But in 2004, with his third story, "The People of Sand and Slag," I felt Bacigalupi came into his own. It's set in a profoundly ruined future, and tells of three miners who encounter a dog -- dogs being nearly extinct in this time. What seems at first blush conventional takes a savage and believable turn that drives home Bacigalupi's point. This is still my favorite Bacigalupi story, but he has consistently been nearly as good since then. Slightly different in flavor is "The Pasho," set much farther in the future, and focussing on the conflicts between an tradition-minded old man, and his grandson, who has gone away to study to become a Pasho -- a man who understands the science that, people like his grandfather feel, led to the environmental ruin of their future. "The Calorie Man" is set in a future shaped by environmental damage and rampant corporatism, and in which much energy is generated by human effort. Corporate control of genetic modification drives an exciting thriller plot. "The Tamarisk Hunter" is an effective and bitter look at water conflicts in the fairly near future West, when California is more or less bleeding the mountain states dry, and the few who remain there eke out a living by such stratagems as accepting bounties for eradicating the stubborn, water-wasting, tamarisks. "Pop Squad" is shockingly effective, if a bit forced perhaps -- in this future most people have become immortal, and thus babies are illegal. The protagonist's job is to track down illegal mothers.

"Yellow Card Man" is set in the same future as "The Calorie Man," and displays the same cold-bloodedness that drove "The People of Sand and Slag," though from a different angle, as a failed businessman dealing with a now successful man who he had fired in his earlier career. Redemption is perhaps available -- but not easy to grasp. "Softer" is quite a departure for Bacigalupi -- straightforward contemporary horror, following a man's actions after he kills his wife. Finally, the anthology closes with a brand-new story, "Pump Six," about a man who works for the New York City sewer department. Environmental toxins have profoundly affected human development -- abetted by general societal decay -- so that nobody is educated any more, and nobody understands the infrastructure, such as the sewage pumps, that still maintain livable conditions in the big city. The story is not quite hopeful but it is in a way more pleasant than many of Bacigalupi's stories -- the hero is a basically good man, who loves his wife, and who wants to understand his job, and indeed who is a bit more capable than most anyone around him. But his efforts are almost certainly too little too late. (One more story, "Small Offerings," from the 2007 anthology Fast Forward 1, a brief, dark, story of how environmental toxins might affect childbearing, is available only in the special edition.)

Pump Six and Other Stories, with its retrospective organization and in that it features the author's entire published short fiction to date, quite strikingly positions Paolo Bacigalupi as one of the best young SF writers of our time: a writer who has already done first-rate work and who is ready, I feel sure, to really thrill us.