Digesting Climate Change by Martijn Lindeboom
On friday I held a lecture about Climate Change and science fiction. Afterward I was asked by several people if I could share the list of books I mentioned. You’ll find the list below.
The same thing happened after the panel on sunday about Non-Western sciencefiction and fantasy books (I’ll share that list in another post).
Climate Change is becoming more and more part of the literary toolkit, even if only because it is happening in front of our eyes. But science fiction was the first to address it I’ve observed some different usages of Climate Change in science fiction, which I will list below, with some examples:
Climate Change as a decor or backdrop to the story
* The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner (pollution, acid rain, disasters)
* Borne by Jeff VanderMeer (heat, pollution, post apocalyptic city)
* MaddAddam-trilogy by Margaret Atwood (rising sea level, warmth, zoonosis)
* Parable of the Sower/ Talents by Octavia Butler (heat, wildfires, economic decline, lawlessness)
* Big Game by Martijn Lindeboom (disappearing nature, biodiversity, solar power, electric transport)
Climate Change as part of the story
* Hummingbird/Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer (extinction of species, conspiracy theories/ real ones)
* New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson (sea level rise)
* American War by Omar El Akkad (heat, sea level rise, war)
* The Wind-up Girl by Paolo Baccigalupi (sea level rise, depletion of resources)
* River of Gods by Ian McDonald (heat, water shortage)
* The Land of Freedom by Martijn Lindeboom (effects of ignoring climate change, sea level rise, heat, conflict)
Stories about fighting Climate Change
* Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson (heat, super storms, rampant animals – boars and alligators – geoengineering)
* The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (everything)
* Grontopia by Martijn Lindeboom (reducing population levels, leave earth, tech for emancipating nature)
* Digestible by Martijn Lindeboom (food from CO2, go vegan: no more farm animals, redistribute land, eliminate most traffic)
Stories looking past Climate Change
* Go to another planet: Red/Green/ Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. But that can go very wrong: Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson (and maybe Parable of the Trickster by Octavia Butler, if it had been writen)
* Leave planets altogether: The Culture by Iain M. Banks
* Leave the physical altogether: Accellerando by Charles Stross, The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
Of course there are many, many more in all categories (and maybe there are other categories as well), I’d love to hear your tips!
I’ll be posting about this and other subjects (in Dutch) on my website: www.martijnlindeboom.nl