Tag Archive for: science fiction

Venomous Lumpsucker | Ned Beauman

 

A dark and witty story of environmental collapse and runaway capitalism. In a near future in which tens of thousands of species are going extinct every year, a whole industry has sprung up around their extinctions, including biobanks housing DNA samples from which lost organisms might someday be resurrected. But then, one day, it’s all gone. A mysterious cyber-attack hits every biobank simultaneously, wiping out the last traces of the perished species.

Animal cognition scientist Karin Resaint is consumed with existential grief over what humans have done to nature, while extinction industry executive Mark Halyard comes from the dark side. But they are both concerned with one species in particular: the venomous lumpsucker, a small, ugly bottom-feeder that happens to be the most intelligent fish on the planet. The further they go in their hunt for the lumpsucker, the deeper they are drawn into the mystery of the attack on the biobanks.Who was really behind it? And why would anyone do such a thing? Virtuosic and profound, witty and despairing, Venomous Lumpsucker is Ned Beauman at his very best.

Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH | Robert O’Brien 

Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH - Robert O’Brien 

Mrs. Frisby is a widowed field mouse. And when the field in which she lives with her four children is threatened, some extraordinary rats (who can read, write, and operate machinery) come to her rescue. The science fiction book was originally published in 1971, but is still much-loved by readers aged seven to eleven.

 

Read our Librarian’s top climate choices for children here.

The Word for World is Forest | Ursula K. LeGuin

You’re never too young to start reading Ursula K. LeGuin. This science fiction novella was originally published in 1972, and is set on the fictional planet of Athshe, which is threatened by a military logging colony — until the natives begin a revolt. Because of some mature themes, this is a read better suited for teens.

Read our Librarian’s top climate choices for Young Adults here

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The Bone Clocks | David Mitchell

Run away, one drowsy summer’s afternoon, with Holly Sykes: wayward teenager, broken-hearted rebel and unwitting pawn in a titanic, hidden conflict. Over six decades, the consequences of a moment’s impulse unfold, drawing an ordinary woman into a world far beyond her imagining. And as life in the near future turns perilous, the pledge she made to a stranger may become the key to her family’s survival…

 

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Earth | David Brin

Decades from now, an artificial black hole has fallen into the Earth’s core. As scientists frantically work to prevent the ultimate disaster, they discover that the entire planet could be destroyed within a year.

But while they look for an answer, some claim that the only way to save Earth is to let its human inhabitants become extinct: to reset the evolutionary clock and start over.

‘This book is not just a green globe-trotting adventure; it is also a thoughtful mix of warnings and promise.” – The Guardian

 

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The Carbon Diaries 2015 | Saci Lloyd

It’s January 1st, 2015, and the UK is the first nation to introduce carbon dioxide rationing, in a drastic bid to combat climate change. As her family spirals out of control, Laura Brown chronicles the first year of rationing with scathing abandon. Will her mother become one with her inner wolf? Will her sister give up her weekends in Ibiza? Does her father love the pig more than her? Can her band The Dirty Angels make it big? And will Ravi Datta ever notice her?

In these dark days, Laura deals with the issues that really matter: love, floods and pigs.

The Carbon Diaries 2015 is one girl’s drastic bid to stay sane in a world unravelling at the seams.

 

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The World According to Anna | Jostein Gaarder

When fifteen-year-old Anna begins receiving messages from another time, her parents take her to the doctor. But he can find nothing wrong; in fact he believes there may be some truth to what she is seeing. Anna is haunted by visions of the desolate world of 2082. She sees her great-granddaughter, Nova, roaming through wasteland with a band of survivors, after animals and plants have died out. The more Anna sees, the more she realises she must act to prevent the future in her visions becoming real.

But can she act quickly enough?

 

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The Healer | Antti Tuomainen

It’s two days before Christmas and Helsinki is battling ruthless climate catastrophe: subway tunnels are flooded; abandoned vehicles are burning in the streets. People are fleeing to the far north where conditions are still tolerable. Social order is crumbling and private security firms have undermined the police force. Tapani Lehtinen, a struggling poet, is among the few still willing to live in the city.

When Tapani’s wife Johanna, a journalist, goes missing, he embarks on a frantic hunt for her. Johanna’s disappearance seems to be connected to a story she was researching about a serial killer known as ‘The Healer’. Determined to find Johanna, Tapani’s search leads him to uncover secrets from her past: secrets that connect her to the very murders she was investigating…

Atmospheric and moving, The Healer is a story of survival, loyalty and determination. Even when the world is coming to an end, love and hope endure.

 

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Flight Behaviour | Barbara Kingsolver

“The flames now appeared to lift from individual treetops in showers of orange sparks, exploding the way a pine log does in a campfire when it is poked. The sparks spiralled upward in swirls like funnel clouds. Twisters of brightness against grey sky.”

On the Appalachian Mountains above her home, a young mother discovers a beautiful and terrible marvel of nature: the monarch butterflies have not migrated south for the winter this year.

Is this a miraculous message from God, or a spectacular sign of climate change?

Entomology expert, Ovid Byron, certainly believes it is the latter.

He ropes in Dellarobia to help him decode the mystery of the monarch butterflies. Flight Behaviour has featured on the NY Times bestseller list and is Barbara Kingsolver’s most accessible novel yet.

 

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The Ministry for the Future | Kim Stanley Robinson

Established in 2025, the purpose of the new organisation was simple: To advocate for the world’s future generations and to protect all living creatures, present and future. It soon became known as the Ministry for the Future, and this is its story.

From legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined. Told entirely through fictional eye-witness accounts, The Ministry For The Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, the story of how climate change will affect us all over the decades to come. Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us – and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face. It is a novel both immediate and impactful, desperate and hopeful in equal measure, and it is one of the most powerful and original books on climate change ever written.

 

Read our Librarian’s top climate change fiction picks by heading to our Fiction section