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Overview
Overview
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 drink.- Format: TradePaperback
- Author: Bacigalupi, Paolo
- ISBN: 9780804171533
- Condition: Used
- Dimensions: 7.90 x 0.80
- Number Of Pages: 384
- Publication Year: 2016
Customer Reviews
Rating Snapshot
5 ★
67%
4 ★
33%
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3 Ratings
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0% Would Recommend
0 Recommendations
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Near Future Science Fiction or the Shape of Things to Come!?
Dave S. - 2 years 11 months agoThe Colorado River is drying up. Drought has hit the southern states hard. Texans have fled across the bandit infested state of New Mexico seeking refuge in Arizona. Las Vegas and California are locked in a territorial battle over water rights and control of the Colorado River while keeping Zonies from crossing the border trying to escape the once great city of Phoenix, now falling into ruin and decay. Is this near future science fiction ... or the shape of things to come!? Angel Velasquez is a Water Knife, hitman and investigator for Las Vegas. A Water Knife "legally" gains the rights and cuts off water supply for smaller cities. When it comes to water rights, senior rights are king. Word is out that Phoenix has obtained old Native American rights dating back to the mid 1800s. With these kind of rights, Vegas could control the majority of the Colorado River. Angel is sent to Phoenix to investigate, an unlikely team-up with local journalist Lucy Monroe and Texan refugee Maria Villarosa. It becomes a race against California to find the documents before they are sold off to the next highest bidder. Paolo Bacigalupi has already proven himself to be one of the modern masters of speculative fiction. In the Water Knife, he paints a grizzly realistic picture of the near future, where the southern states are practically independent nations. The rich stay rich in their Chinese built self-sustaining habitat Arcologies and the poor, by the thousands, struggle to stay alive between rising regulated water costs and getting killed in this hostile environment on the brink of the apocalypse. Bacigalupi's first novel, The Windup Girl, scored him the Hugo and Nebula Awards. He has since written three Young Adult books and the Water Knife is his second full novel.
HPB Staff Review -
Water is essential
Frankie S. - 4 years 3 months agoAmazing novel! Studying for my environmental degree made me want to change it to hydrology, but I had one semester left. I'm obsessed with this book, it foretells our future. Water, the only resource other than air (and food, eventually) that we can't go without.
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It could be worse
Ken B. - 6 years agoThis is a good introduction to the Award winning Bacigalupi. Good story about the political, economic, crime and corruption aspects of an apocalyptic water shortage. There are many social dynamics to dystopia. #SummerReading