I’m noticing more dystopian climate fiction popping up in my searches for quality literary fiction. It’s exciting to find my go-to “beach read” themes from literary writers.
As I look for more to read in this vein, I’m realizing there are so many excellent reads in this category that are both older classics and newly published.
Help me eliminate this blind spot!! What books like this have you loved, or found to be a worthwhile read.
by wearylibra
30 Comments
The Overstory by Richard Powers
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Anything by Charlotte McConaghy
Read the original climate novel: Frank Herbert’s Dune.
Migrations, by Charlotte McConaghy
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson is exactly what you are looking for
Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver
Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
Venomous Lumpsucker – Ned Beauman
Parable of the Sower – Octavia E Butler
There is a category of mysteries that have an ecology component.
Examples: The Dry by Jane Harper, Falling into Green by Cher Fischer, the series set in US national parks by Nevada Barr.
The Overatory or The Signature of All Things
Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach books blend literary, sci-fi and horror elements. His Borne ‘trilogy’ is definitely literary environmental sci-fi.
The High House by Jessie Greengrass
The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton
The Deluge by Stephen Markley
The Southern Reach series by Jeff VanderMeer
The New Wilderness by Diane Cook.
That old ace in the hole, A.
Proulx
Greenwood by Michael Christie only had bits in a dystopian future but I really loved it for showing how we actually got to that point.
How High We Go In The Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu I liked for similar reasons.
A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet. Riveting, and so creative!
Check out the MaddAddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood. IMO, the first book (Oryx and Crake) stands on its own if you’re not into series.
THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG by Edward Abbey
Finally can recommend one of my all time favorite reads!!!
The light pirate by lily brooks dalton !!!! (I didn’t like her other book Good morning, Midnight but you might idk)
Also second whoever said Charlotte McC.. can’t spell her last name. Wild dark shores is really good too!
The sheep look up by john brunner.
Felt like it had elements of dystopian environmental future and was written with an interesting structure.
*The Hourglass Network* by Andre Soares is brilliant and soooo underrated.
It’s an environmental collapse and spy thriller.
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr.
Dream State
Wild Dark Shores
All We Can Know
All three came out in the last year and are literary, page-turner types. I enjoyed them!
seemingly unpopular opinion but I was not the biggest fan of The Overstory. I would recommend We Will Be Jaguars by Nemonte Nenquimo, a memoir by a woman from a tribe in the Amazon jungle who helps to form an alliance amongst other tribes to fight against oil companies
Oryx’s and Crake trilogy by Marget Atwood definitely falls into the climate change dystopian category
The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks Dalton
Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
Creation Lake fits this bill
Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
Wild Dark Shore or Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy
Not sure if it’s exactly what you’re looking for, but you might enjoy The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump by Harry Turtledove.
A bit different from some of the other recs – Private Rites by Julia Armfield. A retelling of Shakespeare King Lear that takes place in time where it never stops raining in England due to climate change.
Arborescence by Rhett Davis