The Water Knife Paperback – April 5, 2016

After reading The Windup Girl and Pump Six and Other Stories, I was really looking forward to reading the next Paolo Bacigalupi book on my list. I am pleased to report that The Water Knife definitely lived up to my expectations.The Water Knife is set in an all-too-believable dystopian future where global warming and overconsumption of water have lead to widespread water shortages in the American Southwest. “Widespread water shortages” is an understatement. The entire region is practically in a state of civil war. California, Nevada, and Arizona are fighting in the courts and sometimes in the streets to secure access to what little water remains. Politicians, businesspeople, organized crime networks, refugees, and other everyday citizens are all struggling in their own interrelated ways to survive and get ahead in the often violent and cruel circumstances of what’s left of human civilization.This novel works on many levels — and works on all of those levels quite successfully.The basic elements that I would expect of almost any good narrative are all strong here. The plot, characters, and setting are all complex and compelling. I often do my reading in fairly short bursts, and I found myself wanting to extend my reading time for as long as possible. Some narratives — even some really good narratives — rely heavily on one or two of these elements to carry the story. But the plot, characters, and setting all work together brilliantly, like complex parts of a well-oiled machine driving the narrative forward to its conclusion.Bacigalupi is especially good at getting inside of each viewpoint character’s head, bringing the reader into their inner world, and using their perspective to reveal some very vivid and intense imagery. Anyone can tell the reader what the character is experiencing, but few authors can describe it so well that the reader feels like they’re right there along with the character, experiencing all of the joys and horrors (let’s be honest — mostly horrors in this case) that the character experiences. When I read the Water Knife, I feel like I’ve been transported into a very real apocalyptic future — a feeling that is terrifying on some level, but eminently rewarding as a reader.The precise apocalyptic nature of the Water Knife is actually somewhat uncommon. This is what I’ve come to think of as a “mid-apocalyptic” or simply “apocalyptic” narrative rather than a “post-apocalyptic” one. In post-apocalyptic narratives, human society has collapsed entirely, leaving behind small to mid-sized bands of desperate individuals struggling to survive in the aftermath. Post-apocalyptic narratives are popular nowadays, and most stories I’ve come across lately are either post-apocalyptic or non-apocalyptic.Water Knife is something in between. It offers a glimpse of an American society that is well on its way to complete collapse, but still not fully gone. To an extent, there is still a society similar to what exists today — a civil government with various government agencies, a market economy dominated various large corporations, information and communication technologies, etc. People in power are still trying to maintain the appearance that society has not, in fact, collapsed. But in a very real sense, it’s all either broken or falling apart. For large groups of people, it has already failed, leaving them in fringe situations that we would normally associate with a post-apocalyptic setting. This middle ground between today’s society and a future post-apocalyptic society is a very rich space for exploring the problems of today and the direction in which they may be taking us.What I find most rewarding about this novel is the importance of its central themes of water scarcity and global warming. Bacigalupi doesn’t seem to be pushing any single solution or course of action here in the present day. However, presenting the potential horrors of where we’re headed in graphic detail is enough to inspire anyone with half a brain and half a heart to give some serious thought to what we can do in the here and now to avoid water wars and climate catastrophe. Bacigalupi takes some very important concerns facing the world today and turns them into a compelling narrative that will entertain (and perhaps even inspire) many people who otherwise might not give much thought to these concerns. Good fiction doesn’t always need a deep message about today’s society — but it doesn’t hurt, and those are some of my favorite narratives. Bacigalupi’s approach to the task of writing such narratives is among the best I’ve seen. I definitely recommend the Water Knife to other readers and look forward to reading more of his work!

In The Water Knife (Vintage Books, 2015), Paolo Bacigalupi imagines for us an American Southwest that is blisteringly hot, overcrowded, authoritarian, and desperately short of water. The year is not disclosed, but it’s only a few years in the future, just enough that we know it is the near future, but it is eerily familiar. The setting is mostly in Phoenix, Arizona and other places in the American Southwest.Bacigalupi’s work is a dystopian, speculative, noir thriller. It’s an excellent one. The underlying message is that climate change and irresponsible development have resulted in and will result in catastrophic changes that are foreseen, preventable, but almost inevitable if nothing is done to prevent it.Several stories converge in Bacigalupi’s novel. Angel Velasquez is a “water knife.” He is a scarred combination detective, spy, and assassin for the Southern Nevada Water Authority. The man is as hard and noir as they get. Initially, he does not appear to have an ounce of empathy or compassion. He is on a mission in Phoenix for his employer to find and take the original nineteenth century documentation of the most senior of water rights in Arizona.Lucy Munroe is a hardened Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who reports on serious news issues (as opposed to many other “iournos” who report only on the piles of murdered bodies). She is writing a story on the same water rights issue that brings Angel to Phoenix.Maria Villarosa is a teenage Texas immigrant who dreams of escaping to Las Vegas, one of the few places that has prepared adequately for the perpetual drought. She gets by selling pours of water from old bottles she fills at Red Cross taps and illustrates the impact of the lack of water on average residents. The three characters come together at times and then again toward the end of the story.Consider, for a moment, the reality that the amount of water in the American West is limited. It is governed by the insignificant amount of rainfall and snowfall received annually in the mountains, and the precipitously declining amount of water in underground aquifers. Add to this the perennial drought seen in the American West and the hordes of people who continue to move west of the Mississippi. To make matters worse, geological conditions add mineral salts to much of the water making it saline and unusable in places.For decades, climate scientists, geologists, hydrologists, and environmentalists, have been raising alarms over the scarcity of water in the American West. They have focused on many things, but, in particular, the irresponsible amount of land development given the limited amount of available water, and the huge influx of residents to areas that cannot sustain this significant population growth without a supply of cheap water.Looming large in The Water Knife is the landmark nonfiction book, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, by Marc Reisner (Viking 1986). In Reisner’s book, the author, perhaps better than anyone, describes the history and possible tragic outcomes arising from the failure to deal adequately with the American West’s pressing water issue. He describes the vast amount of tax dollars that have been spent damming up rivers, channelizing water for hundreds of miles, and pumping water from the ground. The payment from water users for this governmental largess has been pennies to the tax dollars spent. It has been the kind of tax boondoggle that generations of conservative Western politicians would have loudly decried as wasted government extravagance—if they weren’t nearly all parties to the taxpayer-funded gravy train. Consider The Water Knife to be a fictionalized version of what might happen as documented in Cadillac Desert.Figuring into the story is that the American West has unique and odd water allocations schemes involving prior water rights and a Byzantine legal system that divides water among landowners in precise amounts. Generally, water allocations law is the subject of musty law textbooks and hundreds of court cases, many dating to the nineteenth century. It’s the stuff of convoluted original jurisdiction litigation before the United States Supreme Court. The problem is international in scope, too, as Colorado River water ultimately arrives, or is supposed to arrive, in Mexico. Mexico expects to receive a certain amount of water that is not too saline, but gets only a limited supply. Thus, it is also the subject of international treaties and disputes. This is the reality. Fortunately, for the reader, Bacigalupi tells us about this, without going into great detail.So, what happens when the demand for water outstrips the available supply? This is not mere conjecture. There already are places in the Southwest that have no water. In Bacigalupi’s imagined world, states and water authorities literally fight over their water rights. His imagined American Southwest is not a place where anyone would want to live, but millions of people are stuck in place because restrictive internal immigrations laws, border walls, militias, national guards, and a receptive US Supreme Court prevent residents of one state from leaving and moving to another. Could this happen? What really will happen when the American West runs out of water? This is the imagined world of The Water Knife.Bacigalupi’s Water Knife world is a desperate, bleak and terrible place. Bacigalupi provides almost no hope in this work. Nevertheless, his book is quite important because it illustrates one scenario which is awful to consider. The author does an excellent job of presenting it to us. His message, of course, is that we cannot allow this to happen.A word about my main problem with this book. A number of the criminals found in this story have no compunction about using torture to extract the information they need from unfortunates or to punish people who have crossed them. Bacigalupi revels in describing the torture. As an author myself, it is a delicate balance to decide what you depict directly and what happens “offstage.” I could have done without these explicit and troubling descriptions of mayhem. The book would have been no less important without it. Also, these scenes detract from the important message contained in this work and will turn off some readers. While I highly recommend this book, if you cannot tolerate descriptions of torture, I suggest you skip those pages and move on to the next chapter.That aside, the book has everything you would want in a classic American noir thriller. On top of that, Bacigalupi presents a serious look at the outcome of a pressing problem that is too often considered water under the bridge.

Page turner post apocalyptic fiction. Inhaled and very much enjoyed this book. Well written with characters that are believable and filled with hope (mostly) despite a failed world

This is an intriguing and futuristic story of water shortage focused several states in the USA that depicts states fighting against one another as well as mafia like organisations to control having more of the scarce river water resources, than their neighbours.The water knife is the main character who is charged by his boss, a woman with no trust or morals to track down an important agreement that would mean greater ownership of water rights.There is lots of adventure and California is depicted as having a CIA type group which is also after this water right and I guess like the CIA anything goes for them.So it's a future story but basically appears to be set around the present times so don't expect science fiction.I did like the way the author built the setting, with the rich on one side able to 'deal' with water shortage by living in I guess you would say gated communities with all the luxury of water recycling and flowing in fountains. While the other majority fights it out to try to get by, basically turning one against another, drinking their own recycled piss if I can crudely say, with some elements of China technical superiority thrown in. Food for thought.

J'ai acheté ce livre parce que j'avais adoré la femme automate.Le style est complètement différent. C'est une prouesse que de savoir se renouveler à ce point.Le livre est visionnaire. RdV dans 20 ans pour vérifier la prévision...

I enjoyed this novel by Bacigalupi. He writes a good story with strong female characters. The vision of a future world where global warming has worked its destruction on the world and venal idiocies of the kind we are familiar with in our own world continue is convincingly achieved.

This book had been on my 'to-read' list for a while, in fact ever since I read Bacigalupi's short story 'The Tamarisk Hunter' in the book compilation "I'm With the Bears: Short Stories From a Damaged Planet".In the genre of dystopian cli-fi this book is right up there with the best. Great characters that you actually build a rapport with, a ripping narrative, beautifully evocative scenes of drought, devastation and urban decay, and the emerging realization that there probably aren't going to be a whole lot of happy endings in this tale of greed, corruption and (almost) every person for themselves!Bacigalupi does a brilliant job of creating a near-future world of climate change induced drought in the south-western US, and cleverly brings in existing insights from scientists, journalists and other experts on the precarious nature of water scarcity and the myriad social implications once we exceed planetary tipping points. The generally pessimistic vision of human society in a situation of crisis is, I think, pretty accurate. Our neoliberal, consumer-driven society is far less adaptable to the existential crisis of climate change than popularly assumed, and in reality the transition to lawlessness and civil breakdown will probably be fairly swift (for example, witness how quickly advanced societies have pivoted to authoritarian and degrading immigration policies in recent years - a sign of things to come!).The story itself is grim and violent, and at times reads a bit like a cli-fi version of a hard-boiled crime drama. However, the central characters are well-developed and nuanced with lots of first-person rationalizing and clever multi-perspective plot developments. Amongst the scramble for survival are some surprisingly compassionate actions that ring true (e.g. the unlikely hero or heroine facing insurmountable odds). There is no easy black and white morality in this tale, just plenty of shades of grey. Overall, a grim but compelling vision of our future world and thoroughly recommended.

A story of what might happen if the water runs out in the Southwest and the cities and people have to fight for water and survival. Violent, graphic, sometimes hard to read, certainly not for everyone, but the characters are complex, well written, and the story holds you till the last page.