While many may desire escapism in times of widespread natural disasters and conversations about climate crisis, there are many of us who actually seek the opposite in art, wanting to immerse ourselves in literature, film, or visual art that actually engages with, comments on, or investigates the horrors around us. There are a lot of great queer books that contend with climate in some way. I was going to limit myself to creating a list of environmentally focused novels, but I wanted to include a wider breadth of literature to account for different interests and needs. Some of the books below are hard cli-fi, science-fiction with an explicit focus on environmental issues. Others lean more literary fiction with nature/climate themes. There are also works of nonfiction that present science in accessible ways and even land-focused poetry. I’ve organized it loosely by sections, though some books straddle multiple categories. In any case, if you’re seeking to immerse yourself in a queer book that honors the planet or speaks to the horrors ravaging it, there’s bound to be something for you in this list.
These books are about land, ecology, natural disasters, apocalypse, the harm capitalism does to the planet, despair, hope, growth, death, and rebirth. Because the books below cover a wide range of genres, tones, and scopes while sharing some thematic links, I’ve written slightly longer blurbs than I usually do for these book lists to provide more context.
And please shout out anything that isn’t here that you think should be, especially poetry since I know there’s a lot more to add there!
Queer Cli-Fi
Yours for the Taking and The Shutouts by Gabrielle Korn
Whether you’re newer to the cli-fi genre or an expert, if you haven’t read these novels — which function both as linked sequels as well as standalones — they’re probably my top recommendation on this whole list! They’re not hard science-fiction so much as dystopian literary fiction, and they explicitly tackle issues of feminism, gender, and queerness within their commentary on climate crisis, environmental justice, and extractive capitalism. Yours for the Taking came out first and is set across the years 2050-2078, at a time when the Earth has been so destroyed by climate change that a completely new society is dreamt up by corporate girlboss Jacqueline Millender, who creates Insides, city-sized communities that are permanently sealed off from the dangerous outdoors. The catch? Jacqueline wants to use Insides to employ her gender essentialist radical ideology that it’s men who have ruined the planet by only allowing women and nonbinary people to apply. You can read more in my review. The Shutouts, a prequel as well as standalone novel that came out at the end of 2024, is set between 2041 and 2078, chronicling the early stages of the end of the world just before the Insides launched. But it’s more centered on the people on the outside, including those on the run from The Inside. As with the first, it’s about queer family, friendship, and love as much as it’s about the societal and environmental scenarios that pressure-cook the characters and their lives. Stay tuned for a forthcoming interview with Gabrielle about The Shutouts and what cli-fi can tell us about our current moment of climate change-impacted natural disasters.
Black Wave by Michelle Tea
Queer in content and in form, Michelle Tea’s experimental novel set in 1999 at a time when it’s announced that the world will end in one year is a must-read and an underrated gem. Elements of autofiction are in play — its protagonist is a queer artist and writer living in Los Angeles, named Michelle — and the book tackles love, life, regret, hope, and sobriety. Given the apocalyptic Los Angeles setting, it could be cathartic or painful to read it if you’re a queer Angeleno in these times, so keep that in mind.
The Free People’s Village by Sim Kern
Sim Kern, who you may know from their frequent educational and fundraising videos about Palestine, pens this cli-fi novel set in an alternate 2020 timeline where Al Gore won the 2000 election and the War on Terror never happened. Efforts to fight climate change thrive, but this perfect green society of course isn’t as utopian as meets the eye: the wealthiest, whitest neighborhoods enjoy the benefits of these green infrastructure programs. The novel follows Maddie Ryan, an English teacher and guitarist in a queer punk band called Bunny Bloodlust (love this detail), who lives in Houston’s Eighth Ward, which is being threatened by the development of an electromagnetic highway out to those wealthy, white enclaves. She joins a coalition of Black-led activists to save the neighborhood, learning her own role in gentrification along the way. The Free People’s Village tackles many social and environmental issues at once without feeling heavy or prescriptive, focusing on personal stories amid the larger ones it tells about capitalism, climate, and activism. Its commentary never comes off as rote or tedious, bolstered by humor and humanity.
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
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Solomon writes some of the best queer genre books with social commentary of the moment, and this science-fiction novel is set in a time when the Earth has become uninhabitable, and a spaceship called the HSS Matilda ferries survivors to a supposed Promised Land. But the conditions on board the Matilda mimic the antebellum South. White supremacy, the heteropatriarchy, and class stratification run rampant, climate change fueling these violent forces.
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
This novel takes place in the far future on a tidally locked planet called January, whose climate exists in two extremes: the very hot side that faces the sun and in the frozen tundra of the night side. Humans live on January in two ideological polarities as well: in one city governed by authoritarianism and in another built on anarchy and run by competing gangs. Charlie Jane Anders’ imaginative work of cli-fi pulls from scientific research Anders did while writing the book and mixes science with the speculative to yield great world-building. It focuses on two main characters: Sophie, who has a crush on her school roommate Bianca, and Mouth, who is part of a group called the Citizens, who live between the two extreme cities on the road. Charlie Jane Anders is writing some of the best queer and trans science-fiction and speculative fiction in the game right now, so get into her!
All City by Alex Difrancesco
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Set in a near-future NYC, All City follows Makayla, a 24-year-old woman working in a convenience store chain, and Jesse, an 18-year-old genderqueer anarchist punk living in an abandoned subway station in the Bronx. The two characters encounter each other in the aftermath of a terrible superstorm that makes most of the city unlivable and leads many people to lose their homes. Its story and themes are, if you can’t tell, very relevant to a lot of what’s happening from coast to coast in the country right now!
After the Dragons by Cynthia Zhang
A simultaneous work of urban fantasy and cli-fi, Cynthia Zhang’s debut novel tells a story of love between two men against the backdrop of a near-future alternative reality Beijing, where the rise in droughts accompanies steep rises in water prices. The droughts and pollution in the air — which has led to a terminal condition called shaolong, “burnt lung” — impacts not only the human population but also dragons, who main character Kai spends his time saving. He meets Elijah Ahmed, who’s beckoned to Beijing after his grandmother dies of shaolong. While it is not about our world, the climate crises of the novel mirror real-world conditions, especially the lasting health impact of breathing toxic air, a problem countries outside of the Western world have been dealing with for a while and that many cities in the U.S. face now.
Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller
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A floating city with advanced geothermal heating technology is constructed in the Arctic circle following a series of climate wars in this post-apocalyptic cli-fi novel. The rotating cast of characters includes queer man Fill, nonbinary character Soq, and a lesbian grandma who rides in on an ORCA. I repeat: A lesbian grandma who rides in on an orca whale!!!!!! Queerness is almost more than normalized in this novel; it’s essential to the planet’s continued survival and a new vision of society and family.
The Sea Within by Missouri Vaun
This time-travel sci-fi romance features a fun butch/femme dynamic and lesbian shenanigans against a backdrop of a climate-ravaged earth and two women’s quest to go back in time to save it. After a one night stand, paleobotonist Elle Graham and US Space Force’s Captain Jackson Drake team up to travel back in time on a steamy, high-stakes adventure that brings their personal pasts and the apocalyptic past of the planet to the surface.
The Tiger Flu by Larissa Lai
A brilliant work of sci-fi/fantasy, The Tiger Flu imagines a world of bioengineered women and extreme class stratification bolstered by capitalism and climate change. It’s about two women from different backgrounds — Kirilow and Kora — who are thrust together to fight for their and their communities’ survival. It’s very much a pandemic book, its events directly inspired by the spread of H5N1 in 2003. Like all the best speculative fiction, The Tiger Flu uses speculative elements to imagine new possibilities for the world. Despite all the fantasy and fiction, it still feels very real.
Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer
The third book in VanderMeer’s iconic Southern Reach series is the most explicitly queer installment. I hesitated to put it on the list since you really do need to read the two books that come before it, but then I decided to just make this my pitch for you to read the full series, which is very good and very surreal in its explorations of climate and humanity. The books are centered on Area X, an uninhabited and mysterious stretch of coastal land that nature is reclaiming in violent, magnificent ways. My relationship to these novels completely changed/deepened when I moved to Florida.
Slow River by Nicola Griffith
Though not quite cli-fi and more of a science-fiction tale with lesbian romance, Slow River is greatly concerned with the science of water purification and who “owns” water technology. It imagines the future of this technology, and its protagonist is the rejected member of a family that built its empire on the patenting of microorganisms that rapidly purify water. Griffith weaves real research on water purification and sewage management into the narrative, and again, while climate isn’t an explicit topic, the book still feels at home on this list, prescient of the “water wars” that are already well underway in this country. It came out in 1995 and was set in an imagined future, but it holds a lot of relevance to today.
On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden
I’d describe Tillie Walden’s science-fiction graphic novel as a work of climate futurism. It’s set in space, and the primary story arc involves the love story of Mia and Grace who meet in boarding school and eventually lose each other, sending them on a journey back to one another. But it is also subtly a story about colonization, shifting landscapes, life-threatening storms, and resource disparities. The book is full of queer women and nonbinary characters.
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
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Easily the greatest work of cli-fi of all time, this is the only book I’m including here that isn’t necessarily explicitly queer, but if you’ve read it, then you’d probably agree that it still warrants placement on this list. A brilliant work of Black feminist thought and dystopian literature, it is about how we must upend the systems destroying humanity and this world. People have been calling it prophetic in recent years, but it was actually created using deep historical research. In an interview in 2000, Butler called global warming practically a character in and of itself in the book.
Road Out of Winter by Alison Stine
Bisexual protagonist Wylodine comes from a family of illegal marijuana farmers in rural Appalachian Ohio, and after spring doesn’t return for a second year in a row, overridden by extreme winter conditions, she packs up her seeds and heads away from home, encountering a dangerous cult and harsh conditions along the way. Road Out of Winter depicts a familiar if technically speculative world plagued by climate crisis.
Queer Literary Fiction with Environmental/Climate Themes
Eleutheria by Allegra Hyde
Optimist Willa Marks meets Harvard professor Sylvia Gill, whose library contains a guide to fighting climate change called Living the Solution that sends Willa on a journey to the Bahamian island of Eleutheria to work with the guide’s author and his ecowarrior followers. But all is not as utopian in this community as Willa had hoped. The novel explores the dichotomies of doom vs. hope, authoritariansm vs. collectivism. I wavered on whether to include it in the cli-fi section or here, but ultimately classifying it as science-fiction doesn’t quite feel right, as it plays out with more realism while still explicitly being about climate change (a central topic touched on as soon as the first page). The Willa/Sylvia dynamic is also a May-December romance, and I know a lot of y’all will like that!
Private Rites by Julia Armfield
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Julia Armfield’s latest is set in a near-future where floods have soaked the world, drumming up old rituals and religious practices for people navigating a world at its end. Floods function both literally and metaphorically in the narrative, which centers on three distant sisters brought together when their estranged father dies. Grief fiction and climate crisis collide. While you’re at it, read Our Wives Under the Sea, which is not NOT about climate!
Memory Piece by Lisa Ko
Lisa Ko’s sprawling, feminist tale about art, tech, and capitalism Memory Piece sets its sights more squarely on the dot com boom and its aftermath as well as the housing crisis, gentrification, and wealth disparity more so than explicit climate themes for most of its pages, but of course all these things are connected to environmental justice. The dystopian New York City of the books final, near-future section has been shaped by oppressive surveillance as well as climate change. It covers the 1980s through the 2040s and follows three interconnected characters, who begin the novel as young women: Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong, and Ellen Ng. Jackie and Ellen’s longtime friendship eventually involves into them becoming lovers, even as Jackie remains entangled in a long distance relationship with another woman, Diane. The queer relationships (and sex scenes!) in Memory Piece are as detailed and developed as its storytelling about the toxic relationship between art and capitalism.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong’s gorgeous epistolary novel follows gay poet Little Dog and his family lineage from Vietnam to Hartford, Connecticut. And while the book is not explicitly about climate, it makes metaphors of floods and examines the violences of war — including the napalm used by the U.S. during the Vietnam War, which we know had devastating and lasting impacts on the environment and landscape of Vietnam — in ways that feel inextricably connected to climate. It is a family history deeply rooted in place.
My Volcano by John Elizabeth Stintzi
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An absurdist work of eco-horror and queer+trans storytelling, My Volcano is not explicitly About Climate Change, but it takes place in an alternative 2016 when a volcano suddenly emerges in the middle of Central Park. The volatile shifts of the Earth in John Elizabeth Stintzi’s surreal novel may technically be the stuff of fiction, but there’s a twisted familiarity to the chaos of landscape and society throughout. This is a weird one! But doesn’t climate change sometimes feel…fucking weird?!
**Also just a quick note for this section that if you’re into books like this that aren’t quite hard cli-fi but still address a climate crisis head-on or might be called “apocalypse fiction,” I super recommend the novel A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet. It’s a fantastic book, with an opening I think of often, but it only really has one minor queer character and doesn’t quite fit the LGBTQ scope of this list. You can read the opening on Electric Literature. Similarly, please check out Weather by Jenny Offill. I find Offill’s fragmentary style a good formal match for the subject of climate change, and though not queer, the book is unconventional.
Queer Nonfiction About the Environment
Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire edited by Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands and Bruce Erickson
While on the more academic side of this section, this is still a very accessible text, anthologizing a range of contributions from environmental experts that merge ecology with queer theory (and weave in other schools of thought, including critical race theory, species politics, and the politics of desire). I’ve recently become very fascinated with the growing study of “queer ecology,” and if you’re at all interested in dabbling, this is a great place to start. Find essays like “Undoing Nature: Coalition Building as Queer Environmentalism” and “Biophilia, Creative Involution, and the Ecological Future of Queer Desire.”
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler
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This book inspired a permanent interest in marine biology for me, a person who did not previously think of herself as all that scientifically inclined. But nature and biology are so fun when they’re GAY, which is one of the theses of this entire list of books, if you think about it. Want to understand queer ecology? It’s this. Imbler proves we — as in queer people and queer communities — have so much in common with underwater species, the lines between humans and other species vaporous throughout their compelling essays that do more than simply make metaphors out of marine life. Read this book! And also read Dyke (geology), also by Imbler, and also a book I’m constantly recommending on this here website.
M Archive: After the End of the World by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Honestly, it is impossible to ascribe a set genre to this book, an experimental academic text by genius-brained Alexis Pauline Gumbs. I’m putting it in this section and choosing to call it speculative nonfiction (which, yes, is a thing!). The book is told from the point of view of a future researcher uncovering the conditions of today: from late-stage capitalism, to anti-Blackness, to climate crisis. It’s extremely poetic and creative and guaranteed to be unlike anything you’ve ever read.
Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
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And we’ve got another Alexis Pauline Gumbs banger, this one pairing very well with the Imbler book. It’s a guide to life through the lens of marine mammals, who can teach us about queerness, our relationships to one another, interpersonal conflict, and more. Social and climate justice are not so disparate from scientific and biological studies, and this book is proof of that.
Borealis by Aisha Sabatini Sloan
This book-length essay tracks the author’s experiences traveling through Alaska and includes meditations on glaciers, Blackness, queerness, climate and political anxiety, and more. Alaska is a wondrous place, and this book does its complexity and natural world justice.
This Book Is a Knife: Radical Working-Class Strategies in the Age of Climate Change by L. E. Fox
Queer nonbinary writer and journalist L. E. Fox pens this urgent essay collection that critiques capitalism and human contributes to climate change while calling for a reimagination of the world and class-conscious strategies to make those reimaginations possible. The book is based on the question-premise of: We know climate change is happening, so what can we do now?
Unsettling: Surviving Extinction Together by Elizabeth Weinberg
I’m using the term “reimagine” a lot throughout this, but a lot of the best climate justice work does exactly that. This book calls on us to reimagine our relationship to nature and the environment, applying an antiracist and queer praxis to its approach to climate justice. It’s a very accessible text, pulling personal narrative and pop culture into its arguments.
Daddy Boy by Emerson Whitney
This is a bit of an out-of-left-field pick for the list, but I think it makes sense. Daddy Boy is a short memoir and work of nonfiction that follows Emerson Whitney in the wake of divorcing their 10-year partner, a dominatrix they call Daddy. In the wreckage of this relationship, Emerson turns toward an unlikely activity as they navigate adulthood beyond the gender binary: storm chasing. While many climate books are about the inevitability of storms, Daddy Boy is about chasing them. But storms prove impossible to wrangle and manifest, and as Emerson travels through Texas where they’re from and other parts of “tornado alley,” storms and the pursuit of them take on textured meaning. Here is a very queer, very trans book about the American West. At the very least, you should read Harron Walker’s interview with Emerson, which does explicitly touch on climate change but also provides some more context for what I think was one of the most underrated releases of 2023.
Queer Poetry and Short Fiction About Climate
Love after the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction edited by Joshua Whitehead
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This collection of speculative fiction from 2SQ writers is impossible to perfectly sum up in one description, as its scopes, themes, and styles are vast, but many of its works are connected by themes of land in crisis, climate change, and alternative futures as well as — as its title suggests — apocalypses. As we consider the “end of the world,” we should turn to Indigenous artists who know well what that looks like for their people. Contributors include asexual writer Darcie Little Badger and Indigiqueer poet and drag artist jaye simpson.
Buffalo Is the New Buffalo by Chelsea Vowel
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If Love after the End appealed to your interests, then perhaps you should also check out Chelsea Vowel’s Métis futurism collection of short stories that merge science fiction tropes with Métis and Indigenous storytelling. The intersections of colonialism and climate are present through these stories, which feature 2SQ characters.
Sarahland by Sam Cohen
At first glance, this one might seem to be a bit of a wild card for this list, but I think several of the stories in this bizarre and hilarious and very queer collection fall into the realm of queer ecology and environmental absurdism. Cohen often personifies nature and non-human species, such as in sentences like: “The plants seemed full of conflicting desires,” from a story about a character who wishes to become trees. And the collection’s final story is a striking flash piece of the many deaths and rebirths of the planet. Sometimes you read a novel that isn’t about climate change outright but you can tell the author was thinking about climate change while writing it, and this is one of those.
Freedom House by KB Brookins
I had the privilege of hearing KB read the poem “Good Grief,” which is featured in the third section of their debut collection Freedom House, and I was struck by its incisive look at environmental racism. It is about the 2021 Texas Winter Storm Uri, which caused massive power grid failures in the state, particularly impacting Black and poor neighborhoods. Some lines from it: “A highway splits a nation from its promise to be one. / Everything feels blurry and the palm trees have died. / Everything transported here withers away eventually. / 6 months later and I haven’t been able to shovel out my sadness.”
Water I Won’t Touch by Kayleb Rae Candrilli
Gardens, bodies of water, and landscapes make up much of the imagery in this trans poetry collection about home, family, and surviving on inhospitable lands. “My sibling and I loved each other / most during storms. I know this,” reads the titular poem. Also, this poem isn’t in the book, but I love the poet’s “All in Red,” which features references to the state-sanctioned violence committed against climate activists as well as a reference to David Lynch (RIP).
This post was originally published on here
