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shimmergal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Oct-13-08 06:54 PM
Original message
Climate Change in Science Fiction?
I'm looking for SF novels and exceptionalshort stories with climate change as a premise. I know of Kim Stanley Robinsons's trilogy and Michael Crichton's quasi-SF novel with a debunking theme, but I'd like the opinion of anyone who's read them. And there must be a lot more out there!
Help!? All suggestions welcome.

And if anyone knows of an article that's a quick guide to such science fiction, I'll be thrilled to hear about it!

Shimmergal

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YankeyMCC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-14-08 04:45 AM
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1. Check out Paolo Bacigalupi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Bacigalupi

He's written a a lot of short stories dealing with climate collapse.

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Orrex Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-14-08 08:00 AM
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2. Philip Dick has a number of short stories and novels with climate change as a backdrop
It's seldom (if ever) the main point of the story, but it often has a major effect upon the action and characters.

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Game-Players of Titan


These were all written in the 60s, and while they do feature climate change, it's usually brought on by nuclear war rather than as a result of decades of industrial irresponsibility.
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YankeyMCC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-14-08 01:39 PM
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3. "The Road"
It occured to me that that "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy might also fit what you're looking for. Although it doesn't describe what brought on the collapse it does definitely paint a vivid picture of a collapsing ecology and the effects on the humans still trying to survive in that situation.

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phantom power Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-14-08 02:32 PM
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4. Heavy Weather, by Bruce Sterling...
and Mother of Storms, by John Barnes
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Richard D Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-14-08 05:30 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. Heavy Weather
is brilliant. Scary as shit though.
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phantom power Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-14-08 05:58 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. I used to think it was scary.
But really, it assumes that humans maintain their technological civilization, and high technology continues to advance. So in that future, things worked out better than many other plausible scenarios.

But it is also a harsh and difficult future, in its way. For a long time, I considered Heavy Weather to be my sort-of mental model of what the future would be like. These days, I hope it works out that well. It now resides on my optimistic-end mental model.

Mother of Storms is much more optimistic, and the storm physics is dubious, based on what I've learned since I read it, but still big fun.
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friendly_iconoclast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-08 02:29 PM
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7. "The Drowned World" by J.G. Ballard
Edited on Wed Oct-15-08 02:48 PM by friendly_iconoclast
"The Road to Corlay" by Richard Cowper. Rising sea levels kicks society back to medieval levels

Also, "Time of The Great Freeze", a YA novel by Robert Silverberg which is one of
the first SF novels I ever read.

"When The World Is All On Fire" by William Sanders. A short story about the effects of global
warming on the Eastern Cherokee nation.
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shimmergal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-21-08 03:07 PM
Response to Original message
8. Thanks loads for all the suggestions!
I'm checking them all out. Unfortunately I don't have time to read them all--or even a good selection--before my article is due, which is the end of this week. I will get as much info. as possible from book reviews etc. (being a former librarian I do this automatically) but would appreciate some more personal observations etc. on any of them you've read.

I'm trying to get Robinson's trilogy read --it's pretty absorbing, with a good mix of political and scientific elements in the story--but that's about all I can finish in the time frame. Again, many thanks for your help.
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Fumesucker Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-25-08 09:43 PM
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9. Mother of Storms
by John Barnes

http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Storms-John-Barnes/dp/0812533453

This futuristic disaster novel by the author of A Million Open Doors opens in the year 2028, when a preemptive missile strike releases billions of tons of methane trapped in the ocean floor. The resultant atmospheric heat spawns massive supernatural hurricanes that ravage the world's coastlands and claim millions of lives. The only hope of salvation rests with astronaut Louie Tynan--who has become superintelligent, perhaps superhuman, through a computer system linked to his mind--and his desperate plan to shield the earth from the sun until it can cool. Along the way, a well-drawn cast play various roles in combatting the escalating crisis: a canny female U.S. President, an opportunistic capitalist, a spunky journalist et al. Barnes maintains a breakneck pace even while loading his narrative with vital briefings on hurricane formation, information processing and the physics of space travel; some of his speculations, in fact, are breathtaking. This winning blend of gripping thrilller and dazzling SF should establish Barnes as one of the most able and impressive of SF's rising stars.

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Fumesucker Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-25-08 10:19 PM
Response to Original message
10. Fallen Angels
by Niven, Pournelle and Flynn..

http://www.amazon.com/FALLEN-ANGELS-Larry-Niven/dp/067172052X

This book has a wonderful premise. After the US (and presumably other) governments are taken over by a coalition of radical Greens, kooky spiritualists, Christian fundamentalists and cheapskates, science and progress take a backseat to political and environmental correctness. Not realizing that global warming was the only thing preventing a new ice age, much of the Northern Hemisphere is faced by advancing glaciers. Only in the increasingly stressed habitats of the former Russian and American space stations does anyone have faith in science and progress.

There and in the dwindling legions of science fiction fans.

When a shuttle is shot down over the North American glacier, a rescue operation is mounted by attendees at a nearby science fiction convention. The "fallen angels" are moved around the country in an effort to avoid capture by the Green Police, various other technophobes (who blame the space stations for global cooling) and an Air Force security officer, whose motives (and gender) are not entirely clear.

The book is fun, and the premise is great. The problem is that to a large extent, it is a several hundred page long inside joke. Many of the characters are thinly disguised members of sci-fi fandom. If, like me, you have never knowingly been within 100 miles of a convention, you are missing a large part of the joke. But the many premises (environmental chicken littleism, technophobia, and even the idea that sci-fi fans might have something important to say) rings very true.
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shimmergal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-26-08 04:23 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. Thank you, Fumesucker
I read FALLEN ANGELS when it first came out. It _was_ fun, and the portrtayal of the mass huddle to survive a prairie cold wve was unforgettable (esp the sidelight about the extra bulk of many of the male fans providing an extra survival edge to the group :). What I thought they got very wrong, though, was the fundamentalist-leaning regime banning science. In my experience, these people are much more likely to ban fantasy than science. Though I guess the Bushies have shown their basic disrespect for both.

Mother of Storms is one of the books I hope to read in future.

Anyhow, thanks again.
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Fumesucker Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-28-08 08:21 PM
Response to Reply #11
12. Although it's not specifically about climate change..
Marooned in Real Time by Vernor Vinge has a fair bit about long term climate change in it. If you haven't read it I would recommend it, Vinge is very inventive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marooned_in_Realtime

In the story, a device exists which can create a "bobble", a spherical stasis field in which time stands still, allowing one-way time travel into the future. These frictionless, perfectly reflective spheres are also used as weapons, as shields against other weapons, for storage, for space travel (combined with nuclear pulse propulsion), and other purposes.

People whose bobbles open up after a certain date in the 23rd century find the Earth completely devoid of human life. All living humans have disappeared, with only ambiguous archaeological clues for the reasons, and only those who were inside bobbles during the event survive into the future. The "low-techs" — those who were bobbled soon after the original invention of bobbles — have roughly late-20th-century technology. The "high-techs" — those who were bobbled later in time (in the period of accelerating technological progress leading up to the singularity) — have vastly superior technology, including cybernetic enhancements, faster and thought-controlled bobblers, personal automaton extensions of self, space ships, medical technology to allow immortality, and individual arsenals comparable to entire countries of the 20th century. Indeed, those who were bobbled at slightly different times leading up to the singularity, have vastly different technology levels.

The protagonist is Wil Brierson, a detective who also was the protagonist of the preceding novella "The Ungoverned". Some time after the events in "The Ungoverned", Brierson was forcibly bobbled 10,000 years into the future to prevent his testimony in a case, effectively murdering him. As a punishment, the law enforcement of his time period bobbled criminals for a slightly longer amount of time than their victims, with a message explaining the crime and allowing future law enforcement to provide more specific punishment (or revenge), after the true fate of the victim can be determined. However, in this unpopulated world, every human is valuable, and the high-techs give the criminals new false identities to protect them and welcome them into their small society.
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Orsino Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Nov-01-08 07:29 PM
Response to Original message
13. It's not a novel or short story...
...but Donald Fagen's Kamakiriad is a sci-fi song cycle. A couple of the songs ("Snowbound" and "Florida Room") are set in an encroaching ice age. Hey, it was 1993.
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