HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Loading...

The Water Knife

by Paolo Bacigalupi

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1,730939,428 (3.84)94
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 â??cutsâ?ť 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)
  1. 60
    Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner (grizzly.anderson)
    grizzly.anderson: Reisner's history of water in the West is an inspiration for the novel.
  2. 20
    Zodiac by Neal Stephenson (grizzly.anderson)
    grizzly.anderson: Another eco-thriller
  3. 10
    The Dead Lands: A Novel by Benjamin Percy (4leschats)
    4leschats: Post-apocalyptic water shortage leads to power struggles and fights for survival
  4. 10
    Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins (sturlington)
    sturlington: Contrasting stories of climate change and water shortages in the Southwestern US.
  5. 11
    Seveneves by Neal Stephenson (bookfitz)
  6. 00
    Odds against Tomorrow by Nathaniel Rich (sturlington)
    sturlington: Climate change, destroyed cities
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 94 mentions

English (91)  Hungarian (1)  French (1)  All languages (93)
Showing 1-5 of 91 (next | show all)
DNF. ( )
  EZLivin | Jul 4, 2023 |
Fun read, a real page turner. Yet... all the action is driven by violence (or greed). Good beach book, but no lasting value. ( )
  keithostertag | May 10, 2023 |
This was a brutal story but one of the best-written books I have read in a long time. ( )
  JudyGibson | Jan 26, 2023 |
If only human beings could actually learn something from this book. But no, we are bent on destruction of ourselves, this planet, and all of the lovely Flora and fauna that is disappearing as rapidly as we can make it happen. ( )
  burritapal | Oct 23, 2022 |
Bacigalupi has a penchant for the near future eco apocalypse but if you read his short stories you realize he has more breadth. The current fires in California are eerily reflected in this novel. This sort of novel is a risk because things rarely turn out as speculative fiction writers predict them. Still the novel is prescient in more than one way. The federal government has basically stopped working and the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.

However a novel like this isn’t any good without compelling characters and believable settings and Bacigalupi has both.

I was disappointed by Ship Breaker but this is a return to form. The Wind Up Girl was more of a Blade Runner 2049 novel. Highly recommended as well. ( )
  Gumbywan | Jun 24, 2022 |
Showing 1-5 of 91 (next | show all)
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.
 
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.
added by grizzly.anderson | editNPR, Jason Heller (May 28, 2015)
 
"But this is no pastiche; Bacigalupi weaves an engrossing tale all his own, crackling with edgy style."
 
"With elements of Philip K. Dick and Charles Bowden, this epic, visionary novel should appeal to a wide audience."
added by bookfitz | editPublishers Weekly (Mar 16, 2015)
 
"An absorbing, if sometimes ideologically overbearing, thriller full of violent action and depressing visions of a bleakly imagined future."
added by bookfitz | editKirkus Reviews (Mar 1, 2015)
 

» Add other authors (8 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Paolo Bacigalupiprimary authorall editionscalculated
Guerra, AlmarieNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Awards and honors
Epigraph
Dedication
For Anjula.
First words
There were stories in sweat.
Quotations
Information from the French Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
On ne juge pas les gens parce qu'ils craquent sous la pression, on les juge pour ces quelques fois oĂą ils ont la chance de pouvoir choisir.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English

None

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 â??cutsâ?ť 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

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Paolo Bacigalupi, New York Times best-selling author of The Windup Girl and National Book Award finalist, delivers a near-future thriller that casts new light on how we live today—and what may be in store for us tomorrow.

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.

When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in Phoenix, Angel is sent to investigate. With a wallet full of identities and a tricked-out Tesla, Angel arrows south, hunting for answers that seem to evaporate as the heat index soars and the landscape becomes more and more oppressive. There, Angel encounters Lucy Monroe, a hardened journalist, who knows far more about Phoenix’s water secrets than she admits, and Maria Villarosa, a young Texas migrant, who dreams of escaping north to those places where water still falls from the sky.

As bodies begin to pile up and bullets start flying, the three find themselves pawns in a game far bigger, more corrupt, and dirtier than any of them could have imagined. With Phoenix teetering on the verge of collapse and time running out for Angel, Lucy, and Maria, their only hope for survival rests in one another’s hands. But 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 drink.
Haiku summary

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.84)
0.5 1
1 3
1.5 2
2 16
2.5 11
3 94
3.5 33
4 198
4.5 27
5 88

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 195,041,805 books! | Top bar: Always visible