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The Water Knife A novel Paolo Bacigalupi 9780385352871 Books

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The Water Knife A novel Paolo Bacigalupi 9780385352871 Books

"The Water Knife" is and engaging and entertaining read, even informative in that it presents a vision of something that is nearly possible in our lifetime. Bacigalupi serves up something here that isn't exactly apocalyptic, but is more frightening in that you can see clearly how it could be the near future. Corporate feudalism reigns over resources and people, and water is a commodity to which you have no inherent right. Class and caste are front and center in every scene. Personal security is a phantom for some; for others it is bought with extreme violence and intimidation. Law and order are non-existent, life and death are in play at all times. There is civilized life out there, but it is utterly distant and impossible to attain; one must be born to it. This is at best a grim story, but not utterly without hope.


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The Water Knife A novel Paolo Bacigalupi 9780385352871 Books Reviews

This is a pretty good story. It's a nice projection of current trends into the future regarding the scarcity of water and what people will do to control the supply and distribution of it. If you've seen Chinatown you'll have an idea of the importance of water rights which is what this story hinges on, and it's a pretty good description of the mood of this book.
However where the two differ is Chinatown is a classic story in the noir mode, this is more a story about haves and have nots, those who have water are prosperous this includes states as well as people, those who don't are eking out a painful existence at best. The level of corruption and desperation to secure an essential ingredient for life is not surprising, and most of us would probably do the same in a similar situation to survive.
Characters are interesting, there's some sex which isn't far fetched and quite a bit of violence. I've read it twice up to this point so far, and without giving too much away I'll say I liked the end, but I think they cheated in regards to a certain paper as we never really find out how it got to where it did, or why. Other than that leap of faith it's a good story, and if you want to see what the future will look like with with lots of people and not enough water to go around, you'll find this a good, if dark read.
Born and raised in Southern California, I can easily visualize a thousand versions of this scenario. We (and Phoenix, and Las Vegas and the San Joaquin Valley) have indeed created a fantasy dependent upon our water being brought to us, and it’s a tenuous path our liquid gold travels. A shame the people in charge care more about how much money they are making than the reality behind their riches..

As the Water Knife said, they should have read “Cadillac Desert”...... Too late, now, anyway.
Water Wars in the Southwest, taken up a notch. A water espionage thriller with a "water knife" agent from Las Vegas checking out suspicious activity in rival Phoenix, taking place with a background of Texas trash drought refugees and sinister California water agents. The scenario of this future water-parched near-dystopia is well outlined, and once you get a handle on the various parallel scenarios, you begin to really appreciate the tale Bacigalupi weaves. Some of these are a bit hard to grasp at first - the various characters and sub-plots start out with nothing in common - but have faith, they all do come together. The characters seem a bit one-dimensional, or maybe one-and-a-half dimensional, since they are more representative of their roles and their stratum of society, but it's far more character development than most "science fiction" has.
"The Water Knife" by the reliable Paolo Bacigalupi is a story of a near-future America suffering through the destruction of the American Southwest due to water shortages. The draining of the aquifers, combined with the lack of snow-melt from the Rockies, leaves California, Nevada, Arizona, and displaced Texans all struggling in a world where rivers are covered to prevent excess evaporation. Water rights become life or death matters for cities Las Vegas, LA, and Phoenix, AZ—where most of the action takes place.

The ‘water knife’ is a euphemism for an enforcer of water rights and a hunter of anyone trying to access water without legal authority. Angel is one of the best, in the employ of the sharp female administrator of Las Vegas’s Water Authority, Catherine Case. He becomes involved with a hunt for a water-rights treaty granted to Native Americans—a priceless document so old that it would take precedence over all existing agreements—and in the process, becomes involved with a female reporter who’s gone from being an observer to being in the thick of the life and death struggle of everyone in Phoenix as the water runs out and the dangers only grow more unbeatable.

However, the most frightening thing about this novel is its basis in fact—much of the disastrous environment described has been warned of in a non-fiction book, "Cadillac Desert The American West and Its Disappearing Water" by Marc Reisner. That book was published in 1987, and much of what he warned about is starting to manifest itself—such as the present severe drought conditions in California.

Like most doomsday-scenario stories, “The Water Knife” describes people on the edge, people in trouble, and twisted people who take advantage of chaos to create their own little fiefdoms of violence and tyranny. I never read such stories purely for the goth-like rush of people being cruel and dark—but in cases where I feel the story will give insight into something real, I put up with it—especially from a writer as good as Bacigalupi. And this is an exciting, engrossing tale of intrigue, passion, and ‘history as a hammer’, for all its darkness.
"The Water Knife" is and engaging and entertaining read, even informative in that it presents a vision of something that is nearly possible in our lifetime. Bacigalupi serves up something here that isn't exactly apocalyptic, but is more frightening in that you can see clearly how it could be the near future. Corporate feudalism reigns over resources and people, and water is a commodity to which you have no inherent right. Class and caste are front and center in every scene. Personal security is a phantom for some; for others it is bought with extreme violence and intimidation. Law and order are non-existent, life and death are in play at all times. There is civilized life out there, but it is utterly distant and impossible to attain; one must be born to it. This is at best a grim story, but not utterly without hope.