The Wayfinder by Adam Johnson. At first, this epic novel about Tongan Empire royalty, and a girl on an isolated island trying to save her community, feels like it couldn’t be set in a world farther from our own—but the questions about the national and personal costs of violence; constricting political customs; and colonialist tools are startlingly urgent. If there’s a central conflict, it’s the exhaustion of natural resources, and its cascading catastrophes. “Depopulation” is the scariest word in the book. But it’s also a beautiful story of what people can accomplish when they know their own values and worth.

ECO24: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction, edited by Marissa van Uden. This anthology brings together short stories from a range of genres: horror, magical realism, dystopia, even family drama against the backdrop of a bleak climate future. While they vary greatly in tone and style, each story in its own way explores a fear for the relationship between humanity and the natural world–as well as hope, in some cases. Standouts include “The Plasticity of Being” by Renan Bernardo, which explores the complexities of class, corruption, and human dignity among an impoverished population who have adapted to consume plastic; and “The Ghost Tenders of Chornobyl” by Nika Murphy, which imagines the souls who help steward the radioactive earth long after departing their bodies.

As a bonus mention: The Red Arrow by William Brewer isn’t climate fiction or particularly focused on environmental issues. Its main character, a ghostwriter recovering from depression and towering debt, meditates on the nature of creativity, memory, time, and the psychedelic treatment that transforms his life. But he also reflects on a chemical spill in West Virginia that took place during his childhood; though he vividly recalls the urge to spit and vomit after drinking contaminated water, the taste and smell of licorice that accompanied the affected water, and the bitter January cold while waiting in line for bottled water, he also questions his memory and how much of it really happened until he encounters a stranger who remembers the same events. The details of the spill are reminiscent of real life chemical catastrophes like the 2014 Elk River spill–a topic not often explored in fiction.

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