In honor of Earth Day, check out these Climate Fiction-related books and this conversation between authors Sim Kern and Cynthia Zhang on LGBTQ rep in books about Climate Change.
Young Adult
Climate of Chaos by Cassandra Newbould
In dystopic Seattle, storms have devastated Earth’s population, a new virus is spreading, and the privileged live inside domes controlled by Aegis Corp. Healthcare is earned by hours accrued working in Aegis’s pharmaceutical factories. If you run short on hours, you’re sent to Harvest House for debt collection—a place from which no one returns.
After a storm killed seventeen-year old Fox LaRosa’s parents and left her disabled, Fox and her younger sister, Rabbit, join their fugitive aunt’s mercenary group Still Alive. Their mission is to restore the imbalance of medical access for post-storm survivors.
But when a med supply heist goes south, Rabbit is taken captive, and Still Alive refuses to rescue her. Fox must choose between duty and family, and leaves home to infiltrate Aegis’s interior domes where Rabbit is being held hostage. The more Fox learns about life in the domes, though, the more she realizes Still Alive isn’t as altruistic as they claim. In a world where everyone is out for themselves, Fox must rely on those she trusts least in order to reunite with her sister and expose those in power for who they really are.
Adult
The Memory Hunters by Mia Tsai
Kiana Strade can dive deeper into blood memories than anyone alive. But instead of devoting her talents to the temple she’s meant to lead, Key is determined to use her skill as a researcher for the Museum of Human Memory. . . and to avoid the public eye in opulent, cutthroat Asheburg.
Valerian might look like a delicate country girl, but her lightning-fast swords protect Key from murderous rivals and her own enthusiasm alike. Vale cares about Key as a friend—and maybe more—but most of all, she needs to keep her job so she can support her parents and siblings in the storm-torn south.
But when Key collects a memory about the founding of the temple that diverges from official history, no one but Vale sees the fallout. Key’s mentor suspiciously dismisses the finding. Her powerful mother demands she stop research altogether. And Key, unusually affected by the memory, begins to lose moments, then minutes, then, for her own safety, days.
As Vale becomes increasingly entangled in Key’s obsessive drive for answers, the two women uncover a shattering discovery—and a devastating betrayal. Key and Vale can remain complicit in the Museum’s unethical practices, or they can jeopardize everything to bring the truth to light; either way, Key is becoming consumed by the past in more ways than one, and time is running out.
Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller
After the climate wars, a floating city is constructed in the Arctic Circle, a remarkable feat of mechanical and social engineering, complete with geothermal heating and sustainable energy. The city’s denizens have become accustomed to a roughshod new way of living, however, the city is starting to fray along the edges—crime and corruption have set in, the contradictions of incredible wealth alongside direst poverty are spawning unrest, and a new disease called “the breaks” is ravaging the population.
When a strange new visitor arrives—a woman riding an orca, with a polar bear at her side—the city is entranced. The “orcamancer,” as she’s known, very subtly brings together four people—each living on the periphery—to stage unprecedented acts of resistance. By banding together to save their city before it crumbles under the weight of its own decay, they will learn shocking truths about themselves.
The Shutouts by Gabrielle Korn
The year is 2041, and it’s a dangerous time to be a woman driving across the United States alone. Deadly storms and uncontrollable wildfires are pummeling the country while political tensions are rising. But Kelly’s on the road anyway; she desperately needs to get back to her daughter, who she left seven years ago for a cause that she’s no longer sure she believes in.
Almost 40 years later, another mother, Ava, and her daughter Brook are on the run as well, from the climate change relief program known as The Inside Project, where they’ve spent the past 22 years being treated as lab rats. When they encounter a woman from Ava’s past on the side of the highway, the three continue on in a journey that will take them into the depths of what remains of humanity out in the wilderness.
At the same time, way up North, weather conditions continue to worsen and a settlement departs in search of greener pastures, leaving behind only two members, drawn together by a circumstance and a mystery they are destined to unravel together.
Set in the world of Gabrielle Korn’s Yours for the Taking, The Shutouts tells the captivating story of those who have been shut out from Inside, their fight to survive, and an interconnectedness larger than all of them.
2 Degrees by Bev Prescott
In the year 2092, climate change has transformed the face of Earth—storms, disease, famine, thirst and war show no mercy on the living.
Sharon Clausen, a self-reliant farmer, has a secret apple tree―a tree that keeps Sharon and her wife, Eve, fed. The only other people who know of her secret, or so she thinks, are Dr. Ryan, a long-time confidant, and his wife, Areva. Once a month, Sharon and Eve travel from Maine to Boston to trade apples with Dr. Ryan for Eve’s leukemia treatment.
Everything suddenly changes when Eve is kidnapped and the Ryans are murdered. Sharon learns that her best kept secrets are known and coveted by a man known as the Strelitzia―a coldly practical villain.
Sharon sets out on a harrowing journey across North America to rescue Eve. Along the way, she teams up with an Inuit refugee boy, a stray dog named Erik the Red, an eccentric former school teacher, a jujitsu master, an Argentinian opera star, and a brilliant scientist who leads an alliance of eclectic people known as the Qaunik.
Together, this ragtag group battle horrific storms, an unrelenting desert, terrifying criminal gangs, feral humans, and the Strelitzia. In the end, Sharon must face her greatest challenge―risking all she loves for something much greater than herself.
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
WOULD YOU GIVE UP EVERYTHING TO CHANGE THE WORLD?
Humanity clings to life on January―a colonized planet divided between permanently frozen darkness on one side, and blazing endless sunshine on the other.
Two cities, built long ago in the meager temperate zone, serve as the last bastions of civilization―but life inside them is just as dangerous as the uninhabitable wastelands outside.
Sophie, a young student from the wrong side of Xiosphant city, is exiled into the dark after being part of a failed revolution. But she survives―with the help of a mysterious savior from beneath the ice.
Burdened with a dangerous, painful secret, Sophie and her ragtag group of exiles face the ultimate challenge―and they are running out of time.
Eleutheria by Allegra Hyde
A story of idealism, activism, and systemic corruption, centered on a naïve young woman’s quest for agency in a world ravaged by climate change.
Willa Marks has spent her whole life choosing hope. She chooses hope over her parents’ paranoid conspiracy theories, over her dead-end job, over the rising ocean levels. And when she meets Sylvia Gill, renowned Harvard professor, she feels she’s found the justification of that hope. Sylvia is the woman-in-black: the only person smart and sharp enough to compel the world to action. But when Sylvia betrays her, Willa fears she has lost hope forever.
And then she finds a book in Sylvia’s library: a guide to fighting climate change called Living the Solution. Inspired by its message and with nothing to lose, Willa flies to the island of Eleutheria in the Bahamas to join the author and his group of ecowarriors at Camp Hope. Upon arrival, things are not what she expected. The group’s leader, author Roy Adams, is missing, and the compound’s public launch is delayed. With time running out, Willa will stop at nothing to realize Camp Hope’s mission—but at what cost?
After the Dragons by Cynthia Zhang
Dragons were fire and terror to the Western world, but in the East they brought life-giving rain. Now, no longer hailed as gods and struggling in the overheated pollution of Beijing, only the Eastern dragons survive. As drought plagues the aquatic creatures, a mysterious disease—shaolong, or “burnt lung”—afflicts the city’s human inhabitants.
Jaded college student Xiang Kaifei scours Beijing streets for abandoned dragons, distracting himself from his diagnosis. Elijah Ahmed, a biracial American medical researcher, is drawn to Beijing by the memory of his grandmother and her death by shaolong. Interest in Beijing’s dragons leads Kai and Eli into an unlikely partnership. With the resources of Kai’s dragon rescue and Eli’s immunology research, can the pair find a cure for shaolong and safety for the dragons? Eli and Kai must confront old ghosts and hard truths if there is any hope for themselves or the dragons they love.
Depart, Depart! by Sim Kern
When an unprecedented hurricane devastates the city of Houston, Noah Mishner finds shelter in the Dallas Mavericks’ basketball arena. Though he finds community among other queer refugees, Noah fears his trans and Jewish identities put him at risk with certain “capital-T” Texans. His fears take form when he starts seeing visions of his great-grandfather Abe, who fled Nazi Germany as a boy. As the climate crisis intensifies and conditions in the shelter deteriorate, Abe’s ghost grows more powerful. Ultimately, Noah must decide whether he can trust his ancestor — and whether he’s willing to sacrifice his identity and community in order to survive.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N
Road Out of Winter by Alison Stine
Wylodine comes from a world of paranoia and poverty—her family grows marijuana illegally, and life has always been a battle. Now she’s been left behind to tend the crop alone. Then spring doesn’t return for the second year in a row, bringing unprecedented extreme winter.
With grow lights stashed in her truck and a pouch of precious seeds, she begins a journey, determined to start over away from Appalachian Ohio. But the icy roads and strangers hidden in the hills are treacherous. After a harrowing encounter with a violent cult, Wylodine and her small group of exiles become a target for its volatile leader. Because she has the most valuable skill in the climate chaos: she can make things grow.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N
Bonus: These are all Adult, but in YA, check out 
Destroy All Monsters is the story of Ash, a regular teenager in the real world, who is trying to save her best friend Solomon from a mental health crisis. But it’s also the story of Solomon, a gay teenage photographer who lives in a city full of monsters and magic, who is trying to save his best friend Ash – the Refugee Princess – from a conspiracy trying to destroy all magic. As their quests progress, these two worlds begin to collide. There’s some of me in all my characters, but Solomon definitely has a big piece of my heart – a gay Jewish boy trying to make art and make sense of the world around him while struggling with mental illness.
In a post-climate-change future, where rising sea levels and wars for resources have transformed the globe, floating cities are constructed in the Arctic, where polar melt has opened up the interior for resource exploitation. Qaanaaq is one of those cities, essentially a giant oil rig where a million people live, and one day a woman arrives in town with a polar bear and an orca, on a mission… maybe of bloody revenge. And wackiness ensues! As for the award nominations, that was pretty surprising to me, because – like a lot of artists from marginalized communities – I spent a long time being told that my stories were not universal stories, that they would only resonate within my own community, and if I wanted to get a broad audience I’d need to step outside the ghetto of “gay stuff.” My work has always been extremely queer, and so no matter how many accolades it gets, I never ceased to be shocked that folks respond positively to stories about oversexed irresponsible gay boys, lesbian grandmas, gender nonbinary folks, and so on.
I’ve always adored YA, going back to getting totally messed up by The Chocolate War when I was twelve. Just like Disney movies, I never understood why they have this reputation for being juvenile or saccharine
Sam J. Miller is the Nebula-Award-winning author of The Art of Starving (an NPR best of the year) and Blackfish City (a best book of the year for Vulture, The Washington Post, Barnes & Noble, and more – and a “Must Read” in Entertainment Weekly and O: The Oprah Winfrey Magazine). A recipient of the Shirley Jackson Award and a graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, Sam’s work has been nominated for the World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon, John W. Campbell and Locus Awards, and reprinted in dozens of anthologies. A community organizer by day, he lives in New York City.</p>