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Cli-fi: Essential climate change fiction
Climate fiction… or eerie predictions of what’s to come? You decide.
Published on April 4, 2024
The Overstory
Richard PowersTake a long walk through the luscious forest that is this masterful (and Pulitzer-winning) work from Richard Powers. When a wide cast of characters ultimately converge upon one of the few still-pristine stretches of forest in America, the full majesty of the trees, and the devastating threat to their survival, is made painfully clear.
Parable of the Sower
Octavia E. ButlerA celebrated dystopian classic by a sci-fi legend. Set in the year 2024 (um, way too close for comfort), climate change has devastated Earth. As the world falls apart around her, a teenager born with hyperempathy must use her power to protect the people she loves.
Salvage the Bones: A Novel
Jesmyn WardWe’ve already faced our fair share of natural disasters, including the one depicted in this book, but climate change means there’s plenty more to come. As Hurricane Katrina barrels toward the rural Mississippi home of a tight-knit but troubled family, 14-year-old Esch and her three siblings scramble to prepare for nature’s oncoming sledgehammer. It’s a hauntingly beautiful story that’s as powerful as the storm it depicts. Ward won her first National Book Award for “Salvage the Bones” in 2011.
Appleseed: A Novel
Matt BellBell’s breakout climate fiction thriller leaves you wondering, “Am I helping the world — or hurting it?” Three interconnected stories spanning hundreds of years explore the consequences of humankind’s greedy insistence on dominating a fragile ecosystem. Blending fairy tales, fantasy, and dystopian sci-fi, this heady and ambitious novel offers a unique take on humanity’s impact on the planet.
Termination Shock: A Novel
Neal StephensonIntense storms, global flooding, deadly heat waves, and mutating variants of COVID — no, you’re not skimming the headlines from today’s news but rather another brilliant piece of speculative fiction from Stephenson (“Sevenees,” “Anathe,” “Cryptonomicon”). His latest cli-fi thriller is set in the not-so-distant future and brings together a worldwide cast of compelling characters who must determine what can be done to reverse climate change. With a new and potentially dangerous solution in hand, they must also ask themselves if the ends justify the means.
Trail of Lightning
Rebecca RoanhorseRoanhorse brings to life Navajo folktales in this electrifying novel about the apocalypse brought on by climate change. In a world mostly drowned by rapidly rising sea levels, monster hunter Maggie Hoskie embarks on a perilous journey in search of a missing girl. She must battle witchcraft and the ancient gods and monsters who walk the earth once again. This is the first novel in “The Sixth World” series.
Blackfish City: A Novel
Sam J. MillerThe world, destroyed by fire, floods, and climate wars, is nearly unrecognizable in the uncomfortably near future. What’s left of humanity resides in gritty, floating cities in the Arctic Circle that are dominated by extreme wealth inequality, class disputes, and political corruption. Miller takes time to build a vivid portrait of a world that’s both alien and familiar all at once.
Barkskins: A Novel
Annie ProulxAnnie Proulx’s epic novel spans several centuries and tells a cautionary tale about deforestation. The elegant prose only solidifies the devastation at the slow death of the forest, as families build dynasties through logging, relying on the trees to build their fame and fortune.
Migrations: A Novel
Charlotte McConaghyThe world is rapidly losing entire species as climate change grows ever more devastating. In “Migrations,” it’s the catalyst for Franny Stone, whose connection with the natural world is almost an obsession. When her mission to find the world’s last flock of Arctic terns takes her on a wild journey on a fishing ship, her own dark past begins to emerge.
Flight Behavior: A Novel
Barbara KingsolverMillions of butterflies end up migrating to Tennessee for the winter instead of Mexico, a sign of many bigger and more devastating climate changes to come. In this novel, Kingsolver (“The Poisonwood Bible”) skewers all the symptoms — such as poor educational opportunities in the South and elitism among environmentalists — for America’s insufficient response to climate science.
The High House: A Novel
Jessie Greengrass“The High House” is a slow-moving, devastating storm where everyday domesticity is the focus, and apocalyptic destruction sows chaos in the background. Siblings Caro and Pauly find refuge from rising water levels in the High House, with wise elder Grandy and his granddaughter, Sally. Their experiences are both a warning about the future we’re heading toward, and a reflection of our current paralysis around climate change.
The Bone Clocks
David MitchellThis expansive, award-winning story from David Mitchell, one of the most gifted writers of a generation, takes you through decades of Holly Sykes’ difficult, beautiful, magical, and ultimately dystopian life. A wild ride with apocalyptic ends.
Dry
Neal ShustermanYA superstar Neal Shusterman teamed up with his son to write “Dry,” an apocalyptic novel where a California community runs out of water. As if unquenchable thirst weren’t bad enough, wildfires also pose a serious threat. (As residents of California ourselves, this novel really gets to the heart of both our darkest fears and our worst realities.)
Odds Against Tomorrow: A Novel
Nathaniel RichA cutting and humorous look at how capitalism and the climate collide. A mathematician obsessed with worst-case scenarios exploits companies’ growing fears over climate change destroying their business. But then, of course, one of the worst cases comes true.
The Windup Girl
Paolo BacigalupiPaolo Bacigalupi’s biopunk sci-fi novel paints a bleak picture of the fallout from biotechnology in the near future. Set in the dystopian streets of Bangkok where bioengineered plagues run rampant, food is in short supply, and calorie corporations reign supreme, a food scavenger falls for an artificial human.
The Wall: A Novel
John LanchesterA dark dystopian novel about drastic sea level rise and other climate change hazards that radically change life on Earth as we know it. Modern comforts are all gone as less land leads to more fights for survival in an increasingly cruel world.
The 2084 Report: A Novel of the Great Warming
James Lawrence PowellIn current day 2021, climate change is at the top of our minds. But in this riveting novel, the day has passed for reversing it, and the Great Warming has proven to be even more devastating than predicted. Framed as a series of interviews with citizens and scientists, “The 2084 Report” gives a fictitious look (or at least a preview) of what will happen if we don’t take action right this second.
Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel
Anthony DoerrHow does a first-century story make its way to 15th-century Constantinople, then to a library in present-day Idaho, and finally to the interstellar ship Argos in the near future? Doerr (“All the Light We Cannot See”) brilliantly weaves together a remarkable story that spans centuries, connects a diverse cast of characters, and explores how humans find purpose in literature amid climate crises, war, and struggle.
The Swan Book: A Novel
Alexis WrightThis award-winning #OwnVoices story draws on myths and legends to conjure a dystopian world altered irreversibly by climate change in the near future. According to Publishers Weekly, the book “deftly highlights the racial and cultural politics facing Australia’s indigenous people in a story that defies genre.”
Implanted
Lauren C. Teffeau“Implanted” takes place in a domed world built on the remains of Fort Worth after climate change rendered the outside world unlivable. Teffeau’s cyberpunk dystopian YA novel follows the story of Emery, a typical college student who has her whole life ahead of her — or, so she thinks. It turns out that she has a rare condition that enables her blood to carry encoded data, making her the perfect, if reluctant, messenger for a secretive organization.