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Annual Review of Environment and Resources

Volume 49, 2024

Science Fiction in the Anthropocene

Abstract

This article catalogs major recent trends in ecological science fiction (sf), focused primarily on sf published after the completion of N.K. Jemisin's paradigm-setting Broken Earth trilogy in 2017. Major subdivisions in the genre include dystopian and antiutopian narratives about climate collapse, technocratic solutionism, reckoning with climate change as a colonial project, intergenerational conflict, and posthuman formulation. Noting that sf both as literary genre and as fan community encompasses a wide range of political perspectives ranging from reactionary hypercapitalism to utopian socialism, the article does not seek to advance any particular political position but rather seeks to name the major currents of political and ethical debate within sf in this moment of ecological crisis. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the way the sf genre, in reframing the present as the history of multiple possible futures, calls on us to act to shape that future toward human thriving.

Keyword(s): Anthropocene, climate futures, climate grief, geoengineering, posthuman, speculative fiction
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/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-environ-120622-120311
2024-10-18
2025-04-20
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