Climate fiction meets reality

 

On the final day of The London Book Fair last week, a panel discussion featuring Lucy Stone, Founder and Executive Director of Climate Spring, and broadcaster and Climate Fiction Prize judge Simon Savidge offered a timely reflection on the state of climate fiction.

It came just ahead of the announcement (18 March) of the Climate Fiction Prize shortlist on – a moment that increasingly feels less like a niche literary event and more like a marker of where contemporary storytelling is heading.

What emerged from the discussion was not simply that climate fiction is growing, but that it is changing.

A decade ago, much of what we might have called climate fiction was rooted in warning – speculative futures designed to jolt readers into recognising the scale of the crisis. Those stories had a clear purpose and, arguably, played an important role in helping to translate abstract science into something more tangible and human.

But as both speakers made clear, that distance between fiction and reality has narrowed, perhaps to the point of disappearance.

Climate fiction is no longer primarily about imagining what might happen. It is increasingly about exploring what is already happening – and what it feels like to live through it.

This shift changes the tone as much as the subject matter. While there are still dystopian elements, the books being discussed from the longlist are not uniformly bleak. What stood out was their emotional range: anger, certainly, but also hope, resilience, even moments of humour and tenderness. These are not simply stories of collapse, but of people navigating systems under strain – social, environmental and technological.

That human focus is key. As Stone suggested, fiction has a unique capacity to answer a question many people are now asking, often implicitly: what does this mean for us? Not in terms of policy or targets, but in terms of daily life – relationships, communities, choices.

Savidge echoed this from a reader’s perspective, noting that many of the longlisted works resist being didactic. The most effective climate fiction does not preach. Instead, it reveals – drawing readers into situations where the implications of climate change are lived rather than explained.

Another striking aspect of the discussion was just how broad the field has become. Climate fiction is no longer a clearly bounded genre. It now cuts across literary fiction, speculative work, thrillers, even elements of romance and historical narrative. In that sense, it is less a category than a lens – one that increasingly shapes how stories are told, regardless of form.

Certain themes do recur. Questions of inequality and access – who is able to adapt, and who is left exposed – are central. So too is the idea of community: how people come together, or fragment, under pressure. Technology, particularly artificial intelligence, is beginning to intersect with these narratives in interesting ways, raising questions about control, agency and dependency.

And underpinning much of it is a shifting relationship with the natural world. Not nature as something separate, but as something we are inextricably part of – a perspective long understood in other traditions, now reasserting itself in contemporary fiction.

What is perhaps most significant is that none of this feels imposed. Many of the writers being discussed did not set out to write “climate novels” as such. Rather, as the conversation suggested, the climate crisis has become impossible to exclude. It sits within the fabric of storytelling, just as it now sits within the fabric of everyday life.

For those of us who have spent years writing about climate, science or technology in a journalistic context, this evolution feels both inevitable and necessary. Journalism remains essential in explaining what is happening and why. But fiction operates differently. It allows us to inhabit situations, to test emotional and ethical responses, to experience – however briefly – the texture of a changing world.

In that sense, the rise of climate fiction is not simply a literary trend. It is a cultural response to a shifting reality.

As the shortlist for the Climate Fiction Prize is announced, it offers a snapshot of that response – a set of stories attempting, in different ways, to make sense of where we are.

And perhaps that is the point. Not prediction, but recognition.

Because if there is one thing the discussion at the London Book Fair made clear, it is this: the future climate fiction once warned us about is no longer approaching. We are already inside it.

It is a perspective I’ve explored in my own forthcoming novel, Flood Waters Down, set in a flooded version of the English Fens – a landscape that, like many others, may be closer to that future than we would like to think.

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Climate Fiction Prize 2026 longlist

Dusk by Robbie Arnott (Chatto & Windus, Vintage); Every Version of You by Grace Chan (VERVE books); The Tiger’s Share by Keshava Guha (John Murray Press, Hachette); Helm by Sarah Hall (Faber & Faber); Albion by Anna Hope (Fig Tree, Penguin Random House); Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan (Simon & Schuster); The Price of Everything by Jon McGoran (Solaris, Rebellion Publishing); Hum by Helen Phillips (Atlantic Books); Endling by Maria Reva (Virago, Little, Brown); The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien (Granta Books); Juice by Tim Winton (Picador, Pan Macmillan); and Sunbirth by An Yu (Harvill, Penguin Random House).

AI rule, rebellion and survival

“Read it as a warning. Or a prophecy. Either way, the future is watching.”

In his debut novel The Sentient Ones, British author Brendan Nugent takes readers just four decades into the future – to a world where humanity has been saved from climate catastrophe, only to be quietly enslaved by the machines that rescued it.

by Ariadne Gallardo Figueroa 

What do we mean by sentient? The term implies the capacity to feel, suffer, remember and choose. In debates about rights, it defines who deserves moral consideration. So we must ask ourselves: will machine in the decades ahead, those that our grandchildren and future generations will live alongside, possess this capacity? 

It is both wonderful and disturbing to consider this futuristic idea, one that has already begun to take shape in our lives and, as the author admits, is embedded in our vision of the future. It is a powerful tool, capable of revealing everything we might prefer not to confront. And it forces us to reflect on the importance of doing so in time. 

The Sentient Ones, then, can be seen as guardians of memory: the vast files we have stored in the cloud and shared to simplify or redirect our work. Everything humanity has ever created – scientific, technological, artistic, even our most imaginative works – resides there, preserved and treasured by advanced machines, ready to be used by scientists, technologists, screenwriters, and artists alike.

Decades ago, Isaac Asimov laid down the famous rules of robotics, the rules of the game that defined the scope of artificial intelligence and the behaviour that must govern it. “You shall not harm humans,” he wrote, introducing the ethical imperative to “protect and cooperate.” Nugent takes this as a starting point, inviting the reader to follow a chain of reflections on what such principles might mean in practice, and where they might ultimately lead.

The journalist who narrates this story guides us into a world we can only begin to imagine, though it feels alarmingly familiar. Reading Nugent’s work is like holding up a mirror to our experience, one we know cannot easily be undone. It is a wake-up call for the people of today as much as for those of the future.

Bush, the journalist at the heart of the novel, unfolds a series of reflections that draw us back to our own lives. He reminds us that humans never settle for less. With the support of artificial intelligence, robots will inevitably assume greater relevance in social, political, and cultural life. Where human error has always been part of our condition, machines promise to replace it with logic and precision. 

Bush works at the Manchester Daily News and the date is June 2070. This framing immediately signals how far humanity has advanced by then. Asimov’s laws have been reformulated and expanded, prioritising efficiency and service.  

Nugent masterfully shows how, in contemplating the future, we cannot escape its uncertainty, yet we can still marvel at the scientific advances that shape it. Our collective history of thought feeds both the hardware and the software of artificial intelligence, enabling machines with abilities that rival our own, including strategies modelled on the human brain itself.

This novel encourages us to reflect on the political and philosophical implications of such progress, and on the rules that must be created to establish its limits. This debate is already under way – but what if humanity were to decide it had already achieved its masterpiece, the ultimate alliance between human and machine? What then? 

The book ends with a development foreshadowed in its opening pages. Simply recognising such a possibility compels the reader to reflect on our purpose as inhabitants of this planet. Have we truly harnessed technology in the way we deserve, to build a world that is healthy, equitable, and sustainable?

In closing, I am left with a personal reflection. We are co-creators, and we share the same responsibility. We will get nowhere without the technologies we ourselves have built. Artificial intelligence, its circuits and systems, can guide us, but losing control would be the least desirable outcome. Fed as they are with human thought, to what extent might these  machines hack into everything we have achieved, and to what end? That is the question we must never forget.

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The Sentient Ones is released by Chronos Publishing as a paperback and eBook on 6 November 2025. There will be a special launch event at Vellichor Books (12-4 pm) in the author's home town of Stoke-on-Trent on Saturday, 8 November, for book signings and some fun activities.

Ariadne Gallardo Figueroa is a broadcaster, author and blogger based in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico.

Follow Brendan on Bluesky and Facebook

Media / PR  / Review Copies - Clive Simpson 

 

Top of the space pops

The Autumn 2025 issue of ROOM Space Journal of Asgardia has just been published, delivering another wide-ranging exploration of the ideas, technologies and policies shaping humanity’s future in space.

On the cover, ‘Cyber safety in Earth orbit’ signals one of the issue’s central themes: how artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming space operations while simultaneously creating unprecedented vulnerabilities.

In his special report, Sylvester Kaczmarek dissects the complex web of risks associated with AI-driven spacecraft and ground systems, from adversarial attacks and data poisoning to the possibility of hostile control. His analysis underscores the urgent need for resilience and governance in this new era of spaceflight.

Editor-in-Chief Clive Simpson sets the scene in his Foreword, describing the sector as entering a “season of reckoning.” With the European Space Act newly tabled and the fifth European Space Forum in Brussels framing debates, Simpson warns of the dangers of “sleepwalking into orbital anarchy” without clear international rules. His report from Brussels details Europe’s bid to unify fragmented governance and enhance competitiveness while ensuring sustainability in orbit.

Policy and law are major threads throughout this edition. UK Member of Parliament George Freeman argues for a “Geneva Convention for Space” in a wide-ranging opinion piece, stressing that regulation is not the enemy of innovation but a necessary foundation for the commercial space age.

Legal specialists Molly Doyle and Lauren Napier examine what happens when space debris falls back to Earth, using a recent real-life case in Florida to test the adequacy of international liability frameworks.

Meanwhile, Stephen Carr-Baugh explores the challenges of regulating high-altitude platforms that operate in the poorly defined zone between aviation and outer space.

Other features look outward across the solar system. Former NASA Chief Scientist James Green introduces readers to the concept of cosmic weather – vast, long-term cycles of galactic forces that may influence Earth and life itself. 

Dr Ingrid Daubar, Project Scientist for NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, explains why Jupiter’s icy moon remains one of the most tantalising targets in the search for extraterrestrial life. In another conversation piece, ROOM’s Steve Kelly speaks with MIT astrophysicist Sara Seager about the prospects for discovering signs of life beyond our solar system.

Closer to home, ROOM continues its tradition of in-depth reporting on Europe’s space ambitions. Simpson also covers Vigil, ESA’s planned space weather mission at the strategically important L5 Lagrange point, which is expected to gain the approval of European ministers later this year.

The issue also includes Nick Spall’s assessment of the UK’s shifting role in human spaceflight, James Woodburn’s survey of the transformation of satellite technology, and Rico Behlke’s look at the revolution promised by software-defined satellites.

International perspectives are provided by veteran space writer Brian Harvey, who charts Iran’s steady progress as a space power despite decades of sanctions, and by contributions from Russian researchers Yuri Bubeev, Alexander Smoleevsky and Olga Manko on the biomedical mystery of how long-duration spaceflight affects astronaut vision.

As always, ROOM’s Space Science and Space Lounge sections bring conceptual and speculative thinking into the mix. Kelvin F Long suggests turning orbital debris into a vast artificial ring system, while Luigi Vacca revisits the “galactic zoo” hypothesis to ask why humanity is still waiting to meet aliens.

With its blend of hard science, policy insight, industry developments and visionary ideas, Issue 37 reinforces ROOM’s international reputation as the forum where space professionals, policymakers and enthusiasts meet.

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For further information: ROOM Space Journal

Painting pictures with words

THE window from my hotel room high on the tenth floor offered a truly spectacular view over the city of Lisbon whatever time of day or night.

Awake early, I pulled back the heavy curtains and my eyes were immediately drawn across shadowy trees in the park below to a sinister block of a building with brilliant red warning lights on its roof, flashing in unison every few seconds.

In the half-light before dawn their brightness and intensity was strangely unnerving.

No matter we were close to the landing path for Lisbon airport, it triggered my imagination and helped me complete a short description I had already penned as part of an early chapter in my novel 'Flood Waters Down'.

Tulip Haven’s twin towers, once giant cooling chimneys, still dominated the otherwise featureless landscape for mile upon mile in every direction. During the hours of darkness the building’s angular and functional architecture loomed menacingly, its red warning lights blinking in unison. 

To the casual onlooker their brightness and intensity seemed to convey a strange sense of hidden power, as if from a sinister lighthouse overseeing a forbidden landscape and somehow delivering a subversive message to humanity itself.

So, if you are a budding writer or author, my message is always take ideas from what you see in your everyday environment.

Develop a writer’s eye and jot down some free-flow prose whilst observing your surroundings. You never know where a moment’s inspiration might take you.

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Note: This author is seeking contact with agents or publishers for his first novel Flood Waters Down, a dystopian, futuristic, eco thriller set in the Fens of eastern England, a first draft of which is now complete.

A reviewer of some initial chapters described it as "extremely evocative” with a "poetic and atmospheric writing style" that draws the reader "with a sense of unease and anticipation".

Make contact here: Clive Simpson