Posted on 01/15/2019 7:46:50 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
... In Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel New York 2140, Manhattan is flooded after unabated climate change causes the sea level to rise by 50ft (15.25m). The amphibian city is now a SuperVenice, a grid of canals populated by vaporettos.
Robinson’s 2017 climate-fiction novel belongs to a growing cadre of works about drowned nations, wind farm utopias or scarred metropolises decades into the future. As diplomats draft the rulebook for the global response to the climate crisis and engineers race to produce better solar panels, writers have found their role, too: telling what Robinson calls “the story of the next century”. In doing that, they might be helping readers across the world comprehend the situation in which we currently find ourselves.
Climate change is a notoriously elusive crisis to make sense of, particularly compared to other human-impact catastrophes.
This is where fiction comes in: it brings the abstract data closer to home by focusing on the faces and stories in these futures. Show readers a detailed and textured account of a climate-changed future, says Robinson, and they have an easier time imagining it.
In the quest to adopt climate change as a topic, writers are doing what they do best: trying to tell a good story. Sometimes they write with a touch of optimism as they negotiate the current crisis. But even with this optimism, these writers want to make sure the world knows they, at least, are paying attention. As one character in Robinson’s New York 2140 concludes, the scientists “published their papers, and shouted and waved their arms, a few canny and deeply thoughtful sci-fi writers wrote up lurid accounts of such an eventuality, and the rest of civilization went torching the planet like a Burning Man pyromasterpiece. Really.”
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
The worst Kevin Costner movie ever...
No, wait, 'Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves', the worst Kevin Costner movie ever...
No, wait...
A lot of 1970’s science fiction was very political as well. Soylent Green, Logan’s Run, Planet of the Apes, ZPG, etc.
NY flooded? Bring it.
Pretty obvious how science fiction explains climate change.
Scientism Fiction.
You are right. I used to so enjoy those “Best Of” compilations until they morphed into SJW screeds vaguely disguised as a science fiction tale, often lacking the basic elements of good story telling. Lauded and given awards by their fellows in the industry. Hence it is hard to even find a science fiction book on the average rack these days.
Baen still puts out good stuff. And a lot of the better stuff now is Indie, on the Amazon platform. . .
Places to avoid: Tor Books (except for David Weber)
Orbit Books
ANYTHING recommended by I09.com or Cory Doctorow / Boing Boing
Authors you might like:
John Ringo
“Ghenghis” Tom Kratman
Michael Z. Williamson
Sarah Hoyt
Larry “International Lord of Hate” Correia
Brad “Powder-blue Care Bear with a Flamethrower” Torgersen
Mike Kupari
Christopher G. Nuttall
Thank you. I miss Asimov and Zelazney.
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