Ship Breaker is the new novel from Paolo Bacigalupi. Unlike his previous effort (The Windup Girl), Ship Breaker is a Young Adult novel. As an aside, I understand financially why author’s write YA books, since they pay better, but it sucks that authors have to do it. To have a brilliant new author like Bacigalupi and know that his new book is aimed at a YA audience makes me sad and wonder how much better it would be if it was aimed at the adult market. But besides being aimed at a YA audience, Ship Breaker is a worthy followup to The Windup Girl and moves Bacigalupi into the top tier of science fiction authors after just two books (and one story collection).

Nailer is a scavenger on the light crew in this dystopian novel. The age of oil is gone and the wrecked boats and tankers are fair game for scavenging. The light crew takes anything that isn’t nailed down (wires, fittings, etc) and the heavy crew took ripped apart anything that was nailed down. Nailer is small and agile, so his job is to go into the ships and grab anything and everything he can find. Back out on the surface, the rest of the crew will strip and sort it so that the boss can sell it for a profit. Nailer’s father is also one of the toughest and meanest men in the area, when he’s not strung out on drugs. And there are half-men, half-dog, genetically engineered muscle to help keep the peace or break the bones.

After a huge storm, Nailer comes across a wrecked boat. But this boat is one that the rich people in the world use for travelling via high altitude wind currents. As he and his boss Pima start scavenging, and trying to decide how to keep it for themselves, they come across a survivor. She’s a daughter of a rich person and is caught in between the struggle of two sides in her father’s company. Nailer has to decide whether to kill her and scavenge all her belongings or take a chance that she might be worth more alive. He is then forced to live with the consequences of his decision.

Bacigalupi’s writing and story-telling are wonderful. He brings you into a fully-realized world with characters and situations that fit into that world perfectly. He truly has become one of science fictions’ best new writers and everyone should be on the lookout for his next project.