Make Something Up, The Water Knife and Girl at War

Fight Club's Chuck Palahniuk is back on form

The Water Knife

Paolo Bacigalupi is an American sci-fi and fantasy writer, he is the author of The Windup Girl and some works of fiction for younger readers. The Water Knife is a return to writing for adults and is based in the near future in the south western United States.

The world of The Water Knife is a simple, but very effective invention, it takes the current drought in the area and multiplies it. Law and order is breaking down; what used to be Mexico is now “The Cartel States”; Texas is dry; its inhabitants refugees who are regarded by other Americans, pretty much as Texans today regard Mexicans. The western states and cities are fighting each other for a diminishing resource.

The Water Knife mostly takes place in Phoenix and the title refers to a gangster called Angel who works for a crooked lawyer called Caroline Case, who cuts the water supplies of other competing cities on a whim and with dubious legality. Caroline is a cartoon überbitch, with a hint of Marie Antoinette: “If they can’t police their damn water mains, let them drink dust.”

The book opens with Angel on board a flotilla of helicopters cutting the supplies of Carver City. Lucy is a journalist who reports on the escalating violence of the water wars and is sucked into the conflict.

The premise is that a colleague of Lucy’s has uncovered some 150 year old tribal rights to the local area that could reverse the inevitable decline of Phoenix. However, anyone who comes into contact with these land rights tries to sell them to the highest bidder and is brutally rubbed out.

The scenario is very skilfully laid out and at its best reads as a satire of the present. Water is available from pumps at $6.95 a litre, Lucy writes direct to .epub for Kindle Post, a nice touch seeing as Amazonian DRM ain’t worth shite ...

The ultraviolence that is today reported from south of the border has been effectively transposed north: “Texans strung up on New Mexico fence lines as warnings.”

The first two thirds of the book are a decent read, despite the paucity of some of the characters and the repetitive nature of the double crossings and killings. Thereafter the plot descends straight to Netflix, with various characters shot or tortured and the survivors still managing a lively sex scene minutes later.

The double-crossings multiply exponentially while the human touches are as clumsy and ridiculous as Bruce Willis in high heels. Angel speaks like some retarded savant: “Don’t got much faith in carbon sequestration.”

And Lucy, after setting Angel up for assassination and then saving his ass, says things such as this: “It’s not personal, I really like you Angel.”

The disputed land rights that are central to the plot are, sadly, in the predictable place.

The author creates a clever scenario that is, alas, overwhelmed by too much Hollywood-style bullshit. Don’t be surprised if it serves as the basis for next year’s mega blockbuster starring Antonio Banderas and Charlize Theron. Despite a rather cheesy, obvious ending, The Water Knife is a much more engaging read than most of what passes for future fiction these days; for instance, the latest offering from Alastair Reynolds, as reviewed recently on The Register.

Author Paolo Bacigalupi
Title The Water Knife
Publisher Orbit
Price £16.99 (Hardback), £13.99 (Paperback), £8.49 (eBook)
More info Publication web site