Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015) is his second ecological dystopian novel for the adult sci-fi market. As I mentioned in another post, I read his first, The Windup Girl (Night Shade Books, 2009), in 2023. I thought The Windup Girl was amazing so I was excited to pick up The Water Knife.
While The Windup Girl takes place in faraway Thailand, The Water Knife is located in the southwest of the US which makes it more real. Water is at a premium in this near future. One of the three main characters is Angel Velasquez, a water knife working for the company that controls the water in southern Nevada. His job is to cut the water supply of other cities. He’s a water hitman who is sent to dying Phoenix to find missing water rights.
In Phoenix, we meet the other two characters, journalist Lucy Monroe, and Texas refugee, Maria Villarosa. Lucy finds herself digging deeper and deeper into the violence surrounding the water crisis. Maria just wants to get out of Phoenix and head north.
The three lives intertwine a tale that feels true. The story is engaging, fast paced, and fun. It’s scary and real as our temperatures rise and we experience more frequent droughts and atmospheric rivers and more powerful hurricanes and tornadoes, its like future history.
Paolo Bacigalupi has a new book, Navola, coming out later this year. I’m looking forward to it.
