A lot of the SF I've been reading recently explores a post environmentally damned world...whether that's living on it as is (a la The Past is Red) or leaving it. I'm looking for book recs about rebuilding it. I've got The Ministry for The Future by KSR on my tbr that may fit the bill but am looking for additional suggestions.
Posted Aug 24, 2022, 2:49 PM UTC
The Forever Hero series by L.E. Modesitt Jr. deals with this and tells the story of one man's quest to fix the earth's devastated environment.
Huh, I had thought LE Modesitt Jr. was exclusively fantasy. Turns out not the be the case lol.
The series description sounds interesting though, thanks!
He writes a lot of ecological themed scifi too. My favorite would be Adiamante.
Kate Wilhelm's "Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang" has some layers of that. It's about re-building society more than the environment, I suppose, but still should be relevant to a degree?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where\_Late\_the\_Sweet\_Birds\_Sang
It's also a phenomenal exploration of the social impact of cloning.
Ruthanna Emrys's latest, "A Half-Built Garden," belongs on your list.
From the blurb I think it may take place after the events I'm looking for with this request but it sounds pretty close and, having grown up and lived my entire life near the Chesapeake, seems like a must read for me. Appreciate it!
Edit: Just reserved it at the library. Estimated 10 weeks *sigh*
Gamechanger and Dealbreaker by L.X. Beckett. Stealing Worlds by Karl Schroeder may fit the bill near the end.
Thanks!
A very oldie: Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach.
Emergency Skin by N. K. Jemisin is not *about* rebuilding the environment, but it takes place when someone who is part of the people who fled the planet as the environment was failing returns to find it fixed.
The monk and robot series by Becky chambers explores this idea
Cage of souls by Tchaikovsky explores it in a very different way
The monk and robot series by Becky chambers explores this idea
Love this series. Was actually one of the inspirations for this post along with Lab Girl (which is not SF). I'd love it if she put out a .5 to the series, where we experience the events leading up to the robots being set free to roam and humans getting their shit together. I doubt we will though, that story doesn't really feel like it'd be her style.
Oryx and Crake, in a way. It's terribly dark but the Earth is recovering and that features prominently in the books.
Dark in what ways? Depressing or something else?
Depressing, brutal, and not particularly hopefully about humanity.
Some of that is in the background of Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card. Humanity is recovering after an ecological catastrophe. The agency in question has a machine that allows them to look into the past to see history as it was, unfiltered though biased sources. It also serves to give hope to the people in rediscovering their former heritage. Warning: Major spoiler coming. >!Unfortunately, a scientist reveals all the recovery efforts are for nought. The environment is too far gone, and a new ice age is coming. While humankind will survive in some form, civilization will be gone and unlikely to ever climb out of the Stone Age due to all resources being mined out. It’s why all humanity agrees to the time travel experiment, even if they recognize it means they’ll all be erased!<
There's only the one book, right?
FWIW, I thought that was really well-written: too bad it comes from a religious nut-bag.
Yeah, he originally planned it as a series but never followed up.
I try to ignore who he is as a person. Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a good book
It's been a long time since I read it, but The Caryatids by Bruce Sterling had rescuing the environment as a theme.
Not hard scifi at all, but Rejoice by Steven Erikson is a first contact story where aliens take complete control of the Earth to save our planet. You leave the book wishing it would happen in real life.
If you haven't read it, KSR's 2312 has some of this if I recall correctly.
Almost anything by KSR fits the bill, really
And Aurora has people building beaches after they were all flooded.
I keep hearing how in another ten years we won’t have beaches anymore and thinking about that.
I've been neglectful of KSR. Have yet to read anything he's written. Thanks for the rec!
I wouldn't really recommend starting with The Ministry for the Future, for what that's worth. Or if you do, don't let it turn you off the rest of his books. It is definitely the most climate focused of his, besides maybe New York 2140, but it also has the biggest concentration of the things people complain about in his books, such as minimal, meandering plot, info dumps, etc.
For the environmental focus you mentioned, I'd recommend trying 2312 first, or the Mars Trilogy if you're down for something rather long. Full disclosure, 2312 has a lot of the same weaknesses as Ministry for the Future, and many people find the main character pretty annoying, but it works better and has a much cooler setting, and is a good contender for his best book after the Mars Trilogy. New York 2140 could also be a good first read, and is all about adapting to sea level rise.
Off the environmental topic a little, but for first KSR books I'd also recommend Icehenge, Pacific Edge, and Aurora. Icehenge is one of his earliest works, and an under-appreciated gem in my opinion.
Thanks for this! Not the first time I've heard the critiques about Ministry which is why I haven't started it yet. I'll slot some of these other recs in before I read Ministry!
He’s the best there is, some of the Mars stuff is dated but it’s absolutely my favorite future.
Conversely I really loved Ministry and I think more people should read it!
Ministry of the Future was my first and only KSR book so far. Loved it. It’s one of those books you keep thinking about long after. I’ve been recommending it to everyone.
There were some aspects about that book that were awesome and that was one of them. I loved how they managed living in NYC after the changes described in the book. It seemed pretty realistic.