Climate fiction, also known as cli-fi, is any fiction that contains significant climate themes or references. The genre, style, tone, mood, and other elements of climate fiction are just as diverse as its authors and readers. Whatever type of fiction you prefer, there’s a climate fiction story out there for you.
What climate fiction resources are you looking for today?
Buy Climate Fiction Books
What is Climate Fiction? | Why Read Climate Fiction?
Climate Fiction Bookshops | Climate Fiction Reading Lists
Climate Fiction Novels & Short Stories | Climate Fiction News, Reviews, & Interviews
What is Climate Fiction?
Climate fiction, also known as cli-fi, is any fiction that contains significant climate themes or references. The genre, style, tone, mood, and other elements of climate fiction are just as diverse as its authors and readers. Whatever type of fiction you prefer, there’s a climate fiction story out there for you.
Why Read Climate Fiction?
Why does climate fiction matter? Writing, reading, and discussing climate fiction are all important ways to break the climate silence. Exploring climate change in a fictional setting is a creative (and enjoyable!) way to deepen our understanding of the climate crisis and its solutions. A good story full of vivid imagery, fascinating characters, an engaging plot, and so on is more compelling for most readers than any chart, report, or policy proposal. Even if the particular details of the story don’t relate directly to any specific practical solutions to the climate crisis, such stories are still a good way to awaken our imaginations and inspire us to think and talk about climate change in new ways.
Whether you’re a new climate fiction reader or a climate communicator doing research on the topic, the following list of online climate fiction resources should help you find the particular works of climate fiction and climate discourse that are right for you.
If you’re looking for a full list of creative works and resources related to the climate crisis, please check out my Climate Resources page. If you have any additions, corrections, or other suggestions to share please contact me.
Climate Change Bookshop
Where can you buy climate fiction?
Most bookshops don’t have a climate fiction section. They might have the books you’re looking for, but they’re not easy to find without a dedicated climate fiction section.
My Climate Change Bookshop features a curated collection of climate change books. My catalog includes both climate fiction and climate nonfiction categories. Browse over a hundred titles, choose the one that’s right for you, and order it from your favorite online bookseller.
Each book’s page includes a button that take you to where you can get the book online. A few of these climate fiction books are free ebooks. Others are available for purchase in ebook or print format. If you prefer to borrow rather than buy, they may also be available from your local library.
You can also find most of the same titles at my shop on Bookshop.org. When you buy from Bookshop, part of the proceeds go to local independent bookstores, at no extra cost to you. Bookshop offers the convenience of shopping online plus the peace of mind of knowing that you’re supporting local independent bookstores!
If you prefer to borrow rather than buy, they may also be available from your local library in print or ebook format. You’re welcome to use the reading lists in my Climate Change Bookshop as a starting point even if you don’t buy the books there. I’m trying to make a living as a bookseller, but I also just really want to help readers find and read good climate change books!
Proceeds from the Climate Fiction Shop
My Climate Fiction Shop is an affiliate store. This means that each time you buy a book through this store, I receive a small affiliate commission.
I donate 10% of my proceeds from your purchases in my Climate Change Bookshop to climate justice groups. The rest is used to pay my website expenses and provide me with a bit of income from selling climate change books. I do this for the love of reading and climate justice, but affiliate income from book sales helps make it sustainable.
If you’d like to learn more about why I’m passionate about climate fiction, keep reading. If you have any questions or titles to suggest for my climate fiction shop, please contact me.
Climate Fiction Reading Lists
- My Goodreads cli-fi list. This is my comprehensive list of all climate fiction that I’ve come across. It includes books I’ve read and reviewed, books I’ve read but not reviewed, and books I haven’t read yet. If you know of any climate fiction titles that are listed on Goodreads but aren’t currently on this list, let me know.
- 13 Female “Cli-Fi” Writers Who Are Inspiring a Better Future
- My favorite climate fiction anthologies:
- Loosed Upon The World: The Saga Anthology of Climate Fiction
- Everything Change (Volume I & Volume II). This anthology series features the finalist and semi-finalist entries in the Everything Change Climate Fiction Contest. The submission deadline for the 2020 contest is April 15, 2020, by 11:59 pm Mountain Standard Time (GMT-7).
- Cli-Fi Plus (my anthology)
- My favorite short climate fiction (outside of anthologies)
- In 2030, we ended the climate emergency. Here’s how. Depending on your perspective, this post can be viewed as a series of policy proposals, a fictional description of how we ended the climate emergency by 2030, or something in between. Either way, it’s a great read for anyone who’s looking to see more details of what the path between here and there may look like. This has since been adapted into a full book called The Future Earth.
Climate Fiction Reviews, News, and Interviews
- My book reviews. Almost all of my book reviews are reviews of climate fiction. Check my Book Reviews page for detailed reviews of climate fiction titles that I’ve read and found interesting enough to review.
- Burning Worlds: Climate Change in Art & Literature. Burning worlds is a monthly column/newsletter about how writers and artists are thinking about climate change. It includes interviews, reviews, analysis, and other good content about why climate fiction and climate art is relevant to the literary world, the art world, and beyond.
- Cli-Fi.net. The Cli-Fi Report (CFR) is a research tool for academics and media professionals to use in gathering information and reporting on the rise of the emerging cli-fi term worldwide.