Featured

Description

Khaim, The Blue City, is the last remaining city in a crumbled empire that overly relied upon magic until it became toxic. It is run by a tyrant known as The Jolly Mayor and his devious right hand, the last archmage in the world. Together they try to collect all the magic for themselves so they can control the citizens of the city. But when their decadence reaches new heights and begins to destroy the environment, the people stage an uprising to stop them.

Rewards

• Winner of the World Fantasy Award for best collection

Reviews

“A rich and haunting novel that explores a world where magic is forbidden.” – Everdeen Mason – Washington Post –  Full review

“Bacigalupi’s contributions—the first tale, “The Alchemist,” and the third, “The Children of Khaim”—are the shortest and most effective. “ – Erik Henriksen – Tor.com 

ISBN

ISBN: 1-4814-9729-4 / 978-1-4814-9729-9 (USA edition)
Publisher: Gallery / Saga Press

This third book in a major series by a bestselling science fiction author, Printz Award winner, and National Book Award finalist is the gripping, eerily prescient story of the most provocative character from his acclaimed novels Ship Breaker and The Drowned Cities.

Description

Tool, a half-man/half-beast designed for combat, is capable of so much more than his creators had ever dreamed. He has gone rogue from his pack of bioengineered “augments” and emerged a victorious leader of a pack of human soldier boys. But he is hunted relentlessly by someone determined to destroy him, who knows an alarming secret: Tool has found the way to resist his genetically ingrained impulses of submission and loyalty toward his masters… The time is coming when Tool will embark on an all-out war against those who have enslaved him. From one of science fiction’s undisputed masters comes a riveting page-turner that pulls no punches.

Reviews

“Suzanne Collins may have put dystopian literature on the YA map with ‘The Hunger Games’…but Bacigalupi is one of the genre’s masters, employing inventively terrifying details in equally imaginative story lines.” —Los Angeles Times

ISBN

• Hardcover: 9780316220835

Paolo Bacigalupi, New York Times-Bestselling author and National Book Award Finalist, dives once again onto our uncertain future with his first thriller for adults since his multi-award winning debut phenomenon The Windup Girl.

Description

In the American Southwest, Nevada, Arizona, and California skirmish for dwindling shares of the Colorado River. Into the fray steps Angel Velasquez, detective, leg-breaker, assassin and spy. A Las Vegas water knife, Angel “cuts” water for his boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her lush, luxurious arcology developments can bloom in the desert, so the rich can stay wet, while the poor get nothing but dust.

When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in drought-ravaged Phoenix, Angel is sent to investigate. There, he encounters Lucy Monroe, a hardened journalist with no love for Vegas and every reason to hate Angel, and Maria Villarosa, a young Texas refugee who survives by her wits and street smarts in a city that despises everything that she represents.  With bodies piling up, bullets flying, and Phoenix teetering on collapse, it seems like California is making a power play to monopolize the life-giving flow of a river. For Angel, Lucy, and Maria time is running out and their only hope for survival rests in each other’s hands. But when water is more valuable than gold, alliances shift like sand, and the only thing for certain is that someone will have to bleed if anyone hopes to drink.

Reviews

“[A] fresh, genre-bending thriller. . . . Reading Paolo Bacigalupi’s richly imagined novel The Water Knife brings to mind the movie Chinatown. Although one is set in the past and the other in a dystopian future, both are neo-noir tales with jaded antiheroes and ruthless kingpins who wield water as lethal weapons to control life—and mete out death. . . . Bacigalupi weaves page-turning action with zeitgeisty themes. . . . His use of water as sacred currency evokes Frank Herbert’s Dune. The casual violence and slang may bring to mind A Clockwork Orange. The book’s nervous energy recalls William Gibson at his cyberpunk best. Its visual imagery evokes Dust Bowl Okies in the Great Depression and the catastrophic 1928 failure of the St. Francis Dam that killed 600 people and haunted its builder, Mulholland, into the grave. . . . Reading the novel in 93-degree March weather while L.A. newscasts warned of water rationing and extended drought, I felt the hot panting breath of the desert on my nape and I shivered, hoping that Bacigalupi’s vision of the future won’t be ours.” —Denise Hamilton, Los Angeles Times

“[A] water-wars thriller set in the Southwest only a few decades from now. . . . While Bacigalupi’s environmental message could not be more powerful, it’s neatly embedded in a nonstop action plot, full of murders and betrayals, that should satisfy thriller readers who didn’t even think they cared about these issues.” —Gary K. Wolfe, The Chicago Tribune

“Mr. Bacigalupi’s is the most thought-provoking of the recent apocalypses. It’s a very timely read for policy-makers, as well as anyone living in the threatened American West. That’s the thing about sci-fi authors: Some of them really mean it.” —Tom Shippey, The Wall Street Journal

“Residents in the southwestern United States enduring that water crisis will appreciate the precision with which Bacigalupi imagines our thirsty future. . . . Bacigalupi is a grim, efficient and polished narrator. . . . Our waterless future looks hot—and filled with conflict.”—Hector Tobar, The Washington Post

“Bacigalupi’s characters are engagingly unpredictable, and his story blasts along like a twin-battery Tesla. The Water Knife is splendid near-future fiction, a compelling thriller–and inordinately fun.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“A noir-ish, cinematic thriller set in the midst of a water war between Las Vegas and Phoenix. . . . Think Chinatown meets Mad Max.”—NPR, All Things Considered

“Paolo Bagicalupi’s new near-future thriller arrives at a depressingly appropriate moment. . . . The Water Knife is a carefully constructed thriller, with elements of Chinatown and The Maltese Falcon. But the novel ultimately transcends its pulpier origins. Bacigalupi offers a carefully calibrated warning of what might happen if the US refuses to address global climate change and its own water-wasting ways. It’s one we ignore at our peril.” —Michael Berry, Earth Island Journal

“These days are coming, and as always fiction explains them better than fact. This is a spectacular thriller, wonderfully imagined and written, and racing through it will make you think—and make you thirsty.” —Lee Child, author of Personal

“An intense thriller and a deeply insightful vision of the coming century, laid out in all its pain and glory. It’s a water knife indeed, right to the heart.” —Kim Stanley Robinson, author of Aurora

“Anyone can write about the future. Paolo Bacigalupi writes about the future that we’re making today, if we keep going the way we are. It makes his writing beautiful . . . and terrifying.”—John Scalzi, author of Lock In

“The Water Knife is a noir-tinged, apocalyptic vision of the near-future: What will the world be like, and how will we live in it? Bacigalupi already seems to live there. Once I started, I couldn’t put it down.” —Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble

“A fresh cautionary tale classic, depicting an America newly shaped by scarcity of our most vital resource. The pages practically turn themselves in a tense, taut plot of crosses and double-crosses, given added depth by riveting characters. This brutal near-future thriller seems so plausible in the world it depicts that you will want to stock up on bottled water.”—Library Journal, starred review

“The frightening details of how the world might suffer from catastrophic drought are vividly imagined. The way the novel’s environmental nightmare affects society, as individuals and larger entities—both official and criminal—vie for a limited and essential resource, feels solid, plausible, and disturbingly believable. The dust storms, Texan refugees, skyrocketing murder rate, and momentary hysteria of a public ravenous for quick hits of sensational news seem like logical extensions of our current reality. An absorbing . . . thriller full of violent action.”–Kirkus

ISBN

• Hardcover: 978-0-385-35287-1

In this contemporary thriller, National Book Award Finalist and New York Times bestselling author Paolo Bacigalupi explores the timely issue of how public information is distorted for monetary gain, and how those who exploit it must be stopped.

Everything Alix knows about her life is a lie. At least that’s what a mysterious young man who’s stalking her keeps saying. But then she begins investigating the disturbing claims he makes against her father. Could her dad really be at the helm of a firm called The Doubt Factory that distorts the truth and covers up wrongdoing by hugely profitable corporations that have allowed innocent victims to die? Is it possible that her father is the bad guy, and that the undeniably alluring criminal who calls himself Moses–and his radical band of teen activists–is right? Alix has to make a choice, and time is running out, but can she truly risk everything and blow the whistle on the man who loves her and raised her?

Reviews

Publishers Weekly — 08/11/2014

(Starred Review) In this provocative thriller, Bacigalupi (The Drowned Cities) traces the awakening of a smart, compassionate, and privileged girl named Alix Banks to ugly realities of contemporary life, while seeking to open readers’ eyes, as well. Alix’s life is thrown into disarray when an activist group targets her family, its eyes on her father’s powerful public relations business. Moses is a charismatic black teen living off the money from a settlement with a pharmaceutical company after one of its medications killed his parents. Along with four other brilliant teens who have lost family to this sort of legal/medical maleficence, Moses hopes to enlist Alix’s help to release incriminating data from her father’s files, à la Edward Snowden. This openly didactic novel asks challenging questions about the immorality of the profit motive and capitalism, but does so within the context of a highly believable plot (backed up with references to actual front groups, lawsuits, warning labels, and literature on the subject, which will send readers to their search engines) and well-developed, multifaceted characters. Fans of Cory Doctorow’s work should love this book. Ages 15–up. Agent: Russell Galen, Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency. (Oct.)

ISBN

• Hardcover: 978-0316220750

(2010, Little, Brown Books)

Awards and Accolades

• 2011: Won the Michael L. Printz Award
• 2010: Nominated for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature
• 2011: Won the Locus Award For Best Young Adult Book
• 2010: Nominated for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy
• 2010: Nominated for the Cybils Award for Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction
• 2010: Nominated for the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award (RT Award) for Best Young Adult Paranormal/Fantasy Novel
• 2010: Listed in Publishers Weekly’s Best Children’s Books of the Year for Fiction
• 2011: Listed in YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults
• 2011: Listed in ALA Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults
• 2010: Listed in Amazon.com’s Best of Books of 2010
• Junior Library Guild Selection

Description

In America’s Gulf Coast region, where grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts, Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota — and hopefully live to see another day. But when, by luck or chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: Strip the ship for all it’s worth or rescue its lone survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life….

In this powerful novel, award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi delivers a thrilling, fast-paced adventure set in a vivid and raw, uncertain future.

Reviews

Bacigalupi’s future earth is brilliantly imagined and its genesis anchored in contemporary issues…The characters are layered and complex, and their almost unthinkable actions and choices seem totally credible. Vivid, brutal, and thematically rich, this captivating title is sure to win teen fans for the award-winning Bacigalupi. — Booklist (Starred Review)

Bacigalupi (The Windup Girl) makes a stellar YA debut with this futuristic tale of class imbalance on the Gulf Coast…Bacigalupi’s cast is ethnically and morally diverse, and the book’s message never overshadows the storytelling, action-packed pacing, or intricate world-building. — Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review)

This thriller will grab and keep readers’ attentions as Nailer and Nita ‘crew up’ in their fight to survive. — The Horn Book (Starred Review)

…this gritty, tautly paced novel will rivet readers eager to learn both the fate of the young ship breaker and the reason for the world’s grim collapse. Memorable characters add pith and spirit… — The Washington Post

Nailer, a teenager living in the American gulf coast in the distant future, has a dangerous, low-paying job as a ship breaker. Small and nimble, he puts his life on the line daily while scavenging ships for copper wiring from oil tankers to fuel corporate greed, while Nailer and his gang struggle to afford food, shelter, and clothing, not to mention sufficient protective work gear. Nailer’s home life is bleak: his mother is dead and his father is addicted to crystal slide and abusing his son. When Nailer and his friend Pima discover an abandoned ship filled with valuables, it seems they have found an escape route. But Nailer’s conscience gets in the way when he realizes that the ship’s owner, a beautiful teenage girl, is still alive and needs his help. In his first book for young adults, Bacigalupi, an award-winning novelist, has created a dystopia where loyalty, integrity, and warmth seem to be slipping away, but class consciousness is still prevalent. From the very beginning, there is trouble, warning readers to hold on because scene after scene will be filled with adventure, fighting, murder, and desperation. Librarians should definitely add this book to science fiction collections. Teens will not be disappointed. — VOYA – KaaVonia Hinton-Johnson

When fate intertwines with desperation and luck, the outcome can be both a curse and a blessing. In an advanced world, where huge cities have been sunken to the depths of the oceans, humanity thrives on luck and self preservation. In this twisted new world, Nailer has suffered tremendously since the death of his mother, watching his father become a dangerous, reckless alcoholic. Faced with no other choice but to follow in the footsteps of the one man with the strength to kill him, Nailer dedicates his survival to breaking down and stripping rotting oil tankers. Constantly overwhelmed by making quota, Nailer crawls into the deepest bowels of the decrepit ships to scavenge for wire for ungrateful bosses. Fate carries him through a near-death experience thwarted by a coworker, but refuses to leave his side as he narrowly escapes his menacing father and a massive hurricane that hits the Gulf Coast. Upon searching the beach after the destruction of the hurricane, Nailer finds a washed-up clipper ship full of enough silver to seriously change his luck for good. However, the ship holds one survivor, a lone girl who claims to be the heiress to a major shipping company. Desperate to forgo the life his father has doomed him for, he resolves to save the girl and help her find her father’s alliances up the coast. The sincere hope for a better life fuels his dedication to help the heiress, despite the incessant bad luck that follows him at every turn. — Children’s Literature – Patrice Russo Belotte

Gr 7 Up—Along a devastated U.S. Gulf Coast in a sci-fi future that includes half dog/half man creatures, teen boy Nailer must work as a ship breaker salvaging anything valuable on dangerous oil tanker wrecks. Other risks include an abusive, drug-crazed father, unemployment when he grows bigger, and flimsy shelter from ferocious storms. After one hurricane’s onslaught, he and friend Pima discover Nita Patel, a rich girl almost drowned in her futuristic clipper ship. When his father threatens the girl and wants to ransom her or accept money to turn her over to her father’s enemies, Nailer and Nita escape by hopping a train accompanied by Tool, an unusually independent dog/man. The three go to Orleans (no longer called New), a broken down relic of a city, and hope that a trustworthy captain from the Patel Company will show up. When Nailer’s dad kidnaps Nita, the boy faces a final showdown with his father to free her. Joshua Swanson narrates Paolo Bacigalupi’s fast-paced novel (Little, Brown, 2010), winner of the 2011 Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults, with steady, dramatic intensity and enlivens characters with admirable vocal variety. The action and adventures are exciting, but occasionally quite bloody. Even more distressing are the harsh conditions faced by these youthful salvagers, much like contemporary third-world children. With an interesting mix of fact and fantasy, this title offers excellent potential for conversations on international child welfare issues — School Library Journal – Barbara Wysocki, Cora J. Belden Library, Rocky Hill, CT

A gritty teen betrays his father and flees his grim existence in a post-global-warming Gulf Coast village to protect a young woman he barely knows in this gripping futuristic thriller. Fifteen-year-old Nailer works on the “light crew” as a ship breaker, salvaging metals from abandoned oil tankers. Nailer’s vicious father routinely beats him. In this violent world where people do anything for money, Nailer’s future seems bleak until he discovers Nina, the wealthy, attractive survivor of a shipwreck. Rather than kill Nina and steal the salvage, Nailer opts to save her, triggering a harrowing journey to the submerged cities of Orleans to find people loyal to Nina. As Nailer experiences brutal betrayals, he relies on his wits and learns the people worth calling family are the ones who “[cover] your back…. Everything else [is] just so much smoke and lies.” In Bacigalupi’s defiled, depressing landscape populated by mercenary humans and mechanical dog-men, Nailer’s loyalty offers hope. Told in the third person, this stark, surreal story sends an alarm to heed the warning signs of climate change or suffer a similar fate. — Kirkus Reviews

(2012, Little, Brown Books)

Awards and Accolades

• 2012: Listed in Kirkus Reviews Best of YA
• 2012: Listed in VOYA’s Perfect Ten
• 2012: Nominee for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
• 2012: Listed in Los Angeles Public Library Best Teen Books
• 2013: Listed in YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults
• 2013: Listed in CBC at Bank Street College Best Children’s Books of the Year
• 2013: Listed in Capitol Choices Noteworthy Titles for Children and Teens
• Junior Library Guild Selection

Description

Soldier boys emerged from the darkness. Guns gleamed dully. Bullet bandoliers and scars draped their bare chests. Ugly brands scored their faces. She knew why these soldier boys had come. She knew what they sought, and she knew, too, that if they found it, her best friend would surely die.

In a dark future America where violence, terror, and grief touch everyone, young refugees Mahlia and Mouse have managed to leave behind the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities by escaping into the jungle outskirts. But when they discover a wounded half-man—a bioengineered war beast named Tool—who is being hunted by a vengeful band of soldiers, their fragile existence quickly collapses. One is taken prisoner by merciless soldier boys, and the other is faced with an impossible decision: Risk everything to save a friend, or flee to a place where freedom might finally be possible.

This thrilling companion to Paolo Bacigalupi’s highly acclaimed Ship Breaker is a haunting and powerful story of loyalty, survival, and heart-pounding adventure.

Video Trailer

Reviews

Bacigalupi’s earlier young-adult novel in this universe, Ship Breaker, won one of the two most prestigious awards for a YA book—the Printz—and was nominated for another, the National Book Award. Naturally, expectations for a sequel or spinoff involve diminishing returns, butDrowned Cities is better in almost every way. — The Onion AV Club

Bacigalupi writes with a furious energy that makes this brilliant depiction of an all-too-believable future impossible to forget. A story that will resonate beyond its final page. — Booklist (Starred Review)

Bacigalupi’s intense, action-filled novel is a heartbreaking and powerfully moving portrait of individual resiliency amidst extreme circumstances that rivals, if not surpasses, the excellence of its predecessor. — The Horn Book (Starred Review)

Suzanne Collins may have put dystopian literature on the YA map with ‘The Hunger Games’… but Bacigalupi is one of the genre’s masters, employing inventively terrifying details in equally imaginative story lines. — Los Angeles Times

A new Paolo Bacigalupi novel is reason to celebrate—no matter how old you are. — The Associated Press

A heartbreaking tale of loyalty and the fight to survive. — Library Media Connection

Mahlia and Mouse are war maggots—refugees who have made it out of the war-torn Drowned Cities. Living now in a small village with the local doctor, Mahlia and Mouse decide to venture into the woods to hunt. While out, the two discover Tool, a bioengineered war beast who escaped capture and is being hunted by a band of soldiers. Through a strange turn of events, Mahlia ends up promising to save Tool’s life. However, when she returns to her home for medicine, it has been overrun with the soldiers hunting for Tool. Cleverly, Mahlia creates a distraction and manages to return to Tool, and against the doctor’s wishes, saves him. The doctor and Mouse return to the village and straight into the arms of the soldiers. Mahlia is left with a decision: return to her village to save her “family” or run for her life under Tool’s protection. Mahlia decides to save her family, and Tool decides to join her. Mahlia and Tool track the soldiers, following them through the woods and into the city. Mahlia struggles to blend in, especially with Tool tagging along. She is desperate though to save Mouse, and embarks on a dangerous adventure within the confines of the Drowned Cities. The strong female protagonist is a breath of fresh air. Loveable characters and constant action keeps the reader up all night to see what will happen next. A theme of the importance of friendship is woven throughout this well-written novel. — Maggie L. Schrock

Gr 9 Up—This is a companion book to the author’s Ship Breaker (Little, Brown, 2010). Tool, a ferocious bioengineered weapon of war that is part animal, part man, and built to kill, finds himself without a general and thinking for himself in this engrossing postapocalyptic novel. He begrudgingly becomes entwined in the lives of two orphan refugees, or war maggots, Mahlia and Mouse, and the pacifist Doctor Mahfouz, their guardian. Climate change has flooded the cities of America and made resources scarce. There is no centralized government, only factions fighting against one another for control of what is left. Chinese peacekeepers, including Mahlia’s father, have long since abandoned the country, leaving behind their children, the castoffs hated by all sides, to suffer unimaginable horrors. All the while, the people of the Drowned Cities try to go about life as quietly as possible, to escape the notice of whatever army is in charge. The United Patriot Front is fighting the Army of God for control of Banyan Town, with the Freedom Militia not far off. UPF soldiers have burned Banyan Town to take what they need from its people and leave them with nothing. What happens to civilians is of no consequence. War is everything. The bloody adventures of Tool, Mahlia, Mouse, and Doctor Mahfouz peel back the layers of war and expose its amoral underbelly, revealing that the armies fighting with such brutal callousness are made up entirely of children. A compelling read, this engaging book does not glorify war and violence, but shows its true nature. — Cindy Wall, Southington Library & Museum, CT

In the visceral and deeply affecting companion to the Printz Award–winning Ship Breaker, Bacigalupi returns to a dark, war-torn dystopian future in which severe climatic change and years of political upheaval have left the United States a bloodied and ravaged landscape. Bands of child soldiers roam from village to village, raping, pillaging and brutally murdering, all in the name of endless civil war. Against the backdrop of this blood-soaked chaos, two unlikely allies, a crippled teenage “war maggot” and a half-man/half-beast genetically altered killing machine, risk their lives and their freedom to save a boy forced into servitude by rebel soldiers. Mahlia and Tool (whom readers may recognize from Ship Breaker) venture deeper and deeper into the Drowned Cities, each fueled by unwavering loyalty. As they do, readers are given glimpses of proof that love and humanity can shine through even the most unimaginable darkness. Arguably, the novel’s greatest success lies in the creation of a world that is so real, the grit and decay of war and ruin will lay thick on the minds of readers long after the final page. The narrative, however, is equally well crafted. Told in the third person, the novel alternates between Mahalia and Tool’s stories, allowing both characters the time and space to imprint themselves on readers’ hearts. Breathtaking. (Dystopian. 14 & Up) — Kirkus Reviews

In this dark, riveting novel…Bacigalupi deftly shifts the third-person point of view amongst Mahlia, Tool, Mouse and Ocho, offering their different back stories and perspectives and bringing them together in a gut-clenching, heart-wrenching climax. — The Washington Post – Mary Quattlebaum

In the future, the water levels have risen enough to “drown” urban coastal areas of what was once the United States of America. China has come attempting to bring order to this lawless area. The Chinese bring with them genetically-engineered dog soldiers designed to fight to the death for their master. Tool is one such solider. When attempting to escape from warlords, he is gravely injured in a fight with a giant crocodile. Thinking he might be good food, war maggots, Mahlia and Mouse, come upon him. Tool attacks and takes Mouse hostage in exchange for Mahlia’s medical help. Mahlia goes back to the doctors with whom she is staying only to find out that they are now housing the soldiers who are looking for Tool. Since she is part Chinese, the soldiers look for a way to hurt Mahlia. In her diversion to escape with medicine to help Tool and save Mouse, many soldiers are wounded or killed causing them to retaliate and kill most of the village in which they were staying. Mouse attempts to save the doctor and is forced to enlist in the group. Mahlia feels awful for running and decides to take Tool and save Mouse. She must fight her way through the Drowned Cities with Tool to save Mouse from the war and himself. Bacigalupi brings to life a post-apocalyptic America that thrills the mind. Never would we imagine that China would have to save us from our own destruction. Just like Frankenstein’s monster, Tool is shown to be more human and civilized than any of the ruthless human characters in the story. — VOYA – Barbara Allen

In his award-winning YA novel Ship Breaker (2010), Paolo Bacigalupi imagined a post-oil world a century from now, drastically changed by the effects of global warming — a kind of upbeat dystopia in which human civilization survives despite massive upheaval and war. In this novel, he returns to the same milieu, though the story he follows here is more deeply shadowed. The Drowned Cities introduces the one- handed, half-Chinese “war maggot” Mahlia, who lives in Banyan Town along with Mouse, who once saved her life, and the humane Doctor Mahfouz, for whom she works. Together, they eke out a living amid the chaos of a fragmented former United States awash in battling militias and armies.

This fragile existence is compromised when Mahlia and Mouse encounter the man-beast named Tool, “a perfect creature, designed from the blood on up to hunt and war and kill.” The massive Tool is fleeing Colonel Glenn Stern’s United Patriot Front, which soon occupies Banyan Town looking for the living weapon. Gravely injured, Tool needs medicine and strikes an uneasy bargain with Mahlia; when Mouse is later conscripted by the UPF ? who operate with a savagery barely reined in by the vestiges of military discipline — Mahlia enlists the monster’s aid to help her rescue Mouse. Their quest takes them into the drowned cities, an area around the former city of Washington, D.C., where the chaos is even more horrific.

The second half of The Drowned Cities chronicles Mouse’s life among the soldiers of the UPF and Mahlia and Tool’s travel downriver in pursuit, with the ultimate goal of seeking safety in Manhattan Orleans or Seascape Boston. Of course, things don’t work out quite the way either of them envision, due to obstacles like the UPF’s nemesis, the Army of God. One of the most vivid scenes in The Drowned Cities depicts a battle between God Soldiers armed with powerful artillery and a unit of the UPF trying to cross the river. The clarity and tension of the sequence is utterly convincing, influenced more by classic combat literature than the extrapolated conflicts found in most science fiction.

Throughout the novel, Bacigalupi handles several elements with aplomb. Mahlia is a fully realized, compelling character, and the sheer physicality conveyed by Tool as super-beast often astonishes. The casual brutality of amateur soldiers is blood-curdling rather than cartoonish. The well-thought- out future setting fascinates, especially in showing the aftereffects of a failed Chinese peacekeeping mission.

However, the novel teeters perilously close to becoming “Apocalypse Now Lite” simply by compressing events into too tight a timeframe. Mouse’s conversion to brainwashed teen soldier and Mahlia’s trip downriver with Tool both seem curiously foreshortened, especially given the lengthy prior scenes (sometimes tedious) of Mahlia convincing Tool to help her. The inevitable final confrontation in a half-ruined palace bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the climax of a Hollywood blockbuster.

Still, even if it at times falls short of its ambitions, The Drowned Cities demonstrates a fearlessness on the part of the author. Every chapter from Tool’s point of view mesmerizes, crackling with a raw energy and verve, and the reader comes to care deeply for both Tool and Mahlia. And unlike many page-turners, the book’s violent action is paid for with a deep sense of the tragic, a vision of a possible future that leaves behind the marks of its impact. — The Barnes & Noble Review – Jeff VanderMeer