The Water Factor, a Rightfully Mine Novel, is a 2024 International Firebird Book Award winner for best dystopian novel. It is a confronting eco-thriller showing environmental devastation that will surprise and engross you until the final page.
The novel opens dramatically in 2039 with James Hokama Byrne, grandson of Chief Tahoma-Kiche, leading a team to steal water trucks and take them to the reservation where his grandparents live. The battle began years ago, when water was labeled a commodity rather than a right, and Glacier Oceanside joined the ranks of the world's largest water cartels. Top executives didn't count on being confronted by James Hokama Byrne, an employee the company mentored since his high school graduation. But delivering to drought-stricken farms and getting kidnapped in Ethiopia changed the young man's outlook. When the Glacier Oceanide started draining aquifers on his grandfather's reservation to send to bottling plants and marijuana farms, something within him snapped. He couldn't remain silent.
The plot involves readers in the manipulations and crimes of water cartels, drug lords, and utility companies that operate openly and with little oversight. Going by his middle name, Hokama, the hero is challenged to make access to clean water a human right, not a commodity exploited by private corporations. The story is exciting, radical, and urgent, involving love affairs, murder, and kidnapping. If you like action with a touch of romance, and if you cry for misused populations, you won't want to miss this call to action. To ensure authenticity, Eichinger met with members of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon and was assisted by Native American Smithsonian consult and Ethiopian families.
