Cli-Fi (Climate Fiction): Home

Recommended Cli-Fi book titles

Cli-Fi (Climate Fiction)

"Cli-fi" (rhymes with sci-fi) is speculative fiction that addresses climate change. Although authors have been speculating about what life might be like on a warming planet for decades, there is currently an explosion of great new cli-fi novels. Many are dystopian, set in harsh, violent landscapes. Some cli-fi is utopian, imagining how the crash of old systems might allow better ones to flourish. Many cli-fi novels ground their speculations about the effects of our warming climate and the technologies that could address it in hard science.

Novels provide an alternative to dreary data and graphs as we grapple with the implications of human life on a warming planet. See below for some recommendations of engaging, thought-provoking climate fiction stories and novels.

Cli-fi with utopian themes

Afrofuturism

Afrofuturist fiction reimagines worlds from a Black perspective.

Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy

Bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale projects us into a near future dominated by bioengineering corporations and a desperate fight for the future of humanity.

Kim Stanley Robinson

Readers of Kim Stanley Robinson's "hard" science fiction are educated while being entertained and engaged.

Paolo Bacigalupi

Science fiction and fantasy writer Paolo Bacigalupi explores themes of genetic engineering and a post-fossil fuel future in dystopian settings.

Highly recommended Cli-fi novels

Cli-Fi titles

Cli-fi Short Stories

Anthologies of climate fiction short stories available free online, from Arizona State University's Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative

"Imagine 2200" includes the winners of a short story contest asking writers from different backgrounds to create intersectional worlds in which no community is left behind. Sponsored by Grist.

Novellas (quick reads)

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Librarian

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Roberta Richards
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