The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi is a Tarantino-worthy thrill ride through a near-future American Southwest ravaged by drought and climate change. It follows a journalist with a death wish, a desperate Texan refugee, and a professional assassin water-rights-hunter as they fight to survive and uncover the dark political machinations shaping their world. Bacigalupi won the Hugo and Nebula awards for The Windup Girl in 2008 and he comes back swinging in this disturbing tour-de-force.
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