Paolo Bacigalupi: The Water Knife

[bibliogramma]

Paolo Bacigalupi's near-future dystopian thriller The Water Knife is a fast, hard ride through a drought-ridden Southwestern America where what little water remains is under the control of endlessly warring robber barons who live in sealed arcologies while the thirsty multitudes live in a hell where the strong rule and everyone else scrabbles to survive - but only barely.

Bacigalupi's novel belongs to the relatively new genre of what is called "climate fiction" - speculative novels, almost always dystopias, in which the effects of climate change on human life are a crucial part of the work, and as so, it is inherently a criticism of our lack of will and foresight in allowing such a future to be possible. But it is also, and perhaps more deeply, an examination of how far the concept of civil society can be degraded, how much of their dignity, morality and sense of connection people in desperate times will sacrifice to live one more day, how ruthless those with access to a limited power - in whatever sense - will go to hold onto their status. This is a world in which no one can be trusted, because anyone can be broken, and anyone will betray you for the dream of water.

The narrative focuses on water rights - in particular, documentation concerning senior rights to the Colorado River that will put anyone who owns them in the position of controlling the entire Southwest. Every major player is after them, and the list of mutilated bodies of people who someone thinks might know where they are hidden is growing. Angel is a water knife - a man whose job it is to cut through all the niceties to get whatever his employer needs to keep her control over the water she owns. And when he stumbles across the story of these old water rights, he knows it's up to him to get the rights for his boss. But no one knows who has them, and everyone, even Angel, is suspect. Also caught up on the bloody trail is Lucy, a journalist whose friend is seduced and murdered because of what he knows, and Maria, a destitute water peddler whose best friend is the mistress of another man who knows too much.

Toward the end of the novel, Angel and Lucy share a conversation that goes to the heart of the question Bacigalupi is asking. And the answer this novel gives us is grim indeed.

He shrugged. “Maybe people got choices. But mostly they just do what they’re pushed to do. You push, they stampede.” He nodded down at the screen and restarted the video. “And when shit really starts falling apart? Sure, people work together for a while, but not when it gets really bad. I read this article about one of those countries in Africa—Congo or Uganda or something. I was reading, thinking how shitty people are to each other, and then I got to a part where these soldiers, they…”

He glanced at Lucy, then looked away.

“They did a bunch of shit to a village.” He shrugged. “And it was exactly what some militia I worked with did to a bunch of Merry Perrys who tried to swim across the river to Nevada. And that was exactly like the cartels did when they took Chihuahua for good.

“It’s the same every time. All the rapes. All the chopped-off cocks that get shoved in dudes’ mouths, all the bodies burned with acid or lit on fire with gasoline and tires. Same shit, over and over.”

Lucy felt sick, listening to him. It was a view of the world that anticipated evil from people because people always delivered. And the worst part was that she couldn’t really argue.

“Like there’s something in our DNA,” she murmured, “that makes us into monsters.”

“Yeah. And we’re all the same monsters,” Angel said. “And it’s just accidents that turn us one way or another, but once we turn bad, it takes a long time for us to try to be something different.”

A taut, well-written suspense thriller with thought-provoking undertones.