The Classical Dystopia in Climate Fiction

• Main Authors: Milner, Andrew, Burgmann, J.R.
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Liverpool University Press 2020
• Subjects: Groenland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3828/liverpool/9781789621723.003.0004

The chapter opens with a discussion of the distinction between ‘classical’ and ‘critical’ dystopias, as developed by Tom Moylan, Raffaella Baccolini and Lyman Tower Sargent. It then proceeds to an account of classical cli-fi dystopias that exhibit, by turn, each of five ideal-typical responses to climate change: denial, mitigation, negative adaptation, positive adaptation, and Gaian deep ecological anti-humanism. The texts analysed include Liu Cixin’s 地球往事‎ / Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, Arthur Herzog’s Heat , Michel Houellebecq’s La Possibilité d’une île, Will Self’s The Book of Dave, Bernard Besson’s Groenland, Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife, Maggie Gee’s The Ice People and Jean-Marc Ligny’s Exodes and Semences . The Chapter concludes by explaining that the sixth substantive responsive to climate change, fatalism, presents peculiar problems for the kinds of fiction overwhelmingly intended as warning and postponing its discussion until a later chapter.