LAX LAB 2.0 | school of climate fiction

LAX LAB 2.0 is a community, book club, and educational resource dedicated to the stories and worlds of climate fiction.

LIVING LIBRARY OF CLIMATE FICTION

The LAX LAB 2.0 library is your go-to resource for all things written on, about, or in the genre of climate fiction. Here you will find the following resources:

Essays and popular science articles
Book reviews and author profiles
Academic articles
Non-fiction on climate fiction
Non-fiction on hope 
Memoirs and literary non-fiction
Novels
Young adult novels
Short-story collections
Poetry
Plays
Graphic novels and comics
Children’s literature
Websites

This library is perpetually being built by the LAX LAB 2.0 climate fiction community — this constant growth and evolution is why it is referred to as a “living library”. If you notice anything missing, please send a message with your suggestions or leave a comment in the library thread on Substack.

The goal of the library is to be inclusive and collect many different examples of climate fiction writing — just because something is included here does not mean that it is necessarily endorsed or recommended by the LAX LAB 2.0 community.

With time, a detailed legend will be added to the library to indicate writings that LAX LAB 2.0 recommends. For now: the symbol is used to indicate works read in the book club, denotes particularly well-loved books read together, indicates works suggested by community, and is used to identify works written by authors in the LAX LAB 2.0 community.

Essays and popular science articles

Book reviews and author profiles

Academic articles and book chapters

Climate fiction, climate theory: Decolonising imaginations of global futures by Carl Death, Millennium, 50(2), 430-455 (2022)

Sunken cities: Climate change, urban futures and the imagination of submergence, by Paul Dobraszczyk, International Journal of Urban Research (2017)

Climate fiction in English by Caren Irr, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature (2017)

Imagination, storytelling, and the politics of the future by Manjana Milkoreit, in book Reimagining Climate Change, Routledge (2016)

Climate fiction: A world-systems approach by Andrew Milner and J.R. Burgmann, Cultural Sociology, 12(1), 22-36 (2018)

Environmental literature as persuasion: An experimental test of the effects of reading climate fiction by Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Abel Gustafson, Anthony Leiserowitz, Matthew H. Goldberg, Seth A. Rosenthal, and Matthew Ballew, Environmental Communication, 17(1), 35–50 (2023)

Whose odds? The absence of climate justice in American climate fiction novels by Matthew Schneider-Mayerson ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 26(4), 944–967 (2019)

The influence of climate fiction: An empirical survey of readers by Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Environmental Humanities, 10 (2): 473–500 (2018)

Once upon a time in the anthropocene: myths, legends, and futurity in Turkish climate fiction by Merve Tabur, Middle Eastern Literatures (2023)

Non-fiction on climate fiction

Please note that the non-fiction books included here are books written about the topic of climate fiction, and not non-fiction written about climate change. There are far too many excellent non-fiction books about climate change to be included here.

Non-fiction on hope

These books are not necessarily related to climate fiction, but pertain to hope and optimism, which relates to the mission of LAX LAB 2.0.

Memoirs and literary non-fiction

Novels

The MaddAddam Trilogy: Oryx & Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood (2014)

Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood (2004)

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (2010)

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood (2014)

Mother Ocean Father Nation by Nishant Batsha (2023)

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (1993) — AFROFUTURISM

Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler (1998) — AFROFUTURISM

Waiting for the Night Song by Julie Carrick Dalton (2022)

The Last Beekeeper by Julie Carrick Dalton (202s)

Scary Monsters: A Novel in Two Parts by Michelle de Kretser (2022)

Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh

Oil on Water by Helon Habila (2011) — AFRICAN LITERATURE, PETROFICTIONS

The End of the Ocean by Maja Lunde (2021) — TRANSLATED FROM NORWEGIAN BY DIANE OATLEY

Severance by Ling Ma (2019) — ASIAN-AMERICAN LITERATURE

Station Eleven: A Novel by Emily St John Mandel (2015)

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu (2023)

Weather by Jenny Offill (2020)

Dreamland by Rosa Rankin-Gee (2022)

Denial by Jon Raymond (2023)

Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice (2018) — TURTLE ISLAND/CANADA, INDIGENOUS FICTION

Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice (2023) — TURTLE ISLAND/CANADA, INDIGENOUS FICTION

The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (2020)

Green Earth by Kim Stanley Robinson (2015)

Three Californias: The Wild Shore, the Gold Coast, and Pacific Edge (2020) by Kim Stanley Robinson

Scattered All Over the Earth by Yoko Tawada (2022) — TRANSLATED FROM THE JAPANESE BY MARGARET MITSUTANI

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (2014)

Young adult novels

Tin Boy by Steve Cole, illustrated by Oriol Vidal (2019)

Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline (2017) — TURTLE ISLAND/CANADA, INDIGENOUS FICTION

Green Rising by Lauren James (2021)

The Carbon Diaries 2015 by Saci Lloyd (2008)

Daylight Come by Diana McCaulay (202) — JAMAICA, CARIBBEAN FICTION

War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi (2019) — NIGERIA, AFROFUTURISM

Short story collections

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, Edited by John Joseph Adams (2008)

Palestine +100: Stories from a Century After the Nakba, Edited by Basma Ghalayini with contributions by Mazen Maarouf and Selma Dabbagh (2022)

Afterglow: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors, Edited by Grist (2023)

Metamorphosis: Climate Fiction for a Better Future, Edited by Grist (2024)

No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save our Planet, Edited by Kim Stanley Robinson, Paolo Bacigalupi, Sara Foster (Author) (2022)

Poetry

Collections

Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, Edited by Camille T. Dungy (2009)

With Love, Grief and Fury by Salena Godden (2024)

Pessimism is for Lightweights by Salena Godden (2023)

IEP Jaltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner (2017)

Love in the Time of Climate Change: A Book of Poems by Jenny Justice (2019)

Individual poems

Darkness by Lord Byron

Plays

Ugly by Emma Adams (2010) — UNITED KINGDOM

Earthquakes in London by Mike Bartlett (2011)

Lighting the Way: An Anthology of Short Plays About the Climate Crisis, Edited by Chantal Bilodeau and Thomas Peterson (2020) — INTERNATIONAL

The Future Is Not Fixed: Short Plays Envisioning a Global Green New Deal, Compiled by Chantal Bilodeau (2022) — INTERNATIONAL

No More Harveys by Chantal Bilodeau (2023) — CANADA

Forward by Chantal Bilodeau, with foreword by Una Chaudhuri and introduction by Tael Naess (2017) — CANADA

Sila: The First Play in the Arctic Cycle by Chantal Bilodeau, with introduction by Megan Sandberg-Zakian (2015) — CANADA

When the Rain Stops Falling by Andrew Bovell (2010)

Greenland by Moira Buffini, Matt Charman, Penelope Skinner, and Jack Thorne (2011)

(Not) the End of the World by Chris Bush (2024)

A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick by Kia Corthron (2010) — UNITED STATES

When This is Over: A Blueprint for Creating Your Own Production, and the Original Playscript by Ned Glasier, Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey, Company Three (2024)

Rafts and Dreams & Outside the Whale by Robert Holman (2006) — UNITED KINGDOM

Yellowfin by Marek Horn (2022)

Start Swimming by James Fritz (2017)

The Trials by Dawn King (2023)

Tinderbox by Lucy Kirkwood (2008) — UNITED KINGDOM

Lungs by Duncan MacMillan (2021)

2071 by Duncan MacMillan (2022)

Heavy Weather by Lizzie Nunnery (2021)

A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction by Miranda Rose Hall (Author)

Is My Microphone On? by Jordan Tannahill (2023)

The Contingency Plan: Two Plays (On the Beach & Resilliance) by Steve Waters (2023)

Grasses of a Thousand Colors by Wallace Shawn (2014)

Graphic novels and comics

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton (2022)

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore, illustrated by David Lloyd (2020)

Climate Changed: A Personal Journey through the Science by Philippe Squarzoni (2014

Eve by Una (2023)

Children's literature

The Infinite by Patience Agbabi (2020)

The Crackledawn Dragon by Abi Elphinstone (2021)

Melt by Ele Fountain (2021)

The Last Bear by Hannah Gold, illustrated by Levi Pinfold (2022)

Finding Bear by Hanna Gold, illustrated by Levi Pinfold (2024)

The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish by Chloe Savage (2023)

Tsunami Girl written byJulian Sedgwick, illustrated by Chie Kutsuwada (2021)

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss (1971)

Bloom: The Surprising Seeds of Sorrel Fallowfield by Nicola Skinner, illustrated by Flavia Sorrentino (2020)

Harklights by Tim Tilley (2021)

The Wild Before by Piers Torday (2022)

Websites

Please cite LAX LAB 2.0 when applicable if you are engaging with this material as a researcher. If you are an educator with a research budget and are using this as a source in your work, please consider supporting LAX LAB 2.0 by making a financial contribution.

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