Unless you happen to be living completely off-grid, you’ve probably noticed that the environment and climate change have been very big news lately. And rightly so – there are many dire predictions of what might lay ahead, perhaps not for our generation but those yet to come, should humanity not find a better way to live in the natural world that surrounds it. And while this isn’t a new message, it is being taken up and spread with a fresh energy and renewed vigour that continues to drive the message to the top of the news, as well as often to the top of social media listings.
And in this (ahem) climate, it’s not surprising to see that authors are beginning to reflect those concerns in their fiction. Books – and indeed storytelling across all its mediums – has always been a response to the times and the culture. As such, the emergence of ‘cli-fi’ – or ‘climate fiction’ in full – tells us that fiction is as ready