The Deep-Sea Duke by Wren James
When Hugo and Ada travel to their friend Dorian’s planet for the holidays, android Hugo is anxious about being accepted by Dorian’s powerful family. But when they arrive on Hydrox, there are more pressing things to worry about, as the planet has been overrun by refugee butterflies. Displaced from their home by climate change, the butterflies have been offered sanctuary by Dorian’s parents, but they’re quickly running out of space. Meanwhile, beneath the seas, a strange creature is wreaking all kinds of havoc …
Can Hugo, Dorian and Ada step in before the crisis gets out of control?
The sequel to The Starlight Watchmaker is particularly suitable for struggling, reluctant or dyslexic readers aged 12+.
Categories: Science Fiction, Dyslexia-friendly, Romance, Scavenger hunt
Published by Barrington Stoke (out now)
Category: Far-future anti-colonial climate fiction
Published by AK Press / Black Dawn (out now)
On a mysterious green planet renewed by fire, vibrant collectivist communities have long lived in harmony with both its strange ecosystem and each other—until the day imperialist forces arrive. Raised in one of the non-hierarchical nomadic societies on the planet of Germinal, young Char and her family tend to this commons, rich in culture and biodiversity, through principles of reciprocity, ritual, and attention to the balance of their ecosystem. But they must forever travel to stay just ahead of the natural phenomenon that marks their a wall of fire that approaches like clockwork, bringing both loss and renewal with it. She is the first to spot the arrival of landing vessels, and soon her way of life is upended by militaristic invaders whose intentions are far beyond her worldview.
Graft is a captive “servitor” and personal attendant to the Conquis, the leader of the vanguard forces in the campaign to seize control of the distant planet. As the last survivor of a culture annihilated by conquest, Graft sees how unprepared Char and her people are to deal with the invasion. When one unsettling discovery leads to another, the newcomers find the nature of this new land troubling and its denizens odd—perhaps even nonhuman. The mission soon turns into something more menacing, and the inhabitants of the violated utopia must learn how to defend themselves or lose everything.
Flowering with possible new ways of life, Inversion is a tale of social struggle set in a completely unique universe, whose unexpected nature will surprise and delight. Aric McBay weaves a tale in the visionary spirit of Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed .
Category: Space, Feminism
Published by Headline (out now)
The Earth is in environmental collapse. The future of humanity hangs in the balance. But a team of women are preparing to save it. Even if they’ll need to steal a spaceship to do it.
Despite increasing restrictions on the freedoms of women on Earth, Valerie Black is spearheading the first all-female mission to a planet in the Goldilocks Zone, where conditions are just right for human habitation.
The team is humanity’s last hope for survival, and Valerie has gathered the best women for the mission: an ace pilot who is one of the only astronauts ever to have gone to Mars; a brilliant engineer tasked with keeping the ship fully operational; and an experienced doctor to keep the crew alive. And then there’s Naomi Lovelace, Valerie’s surrogate daughter and the ship’s botanist, who has been waiting her whole life for an opportunity to step out of Valerie’s shadow and make a difference.
The problem is that they’re not the authorized crew, even if Valerie was the one to fully plan the voyage. When their mission is stolen from them, they steal the ship bound for the new planet.
But when things start going wrong on board, Naomi begins to suspect that someone is concealing a terrible secret — and realizes time for life on Earth may be running out faster than they feared . . .
Category: Science Fiction, Space exploration
Published by Gollancz (out now)
The year is 2069, and the earth is in flux. Whole nations are being wiped off the map by climate change. Desperate for new resources, the space race has exploded back into life.
Corporations seek ever greater profits off-world. They offer immense rewards to anyone who can claim space’s resources in their name. The bounty on a single asteroid rivals the GDP of entire countries, so every trick, legal or not, is used to win.
Jack, the scion of a shipping magnate, is desperate to escape earth and joins a team chasing down an asteroid. But the ship he’s on is full of desperate people – each one needing the riches claiming the asteroid will bring them, and they’re willing to do anything if it means getting there first.
Because in Space, there are no prizes for coming second. It’s all or nothing: riches beyond measure, or dying alone in the dark.
Categories: Science Fiction, Young Adult, Politics, Heists
Published by Walker Books
Read Lauren’s essay ‘Positivity in the apocalypse: can a climate fiction novel be uplifting?’
Set in a near-future world on the brink of ecological catastrophe, Wren James’s novel is a gripping, witty and romantic call to arms.
Gabrielle is a climate-change activist who shoots to fame when she becomes the first teenager to display a supernatural ability to grow plants from her skin. Hester is the millionaire daughter of an oil tycoon and the face of the family business. Theo comes from a long line of fishermen, but his parents are struggling to make ends meet.
On the face of it, the three have very little in common. Yet when Hester and Theo join Gabrielle and legions of other teenagers around the world in developing the strange new “Greenfingers” power, it becomes clear that to use their ability for good, they’ll need to learn to work together. But in a time of widespread corruption and greed, there are plenty of profit-hungry organizations who want to use the Greenfingers for their own ends. And not everyone would like to see the Earth saved…
As they navigate first love and family expectations, can the three teenagers pull off the ultimate heist and bring about a green rising?
Circular Motion by Alex Foster
A brilliantly imagined literary debut of love, despair, and two people’s search for belonging in a world literally spinning out of control
The acceleration of Earth’s spin begins gradually. At first, days are just a few seconds shorter than normal. Awareness of the mysterious phenomenon hasn’t reached Tanner, a young man preoccupied with dreams of escaping his tiny Alaskan hometown. One night, desperate to make his mark on the world, he runs away. He lands an unlikely job at CWC, the global operator of a network of massive aircraft that orbit the Earth at 30,000 feet, revolutionizing global transportation. Now goods and people can travel anywhere in little more than an hour—you can visit Paris for an evening or order sushi from Japan. But a wave of social unrest presents challenges for CWC just as Tanner settles into his new lifestyle and develops surprising feelings for one of his colleagues.
A propulsive exploration of capitalism, technology, and our place within a system that dwarfs us, Circular Motion is one of the most ingenious debut novels of our time.
Categories: Speculative, Techno Thriller, LGBTQ+ Literary Fiction
Published by Grove Press (out now)
Category: Dystopia, space, hard science fiction
Published by Andrew Sparke Publishing (out now)
The Burning Years by Felicity Harley
In the year, 2060, Sophie, a top female scientist, dismantles the government weather modification program and steals the male and female trans-humans who hold the promise of extended life.
While the remaining inhabitants of Earth are forced to design new underground habitats in order to survive a harsh, overheated world, Captain Rachel Chen, takes the worldship Persephone to Proxima Centauri, hoping that this new star system will provide a refuge for the survivors of the human race.
Climate Fiction Writers League 