The Water Knife

Fiction. Literature. Science Fiction. Thriller. HTML:WATER IS POWER In the near future, the Colorado River has dwindled to a trickle. Detective, assassin, and spy, Angel Velasquez �??cuts�?� water for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, ensuring that its lush arcology developments can bloom in Las Vegas. When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in Phoenix, Angel is sent south, hunting for answers that seem to evaporate as the heat index soars and the landscape becomes more and more oppressive. There, he encounters Lucy Monroe, a hardened journalist with her own agenda, and Maria Villarosa, a young Texas migrant, who dreams of escaping north. As bodies begin to pile up, the three find themselves pawns in a game far bigger and more corrupt than they could have imagined, and when water is more valuable than gold, alliances shift like sand, and the only truth in the desert is that someone will have to bleed if anyone hopes to… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member stefferoo

In this day and age where one can’t even walk into a bookstore’s sci-fi section without a few dozen dystopian titles getting thrown in your face, I have to say Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife really impacted me in a big way. It put me in mind of an eccentric high school teacher I once had,

who was a little obsessed with doomsday scenarios. He used to be fond of saying that if the civilizations were to crumble or if the whole world were to go to war, it wouldn’t be over things like a pandemic or nuclear war. No, it would be for water – fresh, drinkable water without which none of us can survive.

Indeed, Bacigalupi paints a rather bleak, hellish picture of a place where water is scarce and more valuable than gold, a resource for which people are willing to kill and destroy. Drought has ravaged the American Southwest, changing the physical and political landscape. States like Nevada and Arizona clash viciously over shares of the Colorado River while bigwig California looks on, and states like Texas and New Mexico have long given up the ghost. Las Vegas employs mercenaries like Angel Velasquez as “Water Knives”, hired to “cut” water for the Southern Nevada Water Authority and its boss, Catherine Case. This ensures continued survival for her lush arcology developments in the hot desert, where the rich luxuriate in cushy comfort while elsewhere cities like Phoenix dry up and stagnate for lack of water.

This book follows Angel as he travels to Phoenix to investigate rumors of a new water source for his boss. The story is told through two other perspectives, including a journalist named Lucy Monroe, as well as a young Texan refugee named Maria Villarosa. Desperate and destitute folk like Maria are struggling to make a living in the city while dreaming of one day having enough money to escape north. Lucy, on the other hand, could have left any time she pleased, but years of living in Phoenix has led her to adopt it as her home, and you get a sense that she’d do what she can to try to help the city. When it appears that California is finally making its move to monopolize the river, Angel, Lucy and Maria end up coming together in a precarious alliance to stop a conspiracy and secure a future for the people of Phoenix.

There are many unsettling themes in this book, and not least of all because the scarcity of potable water is a reality for many people in the world. Talk of droughts in California and in the American Southwest in the news today makes The Water Knife seem less like science fiction and more like a commentary on current issues. If seeing pictures of the immaculate green lawns and freshly filled-pools of the rich and famous during a drought make your blood boil, then this book will take that fury to a whole new level. It’s really hard to read about this divided America where characters like Maria were driven out of Texas after their water got shut off, only to be treated like interlopers when they have no choice but to migrate to Arizona. Girls like Maria’s friend Sarah turn to prostitution as a last resort, servicing those wealthy corporate types for whom a single shower may use up more water than a poor person in Phoenix might see in an entire week. Then to rub salt in the wound, the girls’ money gets taken away by the local gangsters, never allowing anyone a fair shot to work themselves out of this nightmarish situation. There’s a lot in this book that’s hard to take.

It’s also heavy on graphic violence, descriptions of torture both during and after the act, and generally features many scenes of groups of people doing terrible, unspeakable things to other groups of people. If you are squeamish about such things, you should probably go in prepared to read some pretty sick stuff. To the book’s credit, while there’s certainly no shortage of examples in here when it comes humanity’s lowest moments, there are nonetheless many instances of characters stepping up to show an extraordinary amount of bravery and compassion. Despite being categorized as a sci-fi thriller, The Water Knife is also a very human story, where characters are intimately touched by plot events as well as the lives of other people.

The book isn’t exactly a light read, even in the audiobook format I listened to, with its heavy themes and also some parts which are quite drawn out with descriptions. But for all their lengthiness, I think I have these sections to thank for making the world of The Water Knife one of the most detailed and fleshed out dystopians I’ve read. Southwestern America has reverted back to a kind of wildness, a melting pot of disparate rhythms and cultures where Red Cross aid workers, rich Chinese businessmen, underworld crooks, poverty-stricken refugees, sensationalist media journalists, religious evangelists, and dangerous mercenaries all commingled together in a dying city. This also makes the audiobook of The Water Knife worth experiencing, as narrator Almarie Guerra delivers a performance filled with a great variety of accents and voices, and it’s one of the best I’ve ever heard.

This is the first book by Paolo Bacigalupi I’ve ever read, but if this is the kind of originality and well-rounded quality I can expect from his writing, it certainly won’t be the last. I really enjoyed The Water Knife, and I look forward to checking out the author’s previous work as well as his future books.

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LibraryThing member labdaddy4

I think this is very well written but way to violent and pessimistic for my taste. The violence and graphic sex seem to be there more for shock value as opposed to being vital to the story. The "bones" of the tale are solid and very interesting but the method the author chooses was way over-done. I

also dislike the way the story ends - no resolution, no conclusion to the story line, no optimism, and no hope. All-in-all a depressing and unsatisfying book to read.

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LibraryThing member santhony

About five years ago I read the author’s The Windup Girl and was blown away by his depiction of a near future dystopian society. Despite being a big fan of the work, it has taken me that long to follow up with another Bacigalupi effort. While the author’s apparent preferred genre of dystopian

society brought about by climate change is repeated in this novel, I found The Water Knife to be a far less effective depiction.

Whereas The Windup Girl presented a starkly different world in many respects, The Water Knife takes place in a very recognizable society, the southwestern United States, with the only difference between it and the present day being a shortage of water. The states of Nevada, Arizona and California are at war over allocation of the Colorado River, with spies and frontier justice abundant. The novel focuses on three major characters, a Las Vegas “water knife” (hired killer), a journalist based in a dying Phoenix, and a female Texas refugee.

This is not a bad book, however it is very much inferior to The Windup Girl, in my opinion. Stripped down, it is little more than a mystery/thriller and the society presented is too similar to that of today to add anything to the underlying story.

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LibraryThing member lilibrarian

Set in the near future, where water has become truly scarce in the American Southwest, Arizona, Nevada and California are battling for shares in what is left. Each state will do anything necessary to access water rights. Angel is a water knife for Las Vegas, guaranteeing their access to as much

water as possible. Landing in Phoenix to follow-up on Las Vegas interests, he finds himself enmeshed in murders, double-crosses, involved with a reporter and with an unlikely set of allies and enemies.

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LibraryThing member shayrp76

I am not sure if there is a specific genre category for this novel, but I think of it as an environmental thriller. The subject matter made me apprehensive at first, but the author wrote it in a way that made me feel comfortable. I didn't feel like it was over my head, or overwhelming. When it

comes down to dystopian, or apocalyptic plots I don't scare easily, but this one is different. This is something that I could see actually happening in the future, and that will give me nightmares before zombies or viruses. Add that together with the perfect pacing and just the right amount action to make the perfect book for me.
I love characters and this novel has a great cast. Dysfunctional characters are my favorite. I want characters who are perfect, but who have good and bad qualities. The author created characters who fit the plot in a well balanced way. They really are what rounded out the story for me.
I also have to applaud the author for surprising me. The twists kept me second guessing myself, but the end completely shocked me. I am rarely blindsided by an ending, and that make me very happy.
Recommending this novel will not be a problem. I know many people who will enjoy it and I will be buying a copy for my collection.
5 Stars hands down.

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LibraryThing member bookappeal

Paolo Bacigalupi's dystopian view is not hard to imagine. A progressively worsening water shortage in the western United States creates a barely-concealed war between the states that are reliant on the Colorado River for fresh water. Texas has already lost - most surviving Texans are refugees

trying to pass through border control to the north or doing desperate things to survive. Arizona faces the same fate when a legal case grants senior water rights to Nevada. The temporary decision gives Las Vegas powerhouse Catherine Case and her "water knife", Angel Velasquez, just enough time to cut off the supply to a major Arizona city. Angel feels no guilt about his job - there simply isn't enough water for everyone so someone has to suffer - and he owes Case his life. Lucy Monroe, a journalist covering the decline of Phoenix, seriously considers heading north herself when a friend who was convinced he had the solution to Arizona's water woes is brutally murdered. And, above all, everyone fears California's power to control the water. This tense thriller pulls no punches. Desperation makes people say and do ugly things to each other. More than just a gritty thriller, though, this novel delivers complex characters amidst a vividly bleak atmosphere and challenges the reader to examine what happens to ethics and humanity in extreme situations. A complicated plot and inventive terminology (for example, "bangbang girls" who sell sex to survive and "blood rag" tabloids covering death and destruction) command the reader's close attention but shouldn't stop anyone from eagerly turning the pages to read what happens next.

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LibraryThing member SChant

20 mins into the future thriller about water rights in a part of the US turning increasingly into dustbowl. Didn’t really hold my attention- it read too much like a Hollywood gangster movie only with water instead of drugs/gambling/prostitution. Didn’t care about the characters, disliked the

detailed descriptions of torture, and found it generally depressing and turgid.

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LibraryThing member sturlington

In the near future, climate change has brought about drought and constant dust storms in the American Southwest, resulting in the collapse of several cities as well as the state of Texas, and violent clashes among the rest over access to water. Las Vegas is ruled by Catherine Case, head of the

Southern Nevada Water Authority, a ruthless and intriguing character who wasn't in the book nearly enough. Angel Velasquez works for her as a "water knife," cutting other's water supplies so that Vegas can have their water. Case sends Angel to Phoenix, a city that is slowly dying, to investigate the murder of one of her undercover operatives. There Angel stumbles into a plot involving double-crossers, ruthless California operatives, an idealistic reporter who wants to expose the conspiracy, and a Texas refugee in the wrong place at the wrong time. Everyone is after the same Maltese falcon...I mean, senior water rights, which is apparently the key to controlling the Colorado River.

This is a thriller wrapped in a dystopian setting. This near future Phoenix is choked with dust and awash in brutality. Prostitution, torture, gangs, crazy guys with packs of hyenas as pets -- all here. California state operatives bomb dams. New Mexicans string up Texan refugees as a warning. This near future vision of the United States is completely unrecognizable and yet seems all too plausible.

Once the three main characters--Angel, Lucy (the reporter) and Maria (the refugee)--come together, the plot starts to roll. There are near escapes, shootouts, betrayals, all kinds of excitement. It's not a plot that would stand up to too much scrutiny, but who cares? The overwhelming importance of water rights in a setting where the rule of law clearly has no more meaning is not adequately explained, but the rights are a McGuffin anyway that keep the characters moving and changing sides. The characters themselves are conflicted, figuring things out as they go along, and seem very real. Although Case, as one of the most intriguing characters, isn't around enough for readers to figure out what makes her tick. This is a violent, brutal book, not recommended for the faint of heart, and it also functions as a warning of what climate change can drive us to become. It ends rather abruptly, though, without a real wrap-up--perhaps a sequel is in the works?

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LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50

The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi is a near future thriller that revolves around water rights. It takes place in southwestern United States, where drought has devastated the country. America is on the verge of collapse, and the powers that have risen are based on who has the water rights for

certain areas. The state of California and the city of Las Vegas, although rivals are both powerful, unfortunately the state of Texas has fallen and Arizona and the city of Phoenix are barely hanging on.

When rumors of a senior water right, one that will hold up in any court, surfaces, the interested parties start circling and the murders start happening. Set against the background of a crumbling Phoenix with it’s derelicts and abandoned homes, dust storms and wandering packs of coyotes both human and animal, the main characters gather. The jaded antihero Angel Valasquez comes into contact with Lucy Monroe, a Pulitzer winning journalist and they agree to work together. Along the way they meet Maria Villarosa a teenage Texan refugee who is looking for a way out of Phoenix after crossing the wrong people.

The Water Knife is a dark thriller with plenty of violence and enough reality to be really scary. I found this to be a very stylish work of science fiction, from the unique vocabulary to his stunning visual imagery. Whether in the future the water is owned by ruthless kingpins, as in this book, or controlled by the government, water shortages are a definite possibility and the ethics of control that the author calls into question here is worth pondering on.

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LibraryThing member jackdeighton

The south-western US states have run out of water. Federal authority has all but broken down; there are patrolled borders between states to cut down on refugees. Phoenix is a dust-bowl, any refugees that have made it from Texas face a life scraping on the margins, doing what they have to do. The

South Nevada Water Authority under Catherine Case aggressively pursues its water rights over the Colorado River making Phoenix’s problems worse.

There are three narrative viewpoints; Angel, the water knife of the title, one of Catherine Case’s enforcers; Lucy, an investigative journalist; and Maria, a refugee from Texas scrabbling to survive. The plot centres round ancestral water rights which once belonged to Native Americans and which outweigh all others.

It is an almost relentlessly misanthropic endeavour. Only one character states a view approaching anything compassionate, “‘We’re all each other’s people.... When everything’s going to pieces, people can forget. But in the end? We’re all in it together.’” Yet he then goes on to say what an immigrant from India had told him, “‘... people are alone here in America. And they don’t trust anyone except themselves, and they don’t rely on anyone except themselves..... India would survive all this apocalyptic shit but America wouldn’t. Because here, no one knew their neighbo(u)rs.... in America everyone had left their homes in other countries, so maybe that was why we’d forgotten what it was to have neighbo(u)rs.’”

More representative is when Angel describes “a view of the world that anticipated evil from people because people always delivered.” Contrast that to the essentially optimistic view of humanity in Naomi Mitchison’s The Bull Calves which I read just beforehand. If anything, The Water Knife actually shows the necessity for a resilient, well-ordered, balanced society, even in times of stress; but that is not an argument which Bacigalupi makes.

The back cover here reads (in part,) “One of the most exciting and original novels you will read this year.” I must disagree. It’s the same picture of degradation and selfishness peddled by too much recent SF. Only the details differ. Bacigalupi does it well though.

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LibraryThing member c.archer

A look at the possible world of the future if global warming is not arrested. A world where water is the most important commodity, and the war over water and water rights becomes bigger and more deadly than the drug cartels. This book takes off from the beginning with no lead in. It is for a mature

audience and contains strong violence and some graphic sex scenes. This is one book that would probably translate quite well to the big screen.
This in not my usual style, but I do enjoy throwing in a fast paced thriller occasionally. I would recommend this book to fans of dystopian tales and/or crime thrillers. If "The Water Knife" was a movie, I would give it an R rating. After reading it, I am plenty grateful for an abundance of water, but not without concerns for the future.

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LibraryThing member agingcow2345

Excellent mashup of technothriller, eco-catastrophe, cyber punk and crime noir caper. If you liked Gibson's Sprawl novels, you'll love this book. The key characters are quite well done. The action is non-stop. The sense of place works well. The perpetual plot reversals manage to avoid coming off

contrived. It is hard to do this sort of a relentless action run without leaving a feeling of deus ex machina but the author managed it. The one downside is the world building. It works for story and mood but if you like really tight settings [S.M. Stirling, C.J. Cherryh] you may want to deduct half a star for the various tropes not quite gelling. Works as a novel. Would work as a movie. There would be problems writing a sourcebook to make this a gaming world.

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LibraryThing member grizzly.anderson

The Water Knife is Science Fiction, or Dystopian fiction, or Action Adventure, or... In a reading and interview at The Tattered Cover in Denver, Paolo Bacigulupi said he'll tell people he writes whatever style will get them to read it. If you've heard the quote "Whiskey is for drinking, water is

for fighting over" combine that with the current and past politics of water in the South West, the ongoing drought and decide to write a romping cautionary story that takes current trends to a very bad place, then you've got The Water Knife.

Not nearly as bleak as The Windup Girl, The Water Knife tells the story of Phoenix, AZ turning slowly, painfully, inevitably into a ghost town as its water runs out. Phoenix is being ground between Las Vegas and California in covert and not-so covert battles for water rights. At the same time it is being overrun by refugees fleeing a Texas ravaged by drought and hurricanes, and whose outskirts and refugee camps are mostly run by extensions of the Narco-state that used to be Mexico. All because it didn't plan for a future that they could see coming for if they'd just read the copy of Cadillac Desert that every power broker has to display on their bookshelf.

The action, the hook, the thriller is how the story is told through the three main characters. Maria is a Texas refugee living in the squalid refugee camp in what used to be wealthy suburbs before the water got turned off. She's trying to live and make her way to somewhere better. It might be Las Vegas where they've built a city of closed arcologies to preserve every drop of water while living in comfort, or some place further north where the rain still falls. Hustling to survive, in every sense of the words, smart enough to take take advantage of information that comes her way, but not clever enough to hide her success from the gang-lords that run her world, she brushes against powerful people and ends up in their intrigue. She is also the realist that sees the world as it is, not as it was, or as a romantic hopes it will be.

Lucy Munroe is the muckraking investigative journalist on the trail of the MacGuffin. The hinted at something that will turn all the water politics and power on it's head. There is a trail of bodies, bribes, betrayals surrounding "it". As she stalks her story, telling herself that she is out side of it all, it becomes more and more apparent that not only has she gone native but that she is a romantic, sure that there is a way that everything can come out right for city and the people suffering there.

In the course of the investigation she meets up with Angel, the eponymous Water Knife. As an agent and enforcer for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, Angel is the cynic raised up from crime and poverty to wealth and power and crime, who will do whatever needs to be done to keep Las Vegas and the SNWA comfortable, growing, powerful, and above all, ensured a steady source of water now and in the future. Fiercely loyal to his boss, Catherine Case, he knows that everyone has a breaking point, that anyone will betray you if the conditions are right, and he doesn't begrudge it when it happens. He kills off towns or people because that's what needs doing, and because they were too blind to see it coming and get out of the way.

In addition to telling a good story of intrigue and love and betrayal, The Water Knife has a feeling of prophetic caution about it thanks to all of the people, places and events it draws on. Anyone living in a state whose water comes from the Colorado River Compact, or who's seen China Town, can hardly be unaware of how complicated water rights are. And anyone that's seen the news recently knows about the impacts of the ongoing drought, especially in California. But Bacigualpi also draws on real people to populate the periphery of the story. Catherine Case is, he says, based loosely on Patricia Mulroy, the woman who saw water woes coming for the real SNWA and started negotiating for water with tenacious politics, money, and an army of lawyers. There are also the Merry Perrys, a not too subtle dig at a Texas politician, the refugee religious cult that thinks if they just pray hard enough God will let it rain again. And of course, the exported narco-gangs with their message of "plata o plomo" and the publicly displayed bodies to reinforce their message.

All in all a good story, a cautionary tale, but not necessarily Cassandra's prophecy. As Paolo Bacigualpi put it in the books he signed "No future is inevitable."

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LibraryThing member zmagic69

I usually don't read science fiction and in fact I bought this author's previous book The Wind Up Girl, and couldn't get through it, but this book sounded interesting and it was 40% off at The bookstore so I bought it.
This is science fiction only in that it takes place in the future, the plot line

is not unrealistic at all. The Western part of the United States is starved for water and people kill to secure what water they can. The storyline is good, and the main characters are likable, or at least worth following to see how things turn out.
My gripes with this book as well as most science fiction is the lack of background story, how things got to where they are now, as well as the use of terms and names for things, (fivers, Merry Perrys, Arcology, clearsacs) to give a few examples not to mention the use of Spanish throughout without the translation, with little or no description of what many things are, the reader is forced to deduce or guess. I find this practice lazy and allows the author to take great liberties in telling the story.
The author appears to want to broaden his reading audience but by following these practices of telling the story, will likely lead to more unsatisfied readers.
Lastly the ending of this book was pretty weak, with really not much resolution. If this was done so a sequel can be written it is still a cheap way to end the book

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LibraryThing member TooBusyReading

While sometimes classified as SciFi, this novel is pure dystopian. There is little water, Phoenix and Las Vegas are dying, and some nasty characters control the water or are trying to wrest control away from those who have it. There are the powerful and then there are the masses who are just trying

to stay alive.

This has the makings of a great book, and I live in that huge Phoenix metro area, the city that shouldn't be, artificially sustained by imported water, so it appealed to me. Ultimately, I was disappointed, although I know I am in the minority with my opinion.

There was action. There was lots and lots of violence. There was pretty gruesome torture. And there was sex. The sex was graphic and probably the least sexy sex I've ever read. Sure, all the explicit words were there, Tab A was fitted into Slot B, but it was cliched and boring, and (again) not sexy.

The characters were flat. The story, despite its promise, was actually pretty boring if you want more plot than violence. And the end was abrupt. I was listening to the book, and I backed up and re-listened to the end, thinking, “you mean, that's it?” In the Audible version I have, the narrator pronounced some words quite oddly.

In the end, it was a disappointment.

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LibraryThing member loosha

Exciting and not so improbable

LibraryThing member BillPilgrim

I very much enjoyed The Windup Girl, which won both the Nebula and Hugo awards for best science fiction novel. This one is not as much science fiction; it's set in the near future. Drought conditions and water shortages in the SW US have led to States protecting their borders and taking legal and

extra-legal actions to control water from the Colorado River.

The only problem that I have with the plot is a legal issue that plays a major role in the story. It's revealed early on in the book that someone has researched and come upon proof of an early rights to the Colorado River's water that would control access to it. But it is presented as if whoever has possession of the paper showing this would have ownership of the rights, and the ability to sell them. As if it was some sort of bearer bond. I had difficulty dealing with this, but if you can suspend your knowledge of how this would really work, then you can accept the plot point as it is laid out.

I'm currently reading Cadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner, a 1986 book about the history of the SW's water issues, which is mentioned several times in The Water Knife.

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LibraryThing member maximeg

I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
The American Southwest has been decimated by drought. Nevada and Arizona skirmish over dwindling shares of the Colorado River, while California watches, deciding if it should just take the whole river all for itself. Into the fray

steps Las Vegas water knife Angel Velasquez. Detective, assassin, and spy, Angel “cuts” water for the Southern Nevada Water Authority and its boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her lush, luxurious arcology developments can bloom in the desert and that anyone who challenges her is left in the gutted-suburban dust.
Very Different interesting book held my attention throughout disturbing thought provoking read a book that i would not normally read but really enjoyed recommend.

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LibraryThing member NateK

I like the premise of this world, I found the reasons of its existence plausible, as well as the core premise of the story, who has the legal rights to water, also plausible. The characters didn't do it for me. They are brilliant when they need to be... otherwise baffled... vulnerable... or

invincible... totally screwed.. or totally not.

You know why readers of the "Game of Thrones" series are so blown away? Because when a main character takes a sword to the face... they do what naturally follows... they die.

This is a book that that follows a different path with it's characters.

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LibraryThing member Tanya-dogearedcopy

I'm struggling through this one, and may DNF it before the week is over. The dystopian novel is set in the near future where drought prevails in AZ-CA-NV; and corporations control water as the new oil. This is getting a little too close to home for me. I live in an area that has had several

consecutive years of drought; and I see the news headlines where Nestle is buying up/taking up long-term water leases municipal water resources in ME and AZ; and now making a bid for another in OR. Reading 'The Water Knife' is making me feel impotent and depressed. The writing is great, and the landscape Bacigalupi has created utterly believable; but after 100 pages, I find myself avoiding it. Maybe if I take a little breather with something a little lighter for the next couple of days, I'll come back to it and binge-read to finish it off.

A dystopian novel set in the near-future when water becomes a more prized utility than oil. I started this weeks ago, and had been struggling with it owing to the feeling that this could very well happen, and in fact may have already started. It's a bit depressing; but I decided to pick it back up again and focus on the actual story that Bacigalupi has written.

Depressed by Bacigalupi's realistic portrayal of a near future in which water is more precious than oil, I put this book down a couple of weeks ago, uncertain if I would disposition it as a "DNF" or not. I picked it back up again though and decided to focus more on the actual story the author was telling - that of a journalist who covers the politics of water and its impact on the western US. One of her friends, who is in the water industry is killed, and she pursues leads to discover what happened at great risk to herself. The world is bleak, and the descriptions are graphic. Though this will not be a favorite of mine, I cannot deny that Bacigalupi knows how to nail down the story.

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LibraryThing member MizPurplest

This book is so current it's terrifying. So many references are (presumably intentionally) applicable to what's really going on in the world right now that it feels like it's talking about our lives instead of some post-apocalyptic world. I would read chapters about refugees and then wake up to NPR

talking about refugees; read chapters about water shortages and the Colorado River, and then wake up to a report on the Colorado River. Sometimes a little too real, considering how violent and painful most of this book was, and how in the end, it was unclear whether anything was redeemable.

I would probably give this 3.5 stars instead of 4 if I could; I was caught off guard by how much it worries me to see the world the way Bacigalupi writes it, far more than with Ship Breaker.

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LibraryThing member agarcia85257

The Water Knife by Paulo Bacigalupi is they kind of thought provoking apocalyptic science fiction writing that harkens back to Harry Harrison's Make Room!Make Room! and Richard Matheson's I am Legend. The actual books and not the movies, thought Soylent Green wasn't bad. Only with enough dark and

violent moments to make Mad Max Fury Road look like a Disney film.

Fresh water has become a valuable commodity and not one that can be taken for granted any longer. In the Southwest; Nevada, Arizona and California battle over the rights to the what remains of the Colorado River. The battles are violent and soon the west looks like a wasteland, what remains of Phoenix, Arizona is a city on the brink of chaos. The rich lived protected in their towers and the poor sell themselves for what little they can get to feed themselves and their families. Mass graves are unearthed with tortured and mutilated remains and the countless missing become a myth as the rest of the nation turns a deaf ear to what is happening in the west.

Angel Velasquez is a "Water Knife". An assassin and black ops soldier. Angel works for Catherine Case, the corporate boss of Las Vegas, and for her he kills and maims and does whatever is necessary to ensure that her power remains strong.

Maria Villarosa is a teenage refugee from what once was Texas and she lives in Phoenix, by her wits and her body as she watches the the strong take and abuse the weak. She dreams of leaving Phoenix behind and finding a way north.

Lucy Monroe is an award winning journalist who has seen the worst of humanity in her stay in Phoenix. She writes what she is allowed but knows that the world outside the desert has no interest in the atrocities that are committed as long as the water continues to flow. But soon, she will no longer be able to turn away from the death surrounding her.

Ancient water rights, of the original people of Arizona, are rumored to be found and Angel is sent to investigate. He knows that California will make a play for these documents and so he must secure them for Vegas first no matter the cost. Lucy, seeing him for what he is, knows she must work to stop him but soon finds that there is no easy answer for who the rights should go to. And Maria, who has come to hate everything about the world around her, on one fateful night, becomes the most important person in the fallen city. Only she doesn't know it yet.

The Water Knife is one of the most thought provoking and powerful novels of the effects of our limited resources that I have read in sometime. This is not a tale of working your way across a devastated country but just trying to survive in that same country when all the rights of its people are taken away in the name of power. When water becomes more valuable than human life itself, and the riches that come from controlling it, then private corporations become more powerful than a weak and blind government. The unearthed pits of dead described in this novel are reminiscent of the Killing fields of Cambodia and the torture and murder of its citizens are very much like that of the drug cartels of today.

The difference of course is that it is taking place within the United States when the States themselves war on one another for resources that are dwindling around them. Living in the Southwest I know about the constant back and forth bickering by Arizona, California and Nevada over the Colorado River. Is it really so far fetched to believe that should the resources become scarce that the States themselves would fight over the right use them and control their use? That this would become big business and that in the pursuit of such there would certainly be many instances of violence and the violation of individual rights? The Old West is littered with these wars between farmers and ranchers and the settlements that came into being.

Bacigalupi has written an intense and powerful novel of humanity and the lack of it in the face of death and power. This is one of the best of the year and should not be missed!

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LibraryThing member Vicki_Weisfeld

In the American Southwest, Nevada (specifically Las Vegas), Arizona, and California are battling over a dwindling water supply caused by climate change, population pressure, and brazen political brokering. So far, this story could be a repeat of the nightly news, right?
In this novel, however, the

situation has escalated (as it well might IRL). States have declared their sovereignty, closed their borders, and enforce interstate transit with armed militias that shoot to kill. Zoners (Arizonans) have few ways to make a living, and those with weapons prey on the desperate poor. To have water is to be rich or, as the saying goes, “water flows toward money.” The wealthy have bought their way into “arcologies”—high-rise buildings with complex plant and aquatic ecosystems for recycling and recirculating virtually every drop of water.
In Las Vegas, the Cypress arcologies were built by Catherine Case, nicknamed the Queen of the Colorado River, and head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Las Vegas is to some extent thriving, because of her cunning and cutthroat tactics. But Phoenix is dying.
Angel Velasquez, one of the book’s three protagonists, is an ex-prison inmate—smart, ruthless, a “water knife” who works for Catherine Case, cutting other people’s water supplies. Lucy Monroe is a Phoenix-based Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and social media star (#PhoenixDowntheTubes) who just might have a lead on some serious water rights, and Maria Villarosa is a highly disposable Texas refugee barely surviving in Phoenix and at the constant mercy of a brutal gang headed by “the Vet.” People who get on the Vet’s really bad side are thrown to his pack of hyenas.
The book’s opening sequence gives a taste of the winner-take-all mentality. Clever legal maneuvering has stalled the filing of a water rights appeal by Carver City, Arizona, giving the Nevada National Guard a window of a few hours to attack and destroy the citiy’s water supply infrastructure. With Angel in the unofficial lead, it does.
Before too much time passes, Angel, who has a boatload of false identities, must visit Phoenix to investigate the mutilation death of one of Catherine Case’s undercover operatives, and the plot really starts to flow. He finds Phoenix swimming with Calis—Californians also working undercover to assure that state’s gluttonous water requirements are met, regardless of the fate of everyone upriver. Before long, all the players are after the same thing—original water rights documents that would supersede everything on the books—and no one is sure who has them. This apocalyptic thriller is set in the not-too-distant future, and Bacigalupi takes real-life issues and situations several steps farther, adds in toxic intergovernmental rivalries and a healthy dose of greed, weaving them into an exciting, plausible, and thought-provoking tale.
While the story is a critique of a governmental environment in which local interests are allowed to trump regional and federal ones, it never reads like a political tract. And, while quite a bit is imparted about the issue of water rights and reclamation strategies, it isn’t a legal or scientific tome, either. It’s a thriller about a compelling trio of people with different motivations, different places in the water aristocracy, and different strategies for coping. The drought, dust, and poverty that envelop Angel, Lucy, and Maria and their cities affect everyone who lives there. The universal catastrophe turns Maria’s musing about how this desperate situation came about into a powerful warning: “Somehow they hadn’t been able to see something that was plain as day, coming straight at them.”
A lot of powerful straight journalism has been written recently about water rights, droughts, agricultural demand, and intergovernmental bickering about rights. In looking a few years forward, this important novel makes the stakes eminently—and memorably—clear.
Almarie Guerra, an actor born in Puerto Rico, does a solid narration, putting just the right Latino topspin on the Mexican voices.

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LibraryThing member Goldengrove

Civilisation perishes in drought; but the hashtag survives in Paolo Bacigalupi's brutally realistic novel set, not so far in the future, in the desert states of the south west corner of North America. Journalist Lucy finds a possible story about water rights which drags her into very dangerous

places. This is a compelling read with good characterisation, and a clear message: "We knew it was all going to go to hell, and we just stood by and watched it happen anyway. There ought to be a prize of that kind of stupidity."
Bacigalupi write a gripping story, with characters that engage, even when they behave badly. His vision of the future is not rosy, but sadly, all too likely. He does not fill one with hope, but perhaps might give his readers determination to make sure that we don't end up in his grimy future.
Free download for review from NetGalley.

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LibraryThing member gypsysmom

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that this book will win one or both of the Hugo and Nebula Awards this year. I've read some excellent books that are eligible (Ancillary Mercy and Aurora for example) but this one grabbed me from the beginning and took me on a hell of a ride.

The book is

set in the not too distant future when climate change has made significant differences in the geography of the United States (other places too but this book concerns the southwest USA mostly). Water is scarce and cities that don't have a guaranteed source don't survive. Nevada and California have armies to keep out people from Arizona and Texas and to protect their water sources. Las Vegas snaps up water rights wherever it can and has managed to thrive while Phoenix is dependent on a canal from the Colorado River that barely provides enough water for the people still living there. Water knives are hired guns that "persuade" holders of water rights to sign them over. Angel is one of the best water knives that Las Vegas has. He has to go to Phoenix to follow up on why a contractor who had promised some senior water rights was killed. He meets a journalist, Lucy Monroe, who is also exploring the murder and who maybe knows something about the water rights. Lucy has won Pulitzers for her journalism and she is good at ferreting out stories. Into this situation comes Maria, a young Texas girl who has been surviving on her own in the slums of Phoenix.

This book really brought home to me how precious a resource water is. As I splashed water on my face to wash this morning after I had finished this book I realized that we waste so much water in our daily living. I have travelled in the American Southwest and seen the depleted reservoirs. Last year I found out that the Rio Grande doesn't even have water in it much of the year. Even in Canada I have witnessed the receding glaciers and the diminished rivers. Bacigalupi has shown what our future looks like if we don't address climate change right now. I hope that we learn this lesson in time.

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Fewer

Media reviews

Earth Island Journal

To some critics and commentators, climate change is also having a deep effect on literature, as more authors focus more closely on the actual and possible consequences of the subject in their fiction. The genre, if it can be called that yet, represents a loose affiliation that stretches back at

least to J.G. Ballard's The Drowned World and includes such authors as Ian McEwan, Ursula LeGuin, Kim Stanley Robinson and Margaret Atwood. The Water Knife is perhaps the best, most-recent example of "climate fiction," and it expertly taps a wellspring of fascination and fear that runs beneath a culture ever digging a deeper hole for itself and the environment.

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— 4 more

NPR

In The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi's best-selling, Hugo- and Nebula-winning debut, the author imagines a 23rd century in which the forces of commerce have run amok over the basic, biological building blocks of life. In his equally powerful sophomore novel, The Water Knife, he takes a similar

approach to an inorganic substance without which human life wouldn't exist: H2O. But where The Windup Girl takes place hundreds of years from now in Southeast Asia, The Water Knife hits closer to home for U.S. readers. Its setting is the American Southwest, at a time in the near future when Britney Spears is toothless and old, the country is plagued by climactic calamities and the Southwest's dwindling water supply is controlled by robber barons. .... Bacigalupi plays on a grand scale, but he does so with a keen eye for detail... His big triumph, though, is never forgetting that The Water Knife is a thriller at its pounding heart. Even amid reams of deeply researched information about the economy, geology, history and politics of water rights and usage in the U.S., he keeps the plot taut and the dialogue slashing.

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Los Angeles Times

"But this is no pastiche; Bacigalupi weaves an engrossing tale all his own, crackling with edgy style."

Publishers Weekly

"With elements of Philip K. Dick and Charles Bowden, this epic, visionary novel should appeal to a wide audience."

Kirkus Reviews

"An absorbing, if sometimes ideologically overbearing, thriller full of violent action and depressing visions of a bleakly imagined future."