The Water Knife

by Paulo Bacigalupi


Depleted aquifers, drought, and dust storms in the American Southwest bring out the worst in people and their politics, allowing gangs and militias to run rampant, loosely controlled by the remaining city-states. Each city is struggling not to dry up completely, everyone trying to score enough water to stay alive for another day.

Angel Velasquez is the Water Knife in this frighteningly plausible near-future thriller. In a world where the US states have closed their borders to each other, and water supplies are dwindling, his job is to make sure Las Vegas gets enough water, by any means necessary, and usually that means cutting off the water supplies of other cities and states.

Lucy Monroe is a journalist in Phoenix, tracking the disintegration of society despite her sister begging her to come to Vancouver, the promised land, where water still comes from the sky. She knows the dangers but takes more and more risks to chase down the stories that powerful people do not want told.

Maria Villarosa is a migrant from Texas, another desperate refugee among tens of thousands trying to find a way to a better life. Her life is a day-to-day struggle against gangs, rich predators, and water that may cost more per litre than she can make in a week. But Maria is smart enough to have a plan that just might work.

Rumors of a vast new source of water surface, and the three characters' lives become entwined in a fast-paced mystery as they all race to find the water and stay ahead of killers trying to make sure they never do.

It's a frightening story because it feels like it could have been ripped out of next year's news. Brutal and almost too realistic, it had me on the edge of my seat from start to finish. This novel will give you a lot to think about in the real world long after you finish reading.

Beyond the Trees

Beyond the Trees

By Adam Shoalts

Deemed by some to be “one of Canada’s greatest living explorers”, Adam Shoalts does what most of us would never dare to do – explore Canada’s wild places for months on end, alone.  Shoalts clearly loves the wilderness and feels comfortable with solitude.  But four months alone in the arctic is more than even the most seasoned outdoor enthusiasts would normally attempt.

Nevertheless, Adam Shoalts has experience with exploration and takes readers on a journey through the planning and execution of his arctic endeavour.  His plan is to cross the Canadian arctic from west to east by canoe.  He is aware of many other canoeists who would consider tackling at least some of this journey, but none who would brave these wilds alone.

Shoalts starts his journey in the small village of Eagle Plains in the Yukon, paddling east towards Hudson Bay.  Amazingly, for more than half the trip he is paddling upriver – that is, against the current.  (This, along with his lack of companion, is widely considered a crazy thing to do.)  Readers are privy to his tales of hard paddling, as well as wading and towing his canoe with a rope.  There are also countless portages through unknown territory, oftentimes over boulder-strewn terrain and through swampy, densely-treed areas.

Despite the hardships, Adam Shoalts is totally enamoured with the beauty and magic of the north.  He regularly describes breathtaking vistas as well as close encounters with curious wildlife.  Although he does endure a harrowing ordeal involving a muskox, most of his encounters with wolves, bears, and smaller wildlife are completely benign; these animals are totally unaccustomed to humans, and are neither fearful nor aggressive.

Beyond the Trees is a very readable homage to the wilds of the Canadian North.  Shoalts bemoans our culture’s “24/7 connectivity” and maintains that “immersed in nature, one feels alive,” (p. 72).  If you love an outdoor adventure, Beyond the Trees is for you. 

 

Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition

Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition

by: Paul Watson

In 1845, 129 brave crewmen set out to find the elusive Northwest Passage.  These men were the most prepared, technologically advanced expedition of their time, confident that if the Northwest Passage existed, they were the ones who would find it.  Unfortunately, the Franklin’s Expedition’s legacy was one of the longest searches for missing naval ships. Terror and Erebus proved elusive for over 170 years. 

Watson tells this amazing story of the hunt for Terror and Erebus from the inception of Franklin’s expedition, to the amazing persistence of Franklin’s wife in order to recover his body, to the modern expeditions in the 1960s and beyond in search of the lost ships. Learning of the thought and science that went into creating this expedition was absolutely fascinating. Fresh ideas such as inflatable boats, canning, and the need for entertainment during long periods of extreme suffering were all implemented on this journey making it a cutting edge expedition. When it became clear that something had gone terribly wrong, mission after mission sought to find the ships for decades, making it one of the greatest navel searches in history.

Decades later, people were still trying to find out what had become of the Franklin Expedition.  One such person, an Inuit historian, Louie Kamookak, made amazing strides in plotting the location of the Terror and Erebus wrecks by listening to Inuit oral history and cross examining it against the intended route. With the help of Inuit oral history, modern technology, the invention of scuba, and so much more, great discoveries were made over 170 years after that fateful voyage set sail.

This story lends itself to paper quite well, and Watson does a great job melding the old stories with modern day discoveries. I particularly enjoyed the Inuit perspective considering the land Franklin was exploring has always been theirs. Who better to know what happened than the people who know the land best? 

If you are interested in Franklin’s expedition, Michael Palin from Monte Python has written a book called Erebus, and Amazon Prime just came out with a star-studded miniseries called Terror.