SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

The earth's climate is one of the most intense areas of scientific research, but it rarely appears in science fiction. Why is that? There's some writers in the area, notably Kim Stanley Robinson and Margaret Atwood. But global warming isn't top of mind among most sci-fi writers, apart from dystopian YA. Your thoughts?

That's a good question. It seems like there's so many cool things that could be done with climate change, such as new species or visions of a new earth with a different climate, even aside from all the apocalyptic possibilities.

Climate change tends to come into the dystopian books more than anything. There are libraries full of these books. You would probably call this a sub-genre of Science Fiction.

Cordelia wrote: "Climate change tends to come into the dystopian books more than anything. There are libraries full of these books. You would probably call this a sub-genre of Science Fiction."
Some people have labeled it "cli-fi," as in "climate fiction." But why only in dystopian? :-/

It's not rare at all. Hundreds of books have dealt with it, either directly or obliquely. Problem is, SF writers tend to pay attention to the various scientific journals, and scientists started really talking about this back in the late 1960s/early 1970s. I've certainly been aware of global warming since the summer Star Wars came out, which was 40 years ago. So I suspect that a lot of it is seen as "been there done that" by most authors.

Still, there have been plenty of books in the past 15 years that have talked about it. Some have dealt with the topic directly, such as The Windup Girl, The Water Knife and The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi who deals with it head-on, and some, like the nanoplague series by the recently deceased Jeff Carlson, starting with Plague Zone, use metaphor to talk about it.

I wouldn't be too surprised to find out that novels like the Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer (Annihilation) and Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson, which are both about inimical ecosystems destroying human beings, weren't metaphorical fantasies triggered by global warming concerns.

Heavy Weather by Bruce Sterling, which I thoroughly enjoyed, to the point where I've read it 3 times, came out at least 20-25 years ago. It's all about climate change, as you can tell from the title. (It also has the coolest off-road vehicle in fiction since Hell Tanner's "car" in Damnation Alley.) Snowpiercer leans heavily on metaphor (the train is society compartmentalized) but the background of the world is that all the snow comes from an attempt to fix global warming.

In my TBR pile I have books like Splinterlands which is about the world in 30 years where the ecosystem has collapsed and nations have all but disappeared as a result. Also New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson, which takes place in a flooded NYC. I read another "flooded city" book a couple years ago but the title escapes me. Something like "Beneath The Waves" but that's too generic a title to find.

But back in the day everyone from Asimov to Ballard to Brunner to Dick to Matheson wrote books which featured global warming. The classic film Soylent Green has that as an undercurrent, based on the novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison.

Cordelia wrote: "Climate change tends to come into the dystopian books more than anything. There are libraries full of these books. You would probably call this a sub-genre of Science Fiction."

It's actually been dubbed "cli-fi".

Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake is kinda one and here's a good article on the genre with a lot of recommendations:

https://www.yaleclimateconnections.or...

J.G. wrote: "The earth's climate is one of the most intense areas of scientific research, but it rarely appears in science fiction. Why is that? There's some writers in the area, notably [author:Kim Stanley Rob..."

It is a relatively knew popular subject. Say within the last ten years or so. It will end up getting its due.

The Sheep Look Up not just cli-fi but damage to the planet due to pollution, and a variety of other issues (gov't corruption, unregulated corporations, apathetic populace, skewed media etc). Eerie because it was written in the early 70s and got a whole lot correct...

Kim ran a cli-fi nom theme a few years ago. Here's the link that shows what made it into the poll.

I would love to have that theme again next year!

Flood is worth a look. Has a good twist from melting of polar ice caps.

What about New York 2140 or whatever - KSR newest. Plus last year I read the Drowned worlds anthology

Monica wrote: "The Sheep Look Up not just cli-fi but damage to the planet due to pollution, and a variety of other issues (gov't corruption, unregulated corporations, apathetic populace, skewed media..."

One of my favorite novels is Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach. It's not climate fiction, but I have vivid memories of reading it as a teenager.

Here's one that comes out this month that takes place after massive climatic upheaval. The Rule of Luck

Here's an October release that's climate based. Above the Timberline

I enjoyed The Sands of Sarasvati by Risto Isomäki. I read it in Finnish and the editing could've used more work, and I heard that the same is true for the English edition. Also it's not a shining example of beautiful writing, but the cli-fi content is great. It was a quick and interesting read and had some of the most horrifying scenes I've read in a long time. Nature is scary!

Mother of Storms by John Barnes is kinda sorta about runaway climate change, brought on by the release of the methane trapped in the ocean bed.

It would seem to me that climate change is a background issue that requires actors or characters in an evolving story line. That story should reflects the affect of climate change.on behavior. Maybe authors don't think it's sexy enough.

Can’t remember how to link but Earth by David Brin was pretty danged awesome and felt different from a lot of the dystopic climate fiction I’ve read. Also, massive second on Oryx and Crake. Amazing books.

Norton wrote: "It would seem to me that climate change is a background issue that requires actors or characters in an evolving story line. That story should reflects the affect of climate change.on behavior. Mayb..."

Hi Norton!

You might be right; climate change is nothing 'new', its been out there for ages and doesn't have that wow factor to it. Maybe that's the reason why people tend to shy away from it; or its too hard and time consuming to try to show another side of it.

Funny, that many games these days use it as a feature.

Until more and more people will experience this first hand; not much will change.

Marcell wrote: "Until more and more people will experience this first hand; not much will change."

Except the climate! Ba-dum-bum! *tish*

Zank you, I be here all zee veek.

Except the climate! Ba-dum-bum! *tish*

Zank you, I be here all zee veek."

Thank you, that made my day :)

Its perhaps because the climate change itself is too slow to fit into sci-fi. We see it in fantasy where some magical power hits the world, climate shows a sudden dramatic change but in sci-fi it seems a bit hard to handle.

Because climate change is a farce and can't be controlled as its a natural occurrence not man made; and it's been going on since before humans.

John wrote: "Because clime change is a farce and can't be controlled as its a natural occurrence not man made; and it's been going on since before humans."

Err...
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/...

https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/

Also whether or not it ends up being true isn't the litmus test for science fiction! Frankenstein has inspired head transplants, even though we know animating the dead isn't possible!

John wrote: "Because clime change is a farce and can't be controlled as its a natural occurrence not man made; and it's been going on since before humans."

This is both ill informed and off topic. I'm not entirely sure which bothers me more.

It's also a ridiculous comment because we're talking about fiction for god's sake.

Paolo Bacigalupi on why he writes his stories:

https://www.facebook.com/PaoloBAuthor...

Allison wrote: "John wrote: "Because clime change is a farce and can't be controlled as its a natural occurrence not man made; and it's been going on since before humans."

Err...
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warm..."

Well that is true it's not a litmus for Sci-fi But if you go through history itself the earth and the climate has been changing for centuries. Remember at one point the US/Canada/and if I remember correctly many other parts of the world were cover with ice for years. Hence the "Ice Age". Just one example. LOL

John wrote: "Well that is true it's not a litmus for Sci-fi But if you go through history itself the earth and the climate has been changing for centuries. Remember at one point the US/Canada/and if I remember correctly many other parts of the world were cover with ice for years. Hence the "Ice Age". Just one example. LOL ..."

John, take it elsewhere. As I said above, ill informed and off topic.

I believe that Beste's entry 24 is on the mark. Climate change evolves rather slowly, in decades if man-made and milleniums when naturally occuring, so sci-fi authors tend not to use that theme, unless they write a dystopian story happening in the far future.

John wrote: "Because climate change is a farce and can't be controlled as its a natural occurrence not man made; and it's been going on since before humans."

Because this is off-topic I won't go into the science, but anthropogenic global warming is both very real *and* accelerating. As I mentioned up thread, this is a topic I've been following closely for 40 years now, and what should terrify everyone is that in the past 8 to 10 years climatologists have stopped saying "This is what we should do to STOP climate change" and started saying "This is what we need to do to SURVIVE climate change."

Despite the Right's attempts at politicizing global warming, it is not a political issue, nor is it a matter of opinion; it is fact and the science is settled.

It is literally the only thing scientists from every country of all political stripes and religious persuasions agree on. Muslims, Christians, Atheists, animists, and so on from democracies, dictatorships, communist countries, the whole spectrum, are all in agreement on this. Because it's based on math and evidence.

Part of the answer to the topic question may have some overlap with the answer to why we have Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies. Many science fiction authors and fans have a right-wing ideology. Science fiction is a vehicle to express ideas, and some ideas seem to be less compatible with other ideas.

Darn you, ideas!

I stand corrected: this is indeed a HOT topic! :)

This is making me wonder if there are books out there where climate change denial is what pushes us past the point of no return and/or it makes it a lot worse.

Marcell wrote: "I stand corrected: this is indeed a HOT topic! :)"

*groan* XD

Sarah Anne wrote: "This is making me wonder if there are books out there where climate change denial is what pushes us past the point of no return and/or it makes it a lot worse."

That's definitely a theme in The Water Knife, but it wasn't so much active denial as the combination of corporate interests and public apathy until it was too late, which amounts to the same thing.

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I think that our recent fascination with zombie fiction is actually a reaction to climate change. They are both viewed as issues too big to solve but are rather something we can merely endure and a only a few will survive. The fact that all -- and I mean that literally -- of the most popular zombie novels, movies, TV series and video games feature zombies that were created by man's hubris reflects that as well.

Allison wrote: "John wrote: "Because clime change is a farce and can't be controlled as its a natural occurrence not man made; and it's been going on since before humans."

Err...
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warm..."

Wait animating the dead isn't possible? I thought with enough micro-circuitry you could do that, Dang.

Dj wrote: "Allison wrote: "John wrote: "Because clime change is a farce and can't be controlled as its a natural occurrence not man made; and it's been going on since before humans."

Err...
http://www.ucsusa..."

yuk yuk...yuck =P

Dj wrote: "Wait animating the dead isn't possible? I thought with enough micro-circuitry you could do that, Dang."

Italian doctor says world's first human head transplant 'imminent'

To do this, he says, he wants to use electricity — a tip he picked up from "Frankenstein" — to aid spinal-cord fusion.

"Electricity has the power to speed up regrowth," Canavero said. "Bing bang bong, you have the solution."

The surgeon has not elaborated on electricity's role in the operation.

Electricity. Who would have thought?

Tom wrote: "Dj wrote: "Wait animating the dead isn't possible? I thought with enough micro-circuitry you could do that, Dang."

Italian doctor says world's first human head transplant 'imminent'

To do this, h..."

I just posted this! But it's not really reanimating the dead so much as moving the living.

The question of why climate change makes so few appearances in sci-fi is fascinating to me; I'm teaching a course on literature and climate change at the moment at college-level, and in doing the reading and prep before I put together the syllabus, I was really struck with how YA sci-fi, particularly of course of the dystopian variety, features the effects of climate change in their world-building to a much, much greater extent than adult sci-fi. That genre, for all its conventions, also seems much more willing to address political and economic causes of climate change compared to other sub-genres. I think a lot of you are onto something with the problem of the pace of climate change; how do you effectively dramatize something that takes so long to happen etc. Rob Nixon has a good term for it, "slow violence," in terms of how the environmental policies (or lack thereof) of developed nations impact so-called developing nations in this regard. And "slow violence" is hard to show! But that still doesn 't quite answer the question of why dystopian YA fiction is able to tackle it when other genres aren't? These fictions (Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker, Saci Lloyd's Carbon Diaries and Emmi Itaranta's The Memory of Water come to mind, among so many others like Omar El Akkad's American War) aren't always particularly good, but they're not afraid to show a world ravaged by climate change, and that's something I'd like to see more of in books for adults. I know Atwood and K.S. Robinson both do it in their various genres, and I like them both to some extent, but surely there has to be some sort of middle-zone in between Atwood's stately mythos-building, and Robinson's cheerful techtopias?
In case anyone's interested, I've compiled a fairly arbitrary list of both fictions and non-fictions I've come across when thinking about this issue: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
Any further suggestions are super welcome!

Trike wrote: "I think that our recent fascination with zombie fiction is actually a reaction to climate change. They are both viewed as issues too big to solve but are rather something we can merely endure and a only a few will survive."

I agree completely. The zombie thing became an obsession for me when I got into the Walking Dead tv show, so much so that I still regularly have zombie end-of-the-world dreams. Since I'm the dream analysis type (psych major over here), I recognize that it isn't so much the literal idea of zombies that my subconscious has latched onto, but the reality that we are actively making our planet uninhabitable for humans, and the risk of a massive plague or other disasters is on the rise.

It is indeed too big to contemplate, especially since we whizzed right on by the point of no return with no signs of stopping our lifestyles of over-consumption. Just pump that carbon into the atmosphere as fast as we can! It is easier to think about zombies.

Jen wrote: "Trike wrote: "I think that our recent fascination with zombie fiction is actually a reaction to climate change. They are both viewed as issues too big to solve but are rather something we can merely endure and a only a few will survive."

I agree completely. The zombie thing became an obsession for me when I got into the Walking Dead tv show, so much so that I still regularly have zombie end-of-the-world dreams. Since I'm the dream analysis type (psych major over here), I recognize that it isn't so much the literal idea of zombies that my subconscious has latched onto, but the reality that we are actively making our planet uninhabitable for humans, and the risk of a massive plague or other disasters is on the rise. "

In a similar vein -- a pun which will become clear in a moment -- I think that our collective fascination with vampire fiction in the late '80s and on through the '90s was a result of the AIDS crisis.

A plague that was equal parts blood and sex? That's exactly in the vampire wheelhouse, resulting in a spike of books, movies and TV series that perpetuates itself to this day.

If there's a monster who can symbolically represent earthquakes (dragons? Kaiju?), then they'll likely be next on the cultural landscape, because earthquakes are increasing in both frequency and severity, partially to do with human activity such as fracking and building gigantic dams.

Trike wrote: "If there's a monster who can symbolically represent earthquakes (dragons? Kaiju?), then they'll likely be next on the cultural landscape, because earthquakes are increasing in both frequency and severity, partially to do with human activity such as fracking and building gigantic dams.

Extending that logic, with climate change and rising sea levels, will we see more stories about the Leviathan, the Kraken, the Little Mermaid, or endless remakes of Splash? ;-p

There already is!! I believe Seanan McGuire is about to release s book involving mermaids that eat people or something

Zombie mermaids!

KayW4 wrote: "The question of why climate change makes so few appearances in sci-fi is fascinating to me; I'm teaching a course on literature and climate change at the moment at college-level, and in doing the r..."

I believe many writers and publishers fundamentally misunderstand climate change as a theme. Too many are focused on the dramatic effects, rather than the dramatic environment it creates. Other writers and publishers avoid the believers/deniers dichotomy because they don't want to take sides, or they don't want to risk offending someone.

Brave writers and publishers should ask, What will life be like when the average temp goes up 3 degrees C? How will the melting of the ice caps change human society? What happens when shifting rainfall patterns stress human relationships? Climate change will make Earth a different planet. Let's explore that planet.

I also believe commercial science fiction is suffering from the ball-and-chain of space. The void between the stars is now the romantic equivalent of the 19th century English countryside. It's the operatic stage where the Jungian archetypes act out their predictable tragedies. Readers and publishers think Earth is boring, without understanding that it's becoming a different universe. I'm generalizing, of course, but name one sci-fi bestseller of the past year that didn't have at least a little pew-pew-pew in it. (KSR excluded.)

The one exception, as you rightly point out, is YA. The prominence of dystopian themes, including climate change, is a reflection of millennials' genuine anxiety about the future. They look at a heating Earth and believe they have little to look forward to. They are facing a planet their parents made, but don't understand or even accept. The under-30 crowd will be reluctant pioneers, forced to cope with something humanity has never seen before. Eventually, the millennials will become the "adults," and climate change will have to become center stage, because it will be the daily reality.

I liked your book list. You may be interested in my climate fiction list here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

I also have a Twitter list of climate fiction authors, mostly indies, like myself: https://twitter.com/Joe_Follansbee/li...

The real end-result of the current global warming is uninhabitable tropics with violent, possibly permanent, storms rampaging everywhere.

Me, I want to do a remake of Damnation Alley, substituting climate change for nuclear war.