Hopeful Climate Fiction

The purpose of Bright Green Futures is to surface hopeful climate-fiction stories. The links below will take to you recommended stories across various media as well as episodes where authors have been guests on the pod.

Grist’s Imagine 2200 stories

Visit Bright Green Future’s Bookshop.org Page to purchase paper copies on this list!

Not sure where to start? Check out the Solarpunk Starter Pack!

RECENTLY ADDED

• The Working by BrightFlame

• The Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft (BrightFlame’s website)

• Thank Geo by BrightFlame (Solarpunk Creatures)

• Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit

• Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis

NOVELS/NOVELLAS/NOVELETTES

• Nothing is Promised series by Susan Kaye Quinn (also in German)

• Monk and Robot series, Becky Chambers (2022 Hugo Award) (Sue’s review)

• Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson

• Roots in the Box and Roots in the Bones by T.K. Rex (in Asimov’s Jan/Feb 2023)

• Foxhunt by Rem Wigmore

• Arboreality by Rebecca Campbell (2023 finalist Philip K Dick award, 2024 winner Ursula K. Le Guin award)

• Another Life by Sarena Ulibarri (2023)

• Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052 - 2072. It's a long title, by Eman Abdelhadi and M. E. O'Brien.

• A Hunger with No Name by Lauren C. Teffeau

• The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks Dalton

• New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson

• Lost Cause by Cory Doctorow

• Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta

• Latitudes of Longing by Shubhangi Swarup

• The Working by BrightFlame

SHORT STORIES

• Danielle Arostegui: Children of the Sea, Solarpunk Drabble

• Susan Kaye Quinn: Seven Sisters, It’s in the Blood, Once and Future Kilowatts

• T.K. Rex: Holdout in the Northern California Designated Wildcraft Zone, A Lot Full of Weeds, Davu the Explorer and the Druid Tía Yara

• Renan Bernardo: Eight Steps to Steal a Yacht and Build a Hospital, A Shoreline of Oil and Infinity, Anticipation of Hollowness

• Jamie Liu: To Labor for the Hive (2024 winner, Grist Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors) (Also in Spanish)

• Ana Sun: Anatomy of Emotion – The Carving of Chance – Seize the Moon, Shadow Among the Leaves, Soul Noodles

• Sarena Ulibarri: The Spiral Ranch, Walking Through Fog, Wandering Star

• BrightFlame: Thank Geo, When the Web Went Down, Maybe We Are All Witches

• Sanjana Sekhar: Cabbage Koora: A Prognostic Autobiography, GARMI

• Grist’s Climate Fiction Drabbles (100 word stories)

• The Climate Action Almanac

• The Hilarious Inside Joke of Our Overwhelming Melancholic Nostalgia by Francis Bass

• The Orchard of Tomorrow by Kelsea Yu (Clarkesworld)

• An AI plots to take over a community’s solar power by Paolo Bacigalupi (Grist)

• Under the Grid: Detroit goes full-on solar in this fictional future by Andrew Dana Hudson (Grist)

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

• Halfway to Better by Susan Kaye Quinn

• Metamorphosis collection (published by Milkweed Editions)

• Different Kinds of Defiance by Renan Bernardo (Android Press) including The River that Passed Through My Life (originally published in Portuguese by Editora Dame Blanche)

• Grist’s Imagine 2200 Collections (2021, 2022, 2023 Editor’s Picks, Best of Audio, 2024)—Submit to Imagine 2200

• Real Sugar is Hard to Find by Sim Kern

• Solarpunk: Short Stories from Many Futures, edited by Francesco Verso

• Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World edited by Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro, Translated by Fabio Fernandes (World Weaver Press, English translation of the world’s first solarpunk anthology from Brazil and Portugal)

• The Bright Mirror: Global Solarpunk by Women (Future Fiction)

• Solarpunk Summers edited by Sarena Ulibarri

• Solarpunk Winters edited by Sarena Ulibarri

• Solarpunk Creatures (World Weaver Press)

• Fighting for the Future: Cyberpunk and Solarpunk Tales (Android Press)

• Octavia’s Brood by adrienne maree brown

• Multi-Species Cities co-edited by Sarena Ulibarri et al.

GRAPHIC NOVEL

• Shifting Earth by Cecil Castellucci, Flavia Biondi, Fabiana Mascolo

POETRY

• We Must Believe the Road Ahead is Full of Light, Lisa Timpf

• The Terraformer of Bigotry, Dawn Vogel

MIXED COLLECTIONS

• All We Can Save (ed. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Katharine K. Wilkinson)

TV/FILM

• Flow (2024)

• Strange World (2022)

• Star Trek: Discovery, Season 3

  • Many say all Star Trek is optimistic SF, but ST:DiscS3 is intentionally, conspicuously hopepunk.

• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

• Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (2022)

• Taryn O’Neill, producer of Scirens, trailer for the Climate Action Almanac: “The Assignment”

GAMES

• Terra Nil (2023)

• Stray

• Daybreak, cooperative tabletop game about the climate

BGF PODCAST EPISODES WITH AUTHOR GUESTS

• Ep. 2: Chatting with Dolphins (and Author T. K. Rex)

• Ep. 4: Scientist to Author, in Conversation with Danielle Arostegui

• Ep. 6: Exploring Grief in Climate Fiction with Author Renan Bernardo

• Ep. 8: Loneliness, Connection, and Resilience, in Conversation with Writer and Activist Jamie Liu

• Ep. 10: Adaptation in Climate Fiction with Writer Ana Sun

• Ep. 14: Imagining Another Life with Author and Editor Sarena Ulibarri

• Ep. 16: The Shapes of Stories with Author Tashan Mehta

• Ep. 19: Witchy Solarpunk with Author Bright Flame

• Ep. 23: Creating Connection with Solarpunk and Author Sanjana Sekhar