Monday, May 19, 2008

The Post-Oil Novel

Some prime examples of this emerging genre of speculative fiction are discussed. http://energybulletin.net/44031.html

The essay also lists books of the related genre of "green science fiction" or ecotopian fiction (defined by Wikipedia as "a subgenre of Utopian fiction where the author posits either a utopian or dystopian world revolving around environmental conservation or destruction. Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia was the first example of this...") : by authors such as:

  • Ursula K. LeGuin ("The Dispossessed, "Always Coming Home")
  • Molly Gloss ("The Dazzle of the Day")
  • Judith Moffett ("Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream")
  • Ernest Callenbach ("Ecotopia")
  • Kim Stanley Robinson ("The Wild Shore" and "Pacific Edge")
Wikipedia lists the following authors and books:

==
To all these I would add Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA: Our Green-Powered Earth, A.D. 2030, summarized on the author's website thusly:

After the age of fossil/nuke ... a new era dawned ... Climb aboard our sleek, quiet, supremely comfortable hydrogen-powered "Hairliner" as we fly halfway around an Earth of A.D. 2030 that has mastered the problems of energy and the environment. Beneath us we see a post-industrial world booming with the wealth and harmony of a revolution in green power, one brewing since 1952, but finally in place. Written by one of the world's leading advocates of renewable energy, SOLARTOPIA takes its place with LOOKING BACKWARD and ECOTOPIA in classic visionary thinking. Read this once -- your view of the future will never be the same.

==
19 January 2009 update:

Frank Kaminski wrote in his review of peak- and post-oil novels (linked above) that:

"They are most certainly the vanguard of an entire subgenre of such books, an increasing number of which will be written by veteran speculative fiction authors (assuming, of course, that we have enough energy to keep the presses running). This is not mere speculation; other authors are now waiting to deliver their own unique takes on peak oil. Speculative fiction-short-story-writer Paolo Bacigalupi, for one, clearly seemed quite engaged on the subject during an interview with Locus Magazine this past year."[25]

25 “Paolo Bacigalupi: Facing the Tiger,” Locus, issue 558, vol. 59, no. 1 (July 2007): 76-8.

Indeed, as Annalee Newitz reported:

"Awesome eco-scifi author Paolo Bacigalupi reports that he's just sold an intriguing-sounding dystopian novel to publisher Little, Brown. Bacigalupi writes, "The book in question is Ship Breaker, a young adult novel about all of my favorite things: global warming, peak oil, genetic engineering, poverty and collapsed societies. You know, happy fun stuff. Fortunately, it’s also a ripping adventure. Joe Monti at Little, Brown is the cool guy who decided to buy it, in a two-book deal." Bacigalupi has already published a book of short stories, Pump Six, [No, it has nothing to do with gas stations--P.Z.] and is working on another novel called The Windup Girl. [via Windup Stories]"

Kaminski noted that the peak-oil genre is taking off:

"...Peak oil enthusiasts have indeed begun doing all of these things, as evidenced by the online discussion boards, book reviews, and post-oil short story contests. It will be interesting to see how their debate evolves, as well as how the post-oil novel, and the unlikely partnership between speculative fiction and peak oil, build over time."

A brief search for the abovementioned turned up a story fragment on how not even the Amish are immune to the deprivations wrought by peak oil. There is also an interview with Robert Pogue Ziegler, who won a Rocky Mountain News-sponsored short-story contest with his post-carbon story "Heirlooms."
And Alan Wartes lets out a full-throated "peak oil rallying cry to artists":

"...What we desperately need now are new stories. ...

Artists, we need you. We need your vision and your courage to tell the truth. We’ve got plenty of “analysis,” and enough punditry to last us forever. What we lack are the gut-wrenching stories that put a human face on the collapse that is upon us. We lack imagination to see through the present smoke and dust to what comes next. We lack the icons of this revolution that can sum up the future in a single phrase or image - and suggest what must be done to face it. ...

I offer this small step forward: at So Long, Hydrocarbon Man, we will now take submissions of poems, short films, short stories and images that speak to the realities of peak oil, climate change and life at the end of the era of Hydrocarbon Man. Visit the site and read our submission guidelines. Spread the word to artists: a challenge has been issued to create stories that tell the truth about where we are and ones that imagine the possibilities of where we can go from here. ..."

Alan Wartes is a filmmaker, writer and musician. He writes a blog at www.hydrocarbonman.com,[now defunct--P.Z.] a site that is now taking submissions for art work - short films, poems, short stories and photos - that speaks directly to life at the 'end of the era of Hydrocarbon Man.'"

Kaminski soon revisited the peak-/post-oil novel by reviewing Ill Wind, a book set in a post-oil world but not about peak oil, unlike the novels in his previous review. (In the story, experimental oil-eating microbes set loose on a tanker spill escape to devour the world's petroleum.)

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