Ship Breaker [Hardcover]

Praise for Ship Breaker"Bacigalupi's future earth is brilliantly imagined and its genesis anchored in contemporary issues...The characters are layered and complex, and their almost unthinkable actions and choices seem totally credible. Vivid, brutal, and thematically rich, this captivating title is sure to win teen fans for the award-winning Bacigalupi." --Booklist (starred review)"Bacigalupi (The Windup Girl) makes a stellar YA debut with this futuristic tale of class imbalance on the Gulf Coast...Bacigalupi's cast is ethnically and morally diverse, and the book's message never overshadows the storytelling, action-packed pacing, or intricate world-building." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A dystopian thriller set one hundred years in the future, in the gulf coast region, after an environmental collapse

In the Gulf Coast region, where grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts, Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota - and hopefully live to see another day. But when he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: Strip the ship for all it's worth or rescue its lone survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life. . . .

WELCOME TO A WORLD WHERE OIL IS SCARCE. BUT LOYALTY IS SCARCER. Nailer's time is running out. He's getting too big for his work - stripping copper wire from old oil tankers - and once he's off th crew he's on his own, stuck in a shack on the beach with no food, no money and no way of earning his keep. He has one last chance. The thing all crew members dream about, a lucky strike, has hit in the shape of a clipper ship beached during the last hurricane. If he can hold off the rest of the scavengers long enough to get the oil out, he might just have a future. But oil's not the only thing on the ship. And what Nailer finds is going to change his life for ever. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Paolo Bacigalupi's writing has been nominated for the Nebula and Hugo awards, and has won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best science fiction short story of the year. He lives in Western Colorado with his wife and son.