To give you an idea, I've read (in order of enjoyment):
Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
Sealed by Naomi Booth (which I thought had a cool concept but average execution)
Currently reading The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton.
It doesn't have to be literary, but the writing needs to be good (I'm very picky about the writing). Elements of horror/fantasy are fine, as long as they aren't the main focus. Classics are very much welcomed.
Thank you in advance! I'm really excited to delve deeper into these subgenres, if you can call them that.
by Miserable_Recover721
13 Comments
The Deluge by Stephen Markley
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Kim Stanley Robinson: The Ministry for the Future
Stephen Baxter: Flood/Ark/Landfall
*Artificial Wisdom* by Thomas R. Weaver fits this pretty exactly. Earth is in the midst of a major climate crisis, and an AI is running for World Dictator.
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn dives into themes of environmental destruction caused by humans, but from the perspective of a gorilla
Project Hail Mary is about a climate disaster, the audiobook is incredible if you like audiobooks
John Wyndham, for example The Kraken Wakes, The Day of the Triffids or The Chrysalids.
MaddAddam triology by Margaret Atwood.
Radicalized by Cory Doctorow.
Genesis by Bernard Beckett is a great sci-fi novella about AI
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
It’s a book where climate change has eliminated almost all species on earth. A woman decides to process her personal grief by traveling to find the last flock of arctic terns. It’s more of a character study than sci-fi but it still has some solid sci-fi elements too.
The Wall by John Lanchester
An oldie but goodie for climate change: *Heavy Weather* by Bruce Sterling, about tornado chasers in a future Midwest that’s become essentially uninhabitable due to incessant and increasingly powerful tornadoes. In this book, climate scientists fear the development of a tornado so large and powerful it becomes a permanent feature of the atmosphere, a la the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, and the tornado chasers are out there looking for evidence that this is happening.
For AI, I would nominate *Daemon* and *Freedom**^(TM)* by Daniel Suarez. Even though everyone in the book is at great pains to specify that the Daemon is explicitly not an AI, but rather an extremely sophisticated rules-based system, the decisions it makes and the actions it takes are reminiscent of some of the things LLMs are doing now. Plus *Daemon* in particular is a real barn-burner!
Dune fits perfectly, but I dont think that is what you mean by modern standards.
Starlight by ML Briggs takes place in a world a couple hundred years in the future. Climate change has flooded coastal cities, animal have disappeared, and Earth is under dictatorship rule. Many humans fled to newly rerraformed planets within the solar system and it follows a young man who still lives in earth as he tries to escape.
‘Annie Bot’ by Sierra Greer
‘The Windup Girl’ by Paulo Bacigalupi
‘The Water Knife’ by Paulo Bacigalupi
‘Counting Heads’ by David Marusek
I also don’t think Atwood’s ‘Maddaddam’ trilogy directly meets your request for climate and/or AI, but it’s still dealing with many very closely related issues, and it’s an incredible. So highly recommend that too.