Sci-fi happening just around the corner
August 14, 2023 7:29 PM Subscribe
I recently finished Ruthanna Emrys' A Half-Built Garden and looking for near-future sci-fi book recs in a similar vein. Details inside!
I really enjoyed Ruthanna Emrys' A Half-Built Garden, and now I want more. It brought to mind several other near(ish) future sci-fi books that I've enjoyed: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, and the final section of The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell (Sheep’s Head 2043). Oh, and maybe Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker, though that is a little looser fit.
A few things that these books have in common (more or less--they don't all always apply) that I'm looking for:
*Character-driven, contemplative feel
*Environmental/climate change themes
*Set on Earth (not elsewhere in space--though clearly I don't have a problem with aliens)
*Set at a time when present day is still a clear memory, even if the characters were born later (1-3 generations out). But, not too for into the future (for example, A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers).
*Clear amounts of societal change have happened, but not completely dystopian/dire post-apocalyptic. No cyberpunk.
*The changes that have occurred feel realistic - in that you can see the future playing out this way.
*While the stories playing out can be happening on a large scale, the focus of the story is often very local/on a small group of people.
Having written all this out, I realizing a lot of what I'm describing might fall under hopepunk and/or solarpunk. So, having gotten here the long way, please recommend your favorite near-future, character-driven hopepunk stories set on Earth!
I really enjoyed Ruthanna Emrys' A Half-Built Garden, and now I want more. It brought to mind several other near(ish) future sci-fi books that I've enjoyed: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, and the final section of The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell (Sheep’s Head 2043). Oh, and maybe Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker, though that is a little looser fit.
A few things that these books have in common (more or less--they don't all always apply) that I'm looking for:
*Character-driven, contemplative feel
*Environmental/climate change themes
*Set on Earth (not elsewhere in space--though clearly I don't have a problem with aliens)
*Set at a time when present day is still a clear memory, even if the characters were born later (1-3 generations out). But, not too for into the future (for example, A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers).
*Clear amounts of societal change have happened, but not completely dystopian/dire post-apocalyptic. No cyberpunk.
*The changes that have occurred feel realistic - in that you can see the future playing out this way.
*While the stories playing out can be happening on a large scale, the focus of the story is often very local/on a small group of people.
Having written all this out, I realizing a lot of what I'm describing might fall under hopepunk and/or solarpunk. So, having gotten here the long way, please recommend your favorite near-future, character-driven hopepunk stories set on Earth!
I'm reading Martin MacInnes' In Ascension at the moment, and it fits what you're looking for very well.
posted by dudekiller at 11:10 PM on August 14, 2023
posted by dudekiller at 11:10 PM on August 14, 2023
This is kind of Kim Stanley Robinson's whole career. :7)
posted by wenestvedt at 3:29 AM on August 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by wenestvedt at 3:29 AM on August 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
I just read A Mountain in the Sea (Ray Naylor) and think it fits -- it centers on the discovery of potentially sentient octopi, so there's a lot of focus on the ocean.
I wouldn't say it has a character-driven/contemplative feel or is anywhere near hopepunk but Termination Shock (Neal Stephenson) meets the rest of your criteria and is pretty well focused & readable for a Neal Stephenson book.
The High House (Jessie Greengrass) isn't sci-fi but it hits the contemplative and climate change themes so well that I wanted to mention it. It's quite beautiful.
posted by snaw at 4:12 AM on August 15, 2023
I wouldn't say it has a character-driven/contemplative feel or is anywhere near hopepunk but Termination Shock (Neal Stephenson) meets the rest of your criteria and is pretty well focused & readable for a Neal Stephenson book.
The High House (Jessie Greengrass) isn't sci-fi but it hits the contemplative and climate change themes so well that I wanted to mention it. It's quite beautiful.
posted by snaw at 4:12 AM on August 15, 2023
Getting a bit old but you might try Earth by David Brin.
posted by sevenless at 5:19 AM on August 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by sevenless at 5:19 AM on August 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Some novels that fit some of your criteria (speculative/ sci-fi, set on Earth or kind of, near future, large scale but intimate, character-driven, some environmental themes, beautifully-written):
How High We Go In the Dark - set in near-contemporary America and features a pandemic, similar to Station Eleven
We Could Not See The Stars - set near-contemporary Malaysia and around memory loss, and a boy's search for his mother's origins
Doggerland - set in near-future North Sea in a rusty wind turbine, and a boy's search for his father
posted by moiraine at 5:51 AM on August 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
How High We Go In the Dark - set in near-contemporary America and features a pandemic, similar to Station Eleven
We Could Not See The Stars - set near-contemporary Malaysia and around memory loss, and a boy's search for his mother's origins
Doggerland - set in near-future North Sea in a rusty wind turbine, and a boy's search for his father
posted by moiraine at 5:51 AM on August 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Maybe:
The Lightest Object in the Universe by Kimi Eisele
Sea of Tranquility by the author of Station Eleven
posted by jeoc at 7:08 AM on August 15, 2023
The Lightest Object in the Universe by Kimi Eisele
Sea of Tranquility by the author of Station Eleven
posted by jeoc at 7:08 AM on August 15, 2023
Also an older one but The Way Station by Clifford Simak is lovely. This is such a unique little book about alien contact and human nature. Not a dystopia but it hits the other themes well.
posted by veery at 7:09 AM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by veery at 7:09 AM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Gamechanger by L.X. Beckett is a novel that I think is seriously underappreciated and fits many of your points-- It's near future solarpunk/hopepunk that features a flawed but hopeful new course for human civilization, feels realistic, set on Earth, grappling with the present day (and its aftermath) is a big theme of the book. One caveat is that virtual reality and AI and the near future equivalent of the Internet all do play a big role in the world building/setting but I wouldn't say it feels like cyberpunk.
Here's a quote from the blurb:
First there was the Setback. Then came the Clawback. Now humanity thrives.
Rubi Whiting is a member of the Bounceback Generation. The first to be raised free of the troubles of the late twenty-first century. Now she works as a public defender to help troubled individuals with anti-social behavior.
posted by overglow at 9:25 AM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Here's a quote from the blurb:
First there was the Setback. Then came the Clawback. Now humanity thrives.
Rubi Whiting is a member of the Bounceback Generation. The first to be raised free of the troubles of the late twenty-first century. Now she works as a public defender to help troubled individuals with anti-social behavior.
posted by overglow at 9:25 AM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff Vandermeer. Very slight spoiler, there are climate and society changes that happen over the course of the book, and they are on the worse side of things, but not crazy post-apocalypse. Just, life getting a lot harder and worse.
posted by aspo at 12:41 PM on August 15, 2023
posted by aspo at 12:41 PM on August 15, 2023
Abigail Nussbaum is an excellent reviewer who paired her comments on The Half-Built Garden with her comments on Goliath, by Tochi Onyebuchi. You might like Goliath, and I recommend her blog very highly as a source of science fiction recs.
Also, I ended up really liking the sequel to Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood. It feels very different from Oryx and Crake - where that was heavily satiric and really grotesque, this one is much more character-focused. In a way it is a book full of cringe, and the first time I read it, lo these many years ago, I felt that it was cringey, but it has grown after reading. I've re-read it a couple of times and really like it. I think it's the best of the three in the series, actually, even though Oryx and Crake is more exciting and propulsive.
Speaking of cringe, what about The Fifth Sacred Thing, by noted pagan Starhawk? You have to have a lot of tolerance for hippie crystal computing, etc etc etc, and of course it is not a new book, but there are sections that have stayed with me long after reading. It's definitely not a book for everyone but it's definitely got something. (As you can tell since it's been in print since 1994.) I feel like it's a good book to read with the Three Californias books and with He, She and It (which has climate change in the background but isn't really a climate novel the way Fifth Sacred Thing is).
posted by Frowner at 1:05 PM on August 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Also, I ended up really liking the sequel to Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood. It feels very different from Oryx and Crake - where that was heavily satiric and really grotesque, this one is much more character-focused. In a way it is a book full of cringe, and the first time I read it, lo these many years ago, I felt that it was cringey, but it has grown after reading. I've re-read it a couple of times and really like it. I think it's the best of the three in the series, actually, even though Oryx and Crake is more exciting and propulsive.
Speaking of cringe, what about The Fifth Sacred Thing, by noted pagan Starhawk? You have to have a lot of tolerance for hippie crystal computing, etc etc etc, and of course it is not a new book, but there are sections that have stayed with me long after reading. It's definitely not a book for everyone but it's definitely got something. (As you can tell since it's been in print since 1994.) I feel like it's a good book to read with the Three Californias books and with He, She and It (which has climate change in the background but isn't really a climate novel the way Fifth Sacred Thing is).
posted by Frowner at 1:05 PM on August 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Existence by David Brin felt about 25 years in the future, maybe less.
I also second the above recommendation of his book Earth. I still think about that one, and it's been decades.
posted by Sunburnt at 5:20 PM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
I also second the above recommendation of his book Earth. I still think about that one, and it's been decades.
posted by Sunburnt at 5:20 PM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
It might seem a slightly off suggestion, but I get the sense you may enjoy Monica Byrne's The Actual Star. It happens in Belize, with three connected stories set 2000 years ago, in the present, and 2000 years in the future. The changes in the earth and in human society are vast. In some ways it reminded me (favorably) of Cloud Atlas.
posted by lhauser at 9:02 PM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by lhauser at 9:02 PM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman fits some of your criteria.
posted by wavelette at 6:05 AM on August 16, 2023
posted by wavelette at 6:05 AM on August 16, 2023
The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton is verrrry close to this, although probably more immediately apocalyptic than you're looking for.
Three Californias by KSR is also on point, although if you're not a known KSR fan, you should feel free to skip straight to the third book, Pacific Edge. Or New York 2140.
(Ah, KSR... I have given so many of his books three-star reviews, but I keep coming back for more.)
posted by McBearclaw at 4:21 PM on August 21, 2023
Three Californias by KSR is also on point, although if you're not a known KSR fan, you should feel free to skip straight to the third book, Pacific Edge. Or New York 2140.
(Ah, KSR... I have given so many of his books three-star reviews, but I keep coming back for more.)
posted by McBearclaw at 4:21 PM on August 21, 2023
Possibly a bit adjacent to what you're describing but I loved The Echo Wife and it's explorations of unfettered human cloning.
posted by shimmerbug at 8:53 PM on September 10, 2023
posted by shimmerbug at 8:53 PM on September 10, 2023
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posted by mbrubeck at 8:48 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]