I participated in March for Science in Washington D. C. The signs were fabulous. The single topic that marchers depicted the most often was climate/environment. Although I missed it, the Climate March came right after it. Ten of thousands of people turned out for both events, more if you add up the worldwide numbers. Sentiments like “I’m with Her (with a picture of Mother Earth)” and “There is no Planet B” filled both marches. I’m a science fiction writer rather than a scientist, but I was welcomed at the march by archeologists, mathematicians, and geologists.
This is not always the case when I leave the comfort of the community of geeks, engineers, social activists, and intellectuals that make up much of my readership. When talking to people in other sectors of society, they are often impressed when I tell them I’m a writer. They ask, “What do you write?” When I say, “Science fiction,” they change the subject to the weather. Fast.
I’m convinced climate change is a defining topic of near-future science fiction much like technology was the defining topic in the days of cyberpunk. Except that, really, climate fiction is bigger than cyberpunk. It’s becoming a sub-genre of all types of fiction, a thread that permeates the setting in novels set “now” as well as novels set in the far future. This is good for science fiction. It means that our work is bleeding into other genres.
For example, the Chicago Review of Books has an entire column called Burning Worlds (by Amy Brady) dedicated to trends in climate fiction. Our famous writers like Paolo Bacigalupi and Kim Stanley Robinson are writing straight up climate fiction. So are those-who-straddle-the-genres like Margaret Atwood. And people like Barbara Kingsolver who are clearly as mainstream fiction writers. Literary writing on nature (of the sort one finds in Orion) has been discussing climate change for a long time. So there’s a fair chance that many people who have traditionally read outside of science fiction, and who might have found the Kingsolver or the Atwood work on their own may sneak across the literary aisles and pick op 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson or The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi.
Equally importantly, we may begin to do the same. I read every story in John Joseph Adams’ anthology Loosed Upon the World, and one of my favorite stories was The Netherlands Lives with Water, written by a mainstream literary author, Jim Shepard. I just bought his most recent book of short stories since I want to see what else he has to say on the topic. So I’m crossing the other way and going from sf reading to literary reading.
In spite of the fact that climate change can be seen now in weird weather, long droughts, intense fires, beetle-killed trees and myriad other manifestations, writing about climate change is still almost always writing about the future. The pervasiveness of climate fiction and the depth of popular interest in it may mix up the writers and readers of works about our sodden future under higher seas. If we’re lucky, we’ll learn a trick or two about appealing to wider audiences as we read cross-genre, and. And if those audiences read us on the topic, they’ll understand what a glittering and brilliant literature the science fiction of today really is. Sure, we still write rocket porn and adventure, space wars, and everything we always have and always will. But I believe we write it really well these days, and that some of the best work of our generation is coming from speculative fiction writers. And some of our best work is climate fictions.
The shared need to understand climate could break down some of the barriers between most readers and science fiction. Maybe some day in the future when I’m talking to people outside the community of traditional SF readers, they won’t change the subject when they learn that I write science fiction. They’ll ask about my next book.
Brenda Cooper is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer who lives in the Pacific Northwest, which is rumored to be a good choice in a future full of climate change. She lives with partner Toni Cramer and three dogs, in a little house on a ridge with enough room to hear the birds call in the morning and grow some of their own vegetables, and for the dogs to run about and play. Brenda’s latest novel is Wilders, from Prometheus Books, a near-future novel set in the Pacific Northwest. It’s about climate and technology. Her last two books, Edge of Dark and Spear of Light, are also about climate and technology, although they are set in a solar system far away from us in space and time. You can learn more, join her mailing list, or read her blog at http://www.brenda-cooper.com.
