Climate fiction books: 9 award-recognized cli-fi novels
Climate fiction imagines what a changing planet means for the people living on it. These award-recognized novels range from urgent near-future warnings to stories about building, or rebuilding, whole worlds.
If you read just one: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, because it is the most direct and hopeful novel about solving the climate crisis.
The near future
1. The Ministry for the Future
Finalist for the Locus Award (2021) ·
A new agency is created to speak for future generations, starting after a deadly heat wave in India.
Good to know: Includes many short, essay-like chapters.
2. Parable of the Sower
Finalist for the Locus and Nebula Awards (1995) ·
Climate change and social collapse in 2020s California, through the eyes of a young woman founding a new faith.
3. The Windup Girl
Won the Hugo and Nebula Awards (2010) ·
Rising seas and crop plagues, and a city held back from the water by pumps and seawalls.
4. The Sheep Look Up
Finalist for the Nebula Award (1973) ·
A 1972 novel of environmental collapse that predicted much of what came next.
Remaking worlds
5. Red Mars
Won the Nebula Award; finalist for the Hugo and Locus Awards (1993–1994) ·
The first settlers on Mars argue over whether to terraform it, a debate that mirrors our own.
6. 2312
Won the Nebula Award; finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke, Hugo and Locus Awards (2013) ·
A solar system settled from Mercury to Saturn, while Earth struggles with the damage it has done.
7. Aurora
Finalist for the Locus Award (2016) ·
A generation ship arrives at a new world and discovers how hard it is to live anywhere but Earth. Narrated by the ship’s AI.
8. The Fifth Season
Won the Hugo Award; finalist for the Nebula Award (2016) ·
On a continent wracked by catastrophic climate events, some people can control the earth itself.
Good to know: Blends science fiction and fantasy.
9. Station Eleven
Won the Arthur C. Clarke Award (2015) ·
Not climate, but a collapse story about what is worth keeping, for readers drawn to life after catastrophe.
How we chose
Every book in this guide won or was a finalist for at least one of the Hugo, Nebula, Locus or Arthur C. Clarke awards. Each book page lists its full award history with sources. Page counts come from English print editions and vary by edition. 9 books in all.