North American Corpus

The North American corpus is the largest studied as part of this project. This is because most texts defined as climate fiction have been written in this part of the world. (Why authors and movie makers located in this part of the world are so preoccupied with biospheric breakdown is a very interesting question. See the blog for a tentative answer).

The corpus contains, and makes no particular distinction between, very different types of climate fiction. Thus, this list contains literary, high-brow novels by such as Margaret Atwood and Cormac McCarthy, low-brow, military pulp such as Sansbury Smith’s Helldivers series, canonical climate fiction such as Paulo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl, YA novels such as McGinnis’ Not a Drop to Drink, books by indigenous authors such as Waubgeshig Rice and Louise Erdrich, and hard-core science fiction such as Andy Weir’s Hail Mary. There are also blockbuster sci-fi movies such as Interstellar and Godzilla: King of the Monsters and low-budget horror features such as The Bad Batch. That said, all novels explore futures where human activity (global warming caused by fossil-fueled industry and transportation, planetary-scale military violence, the manipulation of animal and plant DNA, the release of laboratory-made plagues, pollution caused by the use of pesticides and other toxins, or the dumping of plastics, and other waste) has eroded the planet and where various foodways play an important role.

Games have been added to the corpus, but I am yet unsure if they will be included in the final study. For now, they are being evaluated for content related to foodways.

Novels:

Alam, Rumaan. Leave the World Behind (2020).

Amsterdam, Steven. Things We Didn’t See Coming (2008).

Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake ( 2003).

Atwood, Margaret. The Year of the Flood (2009).

Atwood, Margaret. MaddAddam (2013).

Bacigalupi, Paulo, The Windup Girl (2009)

Bacigalupi, Paulo. The Water Knife (2010)

Bacigalupi, Paulo. Ship Breaker (2010)

Bacigalupi, Paulo. The Drowned Cities (2012)

Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Sower (1993)

Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Talents (1998)

Chambers, Becky. To Be Taught, if Fortunate (2019)

Chambers, Becky. A Psalm for the Wild-Built (2021)

Chambers, Becky. A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (2022)

Chambers, Becky, Yoon Ha Lee, SL Huang, and Rivers Solomon. The Vela (2019)

Cook, Diane. The New Wilderness (2020)

DiFrancesco, Alex. All City (2019)

Dougherty, Elizabeth. The Blind Pig (2010)

Drayden, Nick. Escaping Exodus (2019)

Erdrich, Louise. Future Home of the Living God (2017)

Hart, Brian. Trouble No Man (2019)

Heller, Peter. The Dog Stars (2012)

Jarrett, Vicki. Always North (2019)

Kleeman, Alexandra. Something New Under the Sun (2021)

Marshall, Helen. The Migration (2019) 

McConaghy, Charlotte. Migrations (2020) 

McCarthy, Cormac. The Road (2006) 

Miller, Sam J. The Blade Between (2020)

Miller, Sam J. Blackfish City (2018) 

Mollart, Jamie. Kings of a Dead World (2021)

McGinnis, Mindy. Not a Drop to Drink (2013)

McGinnis, Mindy. In A Handful of Dust (2014)

Montag, Kassandra. After the Flood (2019)

Nagamatsu, Sequoia. How High We Go in the Dark (2022)

Newman, Sandra. The Country of Ice Cream Star (2014) 

Omar El Akkad. American War (2017)

Porter, Chana. The Seep (2020)

Robinson, Kim Stanley. Forty Signs of Rain (2004)

Robinson, Kim Stanley. New York 2140 (2017)

Robinson, Kim Stanley. The Ministry of the Future (2020)

Robinson, Kim Stanley. Fifty Degrees Below (2005)

Robinson, Kim Stanley. Sixty Days and Counting (2007)

Robinson, Kim Stanley. 2312 (2012)

Reilly, Meg Little. We Are Unprepared (2016)

Rice, Waubgeshig. Moon of the Crusted Snow (2018)

Rich, Nathaniel. Odds Against Tomorrow Stars (2013)

Sansbury Smith. Nicholas. Helldivers series (2016-23)

ShirleyJohn. Stormland (2021)

Theroux, Marcel. Far North (2009)

Watkins, Claire. Gold Fame Citrus (2015) 

Winterson, Jeanette. The Stone Gods (2007)

Windo, Nick Clark. The Feed: A Novel (2018)

Vandermeer, Jeff. Annihilation (2014)

Vandermeer, Jeff. Authority (2014)

Vandermeer, Jeff. Acceptance (2014)

Yaknavitch, Lidia. The Book of Joan (2017)

Films: 

Colony, The (2013)

Bad Batch, The (2016)

Blade Runner (2017)

Godzilla (2014)

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

Interstellar (2014)

Kong: Skull Island (2017)

Road, The (2009)

Games

Battlefield 2042 (2021)

Eolia VR (2022)

Floodland (2022)

Civilization VI: Gathering Storm (2019)