Yes, Part One because climate fiction interests me, not surprising given that I’m writing The Steep Climes Quartet, with Kill Well, Book One, coming out this September.

I hope to pull together a climate fiction bibliography. Early efforts, such as this one, will be off-the-cuff discussions of climate fiction books on my shelf (or in my Kindle library).

First up—and entirely appropriately first—is Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry for the Future. I consider this novel to be the seminal climate fiction novel and, mind you, that conclusion draws from a great pool of books, including a great many other books by Robinson. I’ve read him for years, being an admirer of his Mars Trilogy and his Science in The Capitol series, and New York 2140 and 2312, too. It might be easier to list books of his that I haven’t read, come to think of it. His book Shaman is truly extraordinary and one of his exceptions to his more usual turf, but an excellent read and it is fun to follow as Robinson pulls off an extremely difficult premise. Aurora also deserves special notice, because this entertainingly debunks the “We’ve screwed the pooch with Earth so let’s go to other planets,” premise, which doesn’t work out that well in the book, following an all-too-sensible concept that our own evolutionary development on Earth will make occupying alien planets impossible because of biological incompatibility. As I’ve said, I’m a fan of science fiction since my young pup days, but I’m always happy to see sloppy science fiction conventions and tropes put right, and Aurora does all that and more.

One last point about Robinson, or “Kim” as I’ve learned he likes to be call in the many lectures, interviews, and panels he’s participated in that show up on YouTube, and that is that Kim is an excellent speaker on climate change—articulate, interesting, and knowledgeable—and the climate movement would do well to explore cloning this guy, except that this is yet another science fiction trope. Kim, by the way, likes to describe himself as a science fiction writer, and indeed he is, thank goodness.

Okay, one last last point, back to Ministry for the Future, and that is Kim addresses the climate crisis over decades and wrestles with the issue of business and capital, an essential element for any significant climate crisis amelioration, but one, alas, far too often not addressed in climate fiction. Neo-liberal capitalism is a huge barrier to effective climate solutions, and Ministry is required reading on this front alone, although we get a wide-scoped, entertaining, and informative story as a bonus.

Years ago, someone (thanks, whoever!) insisted that I read Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl, and I’ve never looked back and, in fact, I’ve become another (also likely forgotten) insister that friends and acquaintances—hell, throw in some complete strangers, too—read this work. I’ve since read his other work, including a couple of his YA titles (The Drowned Cities, Ship Breakers) and, of course, his collection of short stories Pump Six and the very enjoyable and provoking full-length novel on the same theme of water shortages in the Southwest, Water Knife. My strongest interest with climate fiction is near- and mid-term extrapolation, and Bacigalupa writes further out futures, but he does it with style and imagination, and, yes, he is yet another writer crush I suffer from.

Talking about further reaches, I’d remembered that I’d long ago read J. G. Ballard’s The Drowned World and I’ve recently reread it mainly because this book keeps showing up on climate fiction book lists. Ballard is a deliciously weird and wonderful writer, and The Drowned World is these days something of a wacky read, albeit an enjoyable one. The novel doesn’t really fit into climate fiction, although it is easy to understand how a book titled The Drowned World might be so nominated.

I’ll finish with a work from the other end of the spectrum, not well known like Robinson and Bacigalupi, and that is a small collection of scenario-related short stories, The Bell Lap, by J. Underwood. From all appearances self-published, with an old-fashioned illustrated cover, I almost passed on the book as I was yet again browsing the new climate fiction books, not that Amazon has yet created a climate fiction sub-genre within its Science Fiction category, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up doing so, considering the numbers of climate fiction titles showing up these days.

Well, I’m glad that I took the chance, and it may have been the book description that tipped the scales:

Climate refugees fleeing an American West turned dessert. A German couple trapped in a new European Ice Age. A sensitive young man drafted to fight in the Tar Sands Wars. Rebels persecuted by a dictatorship of the fossil fuel industry. These and other stories explore life in a climate-altered near future: occasionally whimsical, often grim, always deeply human in their response to catastrophe.

I’m not sure how near future these works are, but I enjoyed reading the book and I strongly agree with this part of the book’s description: always deeply human in their response to catastrophe.

Call me a nut, but I like my climate fiction to be deeply human, so tip ‘o the cap to J. Underwood. Go buy this book and help a writer out, will you? I’m sure that I’m not motivated by my own writing effort, am I?

Check out Kill Well: Book One of The Steep Climes Quartet.

Oh, okay. I guess I am.