Books Where Weather & The (E)lements Play A Big Role

So I just found out that books that fit this description are referred to as Cli-Fi (Climate Fiction). They’re also sometimes called Eco-Fiction. Yes, this is a thing! And here I thought I was being clever and unique coming up with this theme for the Monthly Motif Challenge. Anyway, I’m going to share a few of my very favorites with you today…

The Water Knife, Paulo Bacigalupi

In the American Southwest, Nevada, Arizona, and California skirmish for dwindling shares of the Colorado River. Into the fray steps Angel Velasquez, leg-breaker, assassin, and spy. A Las Vegas water knife, Angel “cuts” water for his boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her luxurious developments can bloom in the desert, so the rich can stay wet while the poor get dust.

This book describes what it would be like if everyone had to fight over water to survive and the author does it in frightening detail. I picked this one up after reading Shipbreaker and enjoying it. Btw- Shipbreaker and Windup Girl also qualify as cli-fi. Bacigalupi does a good job of making you think critically about how much we waste our natural resources and what could happen if we let it go too far.

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel

One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time—from the actor’s early daysto fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as The Travelling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains—this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people

This novel intertwines the lives of five people and is about relationships and how they make or break the characters in a world that is now a wasteland.

Ashfall, Mike Mullen

The Yellowstone super volcano erupts, plunging Alex’s hometown into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence. He begins a harrowing trek to search for his family and finds help in Darla, a travel partner he meets along the way.

If you want a pageturner, then Ashfall is a great choice. It’ll keep you on the edge of your seat.

Ice Hunt, James Rollins

Ice Station Grendel has been abandoned for more than seventy years. And now, as scientists, soldiers, intelligence operatives, and unsuspecting civilians are drawn into Grendel’s lethal vortex, the most extreme measures possible will be undertaken to protect its dark mysteries – because the terrible truths locked behind submerged walls of ice and steel could end human life on Earth.

There’s a reason Ice Station Grendel was abandoned. You’ll just about pee your pants as you follow these scientists and researchers through the ice and snow of the station, running for their lives.

Dune, Frank Herbert
*Bonus Book*

Dune tells the story of young Paul Atreides (the heir apparent to Duke Leto Atreides and heir of House Atreides) as he and his family accept control of the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the ‘spice’ melange, the most important and valuable substance in the cosmos.

*Bonus Book* Dune is not for everyone but if you like classic sci-fi, then this is one of those books you can’t not read.

Which of these books would you choose?

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