Your Climate Fiction Reading List
If you enjoy reading science fiction or apocalyptic thrillers, perhaps it’s time to try climate fiction. Also known as cli-fi, climate fiction is a genre in which environmental devastation is a driving force, catapulting protagonists into an apocalyptic “after” or pinning them in the fast-vanishing “before”.
The roots of this trend extend deep into sci-fi, when its subject belonged in the world of the speculative. But now, as extreme weather swirls around the globe, tales confronting climate emergencies have become some of the most unsettling, yet comforting, reads.
In case you want to give cli-fi a go, we’ve collected five great examples from the Lume bookshelves. Enjoy!
Cool Earth
By Bart Kosko
On an early June afternoon high up on the forested Sierra slopes of Mount Whitney, three scientists try to get to higher ground to avoid the super-tsunamis wracking the coasts.
There they face the final fruits of their own misguided efforts to reverse climate change — the geoengineering “cool earth” project.
Deepwater
By Alex Finer
As the mining ship Voyager samples minerals on the ocean floor, a new captain arrives and claims their precious discoveries — knowing nothing of the strange new life-form they’ve found evidence of.
As disaster strikes, and the only people who understand this particular underworld vanish, it seems as though this new life-form may be about to reclaim its territory.
Tsunami
By Crawford Kilian
Solar flares have been erupting with unusual violence and frequency on the surface of the sun. With the ozone reduced by half, UV radiation is penetrating the atmosphere and burning into the cells of plants and animals. Then an earthquake in Antarctica sends a super-tsunami screaming up the Pacific.
In this fast-paced eco-thriller, Kilian explores the paper-thin barrier between an established society and roiling anarchy.
Icequake
By Crawford Kilian
A group of scientists are at a station in Antarctica when a volcanic eruption caused by the breakdown of the Earth’s magnetic field leaves them stranded without means of communication.
Each day the aftershocks shift their station 2 km north. Do they stay put and risk being caught in the next series of icequakes? Or do they chance the ever-increasing journey to the neighbouring station?
Twenty Twenty
By Nigel Watts
An ageing writer infected with a deadly virus and despairing of mankind’s continuing damage to the planet retreats to a derelict factory in the icy wastes of northern Canada.
Meanwhile, at a remote research institute, a virtual reality test pilot and an anthropologist are working on a VR simulation of the Amazonian Kogi tribe.
In his eerily prophetic novel, published 1995, Watts offers fascinating, philosophical insight into current concerns.
Which climate fiction novels have shaken you to your core? Find us on socials and let us know. We love to hear from you!
