One of the things I value about Speculative Fiction is the opportunity it gives me to imagine possible futures. I’m certain that how we respond to climate change will shape our future more than anything else other than global nuclear war so I’ll be coming back to climate change fiction throughout this year.

This week, I’m reading two books, set in Europe, that have climate change as an important part of their story. One of them is a thriller that looks at how an extreme change in climate spawns a right-wing, isolationist, de facto dictatorship in England. One is a story of threat and revenge featuring a British biologist working in the Rila Mountains in Bulgaria. Both of them are quite dark tales. Both are debut novels by British authors who I think we’ll see a lot more of.

I’m hoping for some grim but engaging stories that also help me imagine the dangers we face from our own governments as water, food and power security become a thing of the past and the spaces where we can live easily become fewer and fewer.

---

‘The Last Day’ by Andrew Hunter Murray (2020)

It was the boldness of its premised that drew my attention to ‘The Last Day’. The world has stopped turning, leaving only a fraction of the planet, the part where you don’t freeze in darkness or fry in sunlight, habitable. Britain is in the habitable zone.

I loved the originality of that. It’s extreme, sudden, irrefutable climate change where a few countries win the survival lottery and most of mankind loses. That’s fertile ground for all kinds of speculation.

I’ve started this book and I can already see that it’s dark and depressing, presenting a horribly plausible and quintessentially English dystopia. It also has a mystery at its heart that I know will keep me turning the pages.

---

‘This Is Our Undoing’ by Lorraine Wilson (2021)

OK, so I’ll admit that I fell in love with the cover before I even read the summary. The summary makes it sound like a near-future thriller with elements of horror, the supernatural and a little bit of romance set against a background of climate change.

I’m hoping for something intense, with a strong sense of threat and some characters that I can care about. I’d also like some plausible science in there too, which seems likely given the author’s background as a conservation scientist.