This podcast features *spoilers – so, please listen after you’ve read the book unless you are okay with hearing about major plot details and the ending of this amazing novel.

Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife looks at our use and manipulation of water and water rights in the US and brings us to an ultimate conclusion. In a Southwest decimated by climate change, with the Colorado River a trickle, local and state governments in the Southwest are employing any means necessary to secure water rights. Following several main characters in a desperate search for recently discovered senior water rights for the city of Phoenix. Is #PhoenixRising or is #PhoenixDownTheTubes? NPR, All Things Considered called the novel, “A noir-ish, cinematic thriller set in the midst of a water war between Las Vegas and Phoenix. . . . Think Chinatown meets Mad Max.” Join us as we discuss the plausibility of this near-future Phoenix and the dire straits it’s characters find themselves in.