Last Christmas, I think it was, I bought a copy of Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife for my brother in law (it was on his wishlist) and didn’t bother to peek inside. I know now that if I would have, I would have ended up giving him a used copy.
I often wonder how I got into the business of energy management—it was completely by accident, I swear. I got into tech support for the company’s lighting and HVAC controls systems, learning much of not only the workings of the hardware and software, but also of the strategies. I’m interested and invested in all sorts of resource management as well. My career requires that I find ways for retail corporations to save money on utilities, but the way to do that is to use less. Less electricity. Less gas. Less water.
It seems like the main characters of this novel each also got into caring about water management by accident as well. A hardened criminal recruited from prison by a corporate mastermind. A “wet” (newbie) reporter trying to shout out the truth to people who don’t want to listen to it. A refugee just trying to get out of her shitty life.
Though the novel follows a fairly formulaic story telling process, the characters are still interesting and their motives are more than just a stereotype. Bacigalupi builds a world based around water scarcity that is based on real issues affecting the American southwest today (and has been for more than a century and a half, really) and takes it to a dramatic extreme with political and corporate espionage, shadow ops, and people who got in deeper than they wanted and now they’re all in danger.
Highly recommended, and would love to see a movie.
I’m so glad you enjoyed the novel so much, Amanda. I, too, would love to see a movie version. At times it nearly felt like a *script*! It’s one of the most filmic books I’ve ever read.