Climate change and related disasters are quickly becoming a daily reality for people around the world, and the United States is no exception. As wildfires, hurricanes and floods cause escalating damage, many science fiction authors are shifting their focus to the near future, skipping far-off space dynasties to imagine how we might survive, grieve and adapt in the midst of climate disintegration.
It’s part of a long tradition. Last year, many readers noted the prescience of Octavia E. Butler’s The Parable of the Sower, a 1993 novel that envisioned 2025 as a year of unprecedented wildfires, political oppression and economic uncertainty. Sci-fi has long been a genre that probes the edges of human experience, using speculation as a lens to examine what defines us. These must-read novels explore what may lie ahead if we don’t change course soon, but don’t dismiss them as all doom and gloom. The best climate fiction also grapples with humanity’s resilience, how communities band together in dark times and what it takes to preserve hope when all hope is seemingly lost.
Private Rites by Julia Armfield
In a flooded, dystopian world defined by relentless rain and rising seas, three sisters in Seattle—Isla, Irene and Agnes—reckon with the recent death of their father, each confronting memories, old relationships and their fears. As the world itself becomes increasingly overwhelming, they must face each other and themselves while both their family and their city strain under mounting tension. The novel is a reimagining of King Lear, exploring queer love, grief and the complexities of emotional and environmental inheritance.
The Last Catastrophe: Stories by Allegra Hyde
How far would humans go to outrun the crises they helped create? Hyde’s inventive short stories feature an Amazon-like company that delivers products before you need them using predictive A.I., nomadic caravans avoiding bad news, and fragile biomes haunted by ghosts. The collection spans fifteen sharply imagined tales—each blending absurdity, satire and urgency, with glimpses of resilience and humanity’s capacity for ingenuity in the face of climate collapse.
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
Franny Stone is determined to follow the arctic terns on what may be their final migration—the longest of any creature on Earth. She convinces a fishing captain to join her mission in a near‑future where most waters are closed and countless species are extinct or nearly so. The novel is a harrowing portrait of grief and obsession, as Franny’s past trauma and fragile identity surface alongside the ecology she seeks to save, revealing that her journey is focused inward as much as it is focused on the birds.
Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids by Leyna Krow
In interconnected stories, three siblings—including one who has fled to become a climate warrior—grapple with a deteriorating world. Other tales introduce a scientist convinced a glacier will collapse, a girl abandoned by a friend and characters weighed down by responsibility and anxiety about the future. With sardonic whimsy and unsettling insight, Krow blends high‑concept magic with the creeping realities of climate change, including wildfires, disrupted butterfly migrations and looming catastrophe.
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
In 2030, melting Arctic ice releases a pandemic that reshapes the world. Nagamatsu weaves together stories of survival, mingled grief and joy and even the possibility of relocating humanity to other planets. Spanning centuries through interlinked, character‑driven episodes, the novel explores how society transforms after tragedy, with funerary skyscrapers, euthanasia theme parks, elegy hotels and starships—all while capturing the lingering human impulse to connect and remember.
The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-Eun, translated from Korean by Lizzie Buehler
Yona works for a company that organizes trips to geographies devastated by climate change. When she is sent to a remote island to surveil a desert island destination, she discovers that not all disasters are natural and that industry greed may play a larger role in ecological collapse than she imagined. With darkly comic satire and biting social commentary, this feminist eco-thriller reveals how disaster has been commodified into a product and how performance has replaced authenticity in the name of profit.
The Morningside by Téa Obreht
Young climate refugee Silvia and her mother relocate to a crumbling skyscraper managed by Silvia’s aunt, and Silvia becomes captivated by a mysterious woman in the penthouse who seems tied to the folk tales of her childhood. The narrative unfolds in Island City—a partly submerged, dilapidated metropolis reminiscent of Manhattan—where Silvia navigates exile, folklore and communal resilience in a world decaying yet still stubbornly alive. Obreht offers up a haunting but hopeful meditation on how displaced communities rebuild amid ecological collapse.
The Resisters by Gish Jen
The U.S. is half under
Noor by Nnedi Okorafor
Okorafor uses her vivid characters to explore how imperialism and capitalism intensify climate disaster in this gripping novel, and AO, a confident biotech‑augmented woman whose name means Autobionic Organism, is pursued by a powerful mega‑corporation while trying to evade the Red‑Eye, a never‑ending sandstorm. Set in a near‑future Nigeria, Noor is a taut, fast‑paced Afrofuturist tale that places identity, tradition and high‑tech resistance at its center.
Eternal Summer by Franziska Gänsler, translated from French by Imogen Taylor
Iris runs her family’s hotel in a small German spa town emptied by wildfires and mass evacuations. When a mysterious mother and daughter arrive, she is forced to confront questions of survival and the struggle to escape both place and circumstance. Gänsler captures the cycles that bind her characters as Iris begins to imagine another way forward thanks to the unexpected solidarity of her new guests and a pair of young climate activists.
