( )

Pocketful of Dharma, 3 stars
The 19th reincarnation of The dalai lama sits in a data cube in the pocket of a begger boy in Chengdu.

The Fluted Girl, 4 stars
Twins are Frozen at the age of bare adolescence, their bones cut with holes, so that when they are blown into, Melody emerges.
" 'doyou like belari!'Stephen asked suddenly.
'What do you mean?'
'do you like her?'
Lidia gave him a puzzled look. Stephen's brown eyes studied her intensely. She shrugged. 'She's a good liege. Everyone is fed and cared for. It's not like Master weir's fief.
Stephen made a face of disgust. 'Nothing is like weir's fief. He's barbaric. He put one of his servants on a spit.' He paused. 'But still, look at what Belari has done to you.'
Lidia frowned. 'What about me?'
'you're not natural. Look at your eyes, your skin and... ' He turned his eyes away, his voice lowering. 'Your bones. Look what she did to your bones.'
'what's wrong with my bones?'
'you can barely walk!' He cried suddenly. 'You should be able to walk!' "

The People of Sand and Slag, 1 star
Of course I hated it. They ate the dog and I'm a vegan.
"Jaak said 'I think I might have broken it when I put it in the cage.' He studied it seriously. 'It's not moving like it was before. And I heard something snap when I stuffed it in.'
... Lisa frowned thoughtfully. 'It doesn't heal.' She climbed awkwardly to her feet and went to peer into the cage. Her voice was excited. 'It really is a dog. Just like we used to be. It could take weeks for it to heal. One broken bone, and it's done for.' she reached a razored hand into the cage and sliced a thin wound into its shank. Blood oozed out, and kept oozing. It took minutes for it to begin clotting. The dog lay still and panted, clearly wasted."

The Pasho, 2 stars

The Calorie Man, 4 stars
In our future world, all growing food will be sterile. conglomerates will control all the world's food.
This is a story of person making his living by smuggling unstamped calories to small businesses where the smuggled soy and grain is eaten by "megadonts" (genehacked elephants) who in turn wind energy springs. The reason this story is so appealing, is that it's so true of what our future will be. It's not a positive appeal, either.
" 'we are talking of generippers, yes? How much morality can he have?'
'A geneticist. Not a generipper. Geneticists gave us megodonts.' He waved at priti and bidi. 'Me, a livelihood.'
Lalji turned on shriram. 'You take refuge in these semantics, now? You, who starved in Chennai when the Nippon genehack weevil came? When the soil turned to alcohol? Before U-tex and HiGro and the rest all showed up so conveniently? You, who waited on the docks when the seeds came in, saw them come and then saw them sit behind their fences and guards, waiting for people with the money to buy? What traffic would I have with this sort of people? I would sooner spit on him, this calorie man. Let the purcal devils have him, I say.' "

The Tamarisk Hunter, 3 stars
Without water, there's no future for the little guy.
" 'and you saw the Straw?'
'oh sure, I saw it. Out toward the border. Big old mother. So big you couldn't climb on top of it, flopped out on the desert like a damn silver snake. All the way to california.' he spits reflexively. 'They're spraying with concrete to keep water from seeping into the ground and they've got some kind of carbon-fiber stuff over the top to stop the evaporation. And the river just disappears inside. Nothing but an empty canyon below it. Bone-dry. And choppers and Humvees everywhere, like a damn hornet's nest. They wouldn't let me get any closer than a half mile on account of the eco-crazies trying to blow it up. They weren't nice about it, either.' "

Pop Squad, 4 stars
Here's a short story about a world where procreating has been outlawed, because now we have "rejoo." It's a medical miracle that keeps you young and slim and living forever, so of course we can't have babies.

Yellow Card Man, 3 stars
Life for refugees is always hard, but especially when you're an old, once rich man. Or woman.
"Children watch him bathe his old body while their mothers scavenged through purcal Mango peels and red star tamarind hylls hoping to find some bit of fruit not tainted with Cibicosis.111mt.6... Or is it 111 mt.7? Or mt.8? There was a time when he knew all the bioengineered plagues which ailed them. KNew when a crop was about to fail, and whether new seedstock had been ripped. Profited from the knowledge by filling his clipper ships with the right seeds and produce. But that was a lifetime ago."

Softer, 2 stars
When you murder your spouse, life suddenly seems beautiful.
".... And when he was done, he made his himself a gin and tonic and sat and soaked with pia one last time in her macerate. There was a smell about her now, the rot of her guts, the gases of her belly. The ruined wreaked by hot water on dead flesh. But he soaked with her anyway and apologized as best he could for making his life via her dead body. Then he went over and reclaimed to shovel from gabby."

Pump Six, 4 stars
"For the lack of a nail......the war was lost."
Right? Something like that.
The story is taking place in 2120, where no one knows how to fix anything anymore. Protagonist works in a sewage pumping plant, and pump six keeps breaking down. He investigates why the diagnostics don't work, and find out it's been requesting parts to be replaced for 60 years. But the company that made the diagnostics and replaces parts, went bankrupt years ago. The protagonist makes his way to Columbia university, thinking that an engineering student will help him read the downloaded schematics, but the university's engineering department closed down 20 years before, and the library is locked and trashed. ( )

Bleak. The future is coming, and it sucks. ( )

Just, wow. I finished Windup Girl a while ago and I picked this up at a Humble Bundle sale. Man was it good. Makes me really appreciate the power of the short story and have new found respect for Paolo. I want to go out and read another one of this book's right now, especially if there is anything in the Pasho universe. ( )

Dark & disturbing stories of possible near (and far)-futures. The one recurring theme is scarcity of resources and how these different, very plausible, societies deal with it. Two of the stories are pre-cursors to 'The Windup Girl' and fill in more details on how the world depicted there came to exist. ( )