Category: Adult Science Fiction, Dystopia, Cyberpunk, Solarpunk, Historical Fiction, Action-Adventure
Published by 12 Willows Press (June 29th, 2025)
In 2123, the world is dying—and Antarctica’s last remaining glaciers are the final source of fresh water. Controlled by the all-powerful StarCross Corporation, Spigot—the continent’s largest water extraction facility—feeds a desperate planet. But off this continent’s frigid shore lies a secret that could change everything.
Roscoe Slake thought his internship with StarCross would be his ticket off-world, away from Earth’s collapsing ecosystems and corporate rule. Instead, he’s stuck in Spigot’s archives, combing through centuries-old documents—until he stumbles upon a forgotten record from the Ross Antarctic Expedition of 1839-43. What Roscoe discovers could upend the balance of power and make fresh water plentiful again—if he survives long enough to expose it.
Blending historical intrigue with near-future climate fiction, Ice’s End is a gripping sci-fi thriller perfect for fans of Miller’s Blackfish City, Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife, and Qiufan’s Waste Tide. With echoes of Simmon’s The Terror and Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, this novel takes readers on a high-stakes journey into Antarctica’s frozen frontier—where the past and future collide, and survival is never guaranteed.
Category: Science Fiction, Adventure, Dystopia
Published by Unsung Stories (out now)
We all have to work to live, even if it is an illegal survey for oil in the rapidly melting arctic. Software engineer Isobel needs to eat like everyone, and that’s how she fell into the job that leads her to the most northerly place on our planet.
As part of a weathered crew of sailors, scientists and corporate officers she sails into the ice where their advanced software Proteus will map everything there is to know. A great icebreaker leads their way into the brutal environment, and the days grow longer, time ever more detached, as they pass through the endless white expanse of the ice.
But they are not alone. They have attracted the attention of seals, gulls and a hungry, dedicated polar bear. The journey to plunder one of the few remaining resources the planet has to offer must endure the ravages of the ice, the bear and time itself.
This is what we find when we travel – Always North – a profound meditation on our consumption of the world, and the perception of time.
Category: Survival, science fiction
Published by Thistledown Press (out now)
When avalanching glaciers thrust a massive Antarctic ice sheet into the open ocean, the captain of an atomic submarine must risk his vessel to rescue the survivors of a smashed polar research station; in Washington the President’s top advisor scrambles to spin the disaster to suit his master’s political aims; and meanwhile two intrepid newsmen sail south into the storm-lashed Drake Passage to discover the truth.
Onboard the submarine, as the colossal ice sheet begins its drift toward South America and the world begins to take notice, scientists uncover a secret that will threaten the future of America’s military power and change the fate of humanity.
And beneath the human chaos one brave Blue Whale fights for the survival of his species.
Category: Science Fiction, Literary Fiction, Speculative Fiction
Published by William Morrow (out now)
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
In 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika Crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus.
Once unleashed, the Arctic plague will reshape life on Earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy. In a theme park designed for terminally ill children, a cynical employee falls in love with a mother desperate to hold on to her infected son. A heartbroken scientist searching for a cure finds a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects—a pig—develops the capacity for human speech. A widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter embark on a cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.
From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead to interstellar starships, Sequoia Nagamatsu takes readers on a wildly original and compassionate journey, spanning continents, centuries, and even celestial bodies to tell a story about the resilience of the human spirit, our infinite capacity to dream, and the connective threads that tie us all together in the universe.
Category: Dystopia, Fantasy, LGBT
Published by Ecco (out now)
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.
Blackfish City is a remarkably urgent—and ultimately very hopeful—novel about political corruption, organized crime, technology run amok, the consequences of climate change, gender identity, and the unifying power of human connection.
There are no polar bears left on Bear Island. At least, that’s what April’s father tells her when his scientific research takes them to this remote Arctic outpost for six months. But one endless summer night, April meets one. He is starving, lonely and a long way from home. Determined to save him, April begins the most important journey of her life…
This moving story will win the hearts of children the world over and show them that no one is too young or insignificant to make a difference. The Last Bear is a celebration of the love between a child and an animal, a battle cry for our world and an irresistible adventure with a heart as big as a bear’s.
Categories: Middle Grade, Animals
Published by HarperCollins (out now)
Read an interview with Hannah
You’re Snug with Me by Chitra Soundar & Poonam Mistry
At the start of winter, two bear cubs are born, deep in their den in the frozen north. “Mama, what lies beyond here?” they ask. “Above us is a land of ice and snow.” “What lies beyond the ice and snow?” they ask. “The ocean, full of ice from long ago.” And as they learn the secrets of the earth and their place in it, Mama Bear whispers, “You’re snug with me.”
Categories: Picture Book, Polar bears, Nature, Fairy tale
Published by Lantana Publishing (out now)
The Lonely Polar Bear by Khoa Le
This sweet children’s picture book presents a moving story, set in a fragile Arctic world threatened by global warming. A little polar bear wakes up alone after a furious storm. With his mother nowhere in sight, he makes friends with a mysterious little girl and various animal companions. All of the friends come together in the magnificent polar sky. In the end the little bear sits peacefully, enjoying a winter day lit up by beautiful northern lights. Featuring exceptional illustrations from talented Vietnamese illustrator Khoa Le, The Lonely Polar Bear offers an accessible way to introduce children to climate change issues.
Categories: picture books, animals, friendship
Published by Happy Fox Books (out now)
Category: Dystopia, Science Fiction
Published by Gollancz (out now)
The great geoengineering projects have failed.
The world is still warming, sea levels are still rising, and the Antarctic Peninsula is home to Earth’s newest nation, with life quickened by ecopoets spreading across valleys and fjords exposed by the retreat of the ice.
Austral Morales Ferrado, a child of the last generation of ecopoets, is a husky: an edited person adapted to the unforgiving climate of the far south, feared and despised by most of its population.
She’s been a convict, a corrections officer in a labour camp, and consort to a criminal, and now, out of desperation, she has committed the kidnapping of the century.
But before she can collect the ransom and make a new life elsewhere, she must find a place of safety amongst the peninsula’s forests and icy plateaus, and evade a criminal gang that has its own plans for the teenage girl she’s taken hostage.
Blending the story of Austral’s flight with the fractured history of her family and its role in the colonisation of Antarctica, Austral is a vivid portrayal of a treacherous new world created by climate change, and shaped by the betrayals and mistakes of the past.
Category: Dystopia, Science Fiction
Published by Titan (out now)
On a beach in Antarctica, scientist Adam Leith marks the passage of the summer solstice. Back in Sydney his partner Ellie waits for the results of her latest round of IVF treatment.
That result, when it comes, will change both their lives and propel them into a future neither could have predicted. In a collapsing England Adam will battle to survive an apocalyptic storm. Against a backdrop of growing civil unrest at home, Ellie will discover a strange affinity with beekeeping. In the aftermath of a pandemic, a young man finds solace in building virtual recreations of the dead. And new connections will be formed from the most unlikely beginnings.
Clade is the story of one family in a radically changing world, a place of loss and wonder where the extraordinary mingles with the everyday. Haunting, lyrical and unexpectedly hopeful, it is the work of a writer in command of the major themes of our time.
Only one knows the truth. Only one can reveal it. Only one can save them all.
Carrie, a Scottish rescue swimmer out of her depth in the High Arctic. Ross, the owner of an oil rig with a guilty conscience. Amaruq, an Inuvialuit oil-rig worker caught between two worlds.
Stranded on the Arctic ice with a starving polar bear and a half-dead stranger, Carrie’s left with nothing but deadly choices. Ross and Amaruq face their own crossroads. Lives hang on their decisions.
From the cruel Arctic to the corporate backrooms of shady Big Oil, White Road is an authentic and gripping eco-thriller of survival, battled out at the edge of everything.
Categories: Eco-thriller
Published by Claret Press (September 2025)
The Wager and the Bear by John Ironmonger
When young idealist Tom publicly humiliates politician Monty in a Cornish pub, it sparks a simmering feud that cascades through their intertwined lives. The consequences of their argument, and the deadly wager they strike, will cascade down the decades. Years later, they find themselves a long way from St Piran onto a colossal iceberg drifting south away from Greenland, their only companion a starving polar bear.
This is a heart-stopping tale of anger, tragedy, and enduring love, cast against the long unfolding backdrop of an irreversible global crisis.
Categories: Literary fiction, friendship, survival
Published by Fly on the Wall Press (Feb 2025)
South Pole Station by Ashley Shel
Do you have digestion problems due to stress? Do you have problems with authority? How many alcoholic drinks do you consume a week? Would you rather be a florist or a truck driver?
These are some of the questions that determine if you have what it takes to survive at South Pole Station, a place with an average temperature of -54°F and no sunlight for six months a year. Cooper Gosling has just answered five hundred of them. Her results indicate she is sufficiently resilient for Polar life.
Cooper’s not sure if this is an achievement, but she knows she has nothing to lose. Unmoored by a recent family tragedy, she’s adrift at thirty and—despite her early promise as a painter—on the verge of sinking her career. So she accepts her place in the National Science Foundation’s Artists & Writers Program and flees to Antarctica—where she encounters a group of misfits motivated by desires as ambiguous as her own. There’s Pearl, the Machiavellian cook with the Pollyanna attitude; Sal, an enigmatic astrophysicist whose experiment might change the world; and Tucker, the only uncloseted man on the continent, who, as station manager, casts a weary eye on all.
The only thing the Polies have in common is the conviction that they don’t belong anywhere else. Then a fringe scientist arrives, claiming climate change is a hoax. His presence will rattle this already imbalanced community, bringing Cooper and the Polies to the center of a global controversy and threatening the ancient ice chip they call home.
A winning comedy of errors set in the world’s harshest place, Ashley Shelby’s South Pole Station is a wry and witty debut novel about the courage it takes to band together, even as everything around you falls apart.
Categories: Adventure, Literary Fiction, Travel
Published by Picador (out now)
My Last Continent by Midge Raymond
In unforgettable debut with an irresistible love story, My Last Continent is a big-hearted, propulsive novel set against the dramatic Antarctic landscape
It is only at the end of the world—among the glacial mountains, cleaving icebergs, and frigid waters of Antarctica—where Deb Gardner and Keller Sullivan feel at home. For the few blissful weeks they spend each year studying the habits of emperor and Adélie penguins, Deb and Keller can escape the frustrations and sorrows of their separate lives and find solace in their work and in each other. But Antarctica, like their fleeting romance, is tenuous, imperiled by the world to the north.
A new travel and research season has just begun, and Deb and Keller are ready to play tour guide to the passengers on the small expedition ship that ferries them to their research destination. But this year, Keller fails to appear on board. Then, shortly into the journey, Deb’s ship receives an emergency signal from the Australis, a cruise liner that has hit desperate trouble in the ice-choked waters of the Southern Ocean. Soon Deb’s role will change from researcher to rescuer; among the crew of that sinking ship, Deb learns, is Keller.
As Deb and Keller’s troubled histories collide with this catastrophic present, Midge Raymond’s phenomenal novel takes us on a voyage deep into the wonders of the Antarctic and the mysteries of the human heart. My Last Continent is packed with emotional intelligence and high stakes—a harrowing, searching novel of love and loss in one of the most remote places on earth, a land of harsh beauty where even the smallest missteps have tragic consequences.
Categories: Romance, Literary Fiction, Mystery
Published by Scribner (out now)
Antarctica is getting hotter …
Summer Wright, hippie turned TV production assistant, organises her life down to the minute. And when her project-management-guru boyfriend, Adrian, proposes marriage — right on schedule — she will reach the peak of The Cone of Certainty.
At least, that’s the plan – until adventure-show queen Cougar Gale intervenes. Suddenly Summer is impersonating Cougar in Antarctica: learning glaciology and climate science on the fly, building a secret igloo, improvising scripts based on Dynasty, and above all trying not to be revealed as an impostor.
Categories: Rom-Com
Published by Lacuna (out now)
Categories: graphic novel, superheroes, fantasy, adventure, YA
Published by DK Publishing (out now)
The Renegades: Defenders of the Planet – Arctic Meltdown by Jeremy Brown
Beneath the Arctic ice, the Methanaur is awakening. If this deadly methane monster breaks free, it spells the end of civilization as we know it. Meet Professor Katelyn, Leon, and Mo – also known as The Renegades. Professor Kateyln is a whip-smart scientist who uses her scientific knowledge to develop spectacles that can catch glimpses of the future. Wrestling with his anger at the naysayers who don’t seem to care about the environment, Leon has the ability to become invisible – the perfect spy! And then there’s Mo who, in the wake of his brother’s death in a cyclone, manages to wield a solar shield strong enough to fight the deadliest of foes. Our superheroes grapple with multiple environmental threats, most deadly of all a monster that lurks beneath the melting Arctic ice. If it escapes, this creature of chaos will release huge plumes of methane gas into the atmosphere, changing the balance of our planet’s climate forever. Can the Renegades work together to save Earth before it is too late?
Categories: YA, science fiction, ocean, environmental, adventure, survival
Published by Zephyr (out now)
From killers to conservationists, the story of three generations of the Petersen family, their history as whale hunters and later their mission to save the great whales and our planet.
Summer, the Present.
Fiery and fierce, computer geek and eco-activist, Abby is holidaying with hergrandmother on an island off the Norwegian coast. Having developed and befriendedan AI computer, Moonlight, she hopes to organise a global protest. On the island, shelearns her great grandfather rejected the family’s whaling livelihood, instead creatingthe fi rst whale song recording. Inspired by him, Abby and Moonlight translate thewhales’ songs and discover their stories. Whales are under threat, their numbersrapidly dwindling. Abby is determined to help.
Autumn, 30 years later.
The world’s ecosystems are collapsing. There is no sight or sound of whales. Abby, herdaughter, Tonje, and a now almost conscious Moonlight live on a isolated island in the Atlantic. They search for any sign of whales, but so far there is only silence.
Winter, the future.
Tonje’s search was not in vain. Despite climate crisis and the threat of extinction,there is always hope for the future, as nature and technology combine in acaptivating, action-packed story with a powerful environmental call to arms.
Climate Fiction Writers League 