Here are 100 books that Termination Shock fans have personally recommended if you like
Termination Shock.
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I’ve been obsessed with making the future a better place since I was 8 years old and spent my evenings hanging out in a local community center. I realized that things got better when people who cared showed up for each other. I am now a philanthropic futurist and have spent my career dedicated to helping visionary leaders build a more beautiful and equitable future. All of the books on this list have inspired me, and I hope they inspire you, too. If we all do our small part, we can ensure we have a Star Trek future and not a Hunger Games future.
I don’t usually read science fiction, but this book completely changed my perspective. It was an eye-opening experience, vividly illustrating what the climate crisis could look like if we don’t take significant action now. I was hooked by how realistic the scenarios felt, even though the story is fiction.
I found myself thinking deeply about the potential consequences of inaction and how urgent it is to address the climate crisis. The fictional eyewitness accounts made it even more impactful, giving me a sense of immediacy and personal connection to the issue. I didn’t expect a science fiction novel to be so relevant to our current world, but this one is a must-read for everyone.
“The best science-fiction nonfiction novel I’ve ever read.” —Jonathan Lethem
"If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future." —Ezra Klein (Vox)
The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite…
My family could never afford vacations when I was growing up, so I had to travel in my imagination through what I read. But that allowed me even greater freedom—I could go back in time, forward into the future, and everything in between. This skill led me to research and write my books today and have a career as an award-winning author and editor. History, to me, is only one side of the story—what about all the people in the past who never had the chance to speak? Alternate history is a way to explore the voices we’ve never heard except through a writer’s imagination.
I’ve long been inspired by Butler’s writing, which features BIPOC characters front and center. As a multiracial person, I seldom saw people who looked and thought like me in the older fiction I read.
The notable thing about this book is that it’s technically science fiction, not alternate history, since the novel's beginning in 2024 (this year!). However, much of what Butler wrote has come to pass, raising one question: Has her vision of the future become an alternate version of the past? I love trying to wrap my head around that conundrum.
The extraordinary, prescient NEW YORK TIMES-bestselling novel.
'If there is one thing scarier than a dystopian novel about the future, it's one written in the past that has already begun to come true. This is what makes Parable of the Sower even more impressive than it was when first published' GLORIA STEINEM
'Unnervingly prescient and wise' YAA GYASI
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We are coming apart. We're a rope, breaking, a single strand at a time.
America is a place of chaos, where violence rules and only the rich and powerful are safe. Lauren Olamina, a young woman with the extraordinary power to…
Even though I’m from humid DC, I’ve been drawn to the desert since I first set foot there as a kid on a family road trip. Now, I’m lucky enough to live in Utah, home to some of the world’s most legendary desert landscapes. One reason I love the desert is the otherworldly scenery: uncanny arches, bizarre hoodoos, and sand dunes you could disappear into. Before your eyes, layers of geologic time unfold in epochs. The desert is a great place for contemplating the past and future—and for great adventures, with endless sandstone walls to climb, slick rock to bike, and sagebrush-lined trails to hike.
This novel considers what will happen when the Southwest runs out of water, a very real possibility, especially with climate change, and something I care about as a Utah resident.
It pulls you into the action right away and keeps you on your toes until the very end, weaving together the narratives of a few different characters, including a journalist, a refugee from Texas, and a henchman (aka “the water knife”) who’s paid to destroy rival water supplies.
An alum of Oberlin College (like me!), Paolo Bacigalupi is a master of telling engaging stories about possible futures defined by climate change. I highly recommend this thoughtful novel and his other books!
From the international bestselling author of the Hugo and Nebula award-winning The Windup Girl, comes an electrifying thriller set in a world on the edge of collapse.
WATER IS POWER
The American Southwest has been decimated by drought, Nevada and Arizona skirmish over dwindling shares of the Colorado River, while California watches.
When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in Phoenix, Las Vegas water knife Angel Velasquez is sent to investigate.
With a wallet full of identities and a tricked-out Tesla, Angel arrows south, hunting for answers that seem to evaporate as the heat index soars and the landscape…
A fractured mind or a global conspiracy? Uncovering the truth can be hell when nobody believes you… and you can’t even trust yourself.
"A fantastic science fiction thriller with a sincere and important message.”—Kirkus Reviews.
“A breathtaking, deeply dark alternate-history Earth with complex characters, layered worldbuilding, and twist after twist after twist.”—Julianna Caro, Reedsy Discovery.
Broken Mirror is the first volume in a queer psychological science fiction saga that looks at the stigma of mental illness and the hellish distrust and alienation that goes with it.
Broken Mirror: the start of a smart, complex, and imaginative cyberpunk alternate history saga. Literary science fiction from a fresh, young voice.
In a skewed mirror universe, a mentally ill young man searches for his grandfather’s killer.
Someone killed Jefferson Eastmore. His grandson Victor is sure of it, but no one believes him.
Diagnosed with mirror resonance syndrome and shunned by Semiautonomous California society, Victor suffers from hyperempathy, blank outs, and sensory overload. Jefferson devoted his life to researching mental illness and curing Broken Mirrors like Victor through genetic engineering, but now that he’s gone, Victor must walk a narrow…
From early on, I found myself captivated by the concept of a dystopic future for humanity. Years later, a 20+ year police career cemented the notion that people are not inherently good and that if a dystopic future is at all possible–we as a species will make it a reality. My love of science fiction, especially all forms of dystopia, combined with a hard-earned street-level grit and a love of action. Whether writing solo or with my amazing co-author, Dr. Gareth Worthington, I often inject these elements into my stories. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I did!
I’m an action guy. It drives me. So when you have a very well-developed sci-fi dystopia that asks tough questions about consumerism, corporate power, and our growing addiction to tech, and it’s loaded with action, I’m in.
This is that book, and while the actual writing is not always to my specific taste, the overall presentation is masterful. And did I mention action-packed? Looking back, Stephenson’s depiction of our addiction to technology is basically prophetic. Put this one on your list.
The “brilliantly realized” (The New York Times Book Review) breakthrough novel from visionary author Neal Stephenson, a modern classic that predicted the metaverse and inspired generations of Silicon Valley innovators
Hiro lives in a Los Angeles where franchises line the freeway as far as the eye can see. The only relief from the sea of logos is within the autonomous city-states, where law-abiding citizens don’t dare leave their mansions.
Hiro delivers pizza to the mansions for a living, defending his pies from marauders when necessary with a matched set of samurai swords. His home is a shared 20 X 30…
I write as Robert J. Lloyd, but my friends call me Rob. Having studied Fine Art at a BA degree level (starting as a landscape painter but becoming a sculpture/photography/installation/performance generalist), I then moved to writing. During my MA degree in The History of Ideas, I happened to read Robert Hooke’s diary, detailing the life and experiments of this extraordinary and fascinating man. My MA thesis and my Hooke & Hunt series of historical thrillers are all about him. I’m fascinated by early science, which was the initial ‘pull’ into writing these stories, but the political background of the times (The Popish Plot and the Exclusion Crisis, for example) is just as enticing.
About WWII codebreaking, the reason this makes my ‘Best 5’ is that, besides being constantly inventive and informative, it’s also very funny. (I’m that shallow.)
There are similarities, I think, with Catch 22, in the plot’s intelligence, absurdity, and dreamlike turns.
I think Stephenson’s character Bobbie Shaftoe, a soldier who carries out counterintelligence deceptions, is hilarious. Also, Stephenson’s use of real historical characters–he presents believable portraits of Alan Turing, Douglas MacArthur, Karl Dönitz, and Hermann Göring, with a walk-on appearance by Albert Einstein–gave me license to do so in my own fiction.
With this extraordinary first volume in an epoch-making masterpiece, Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this century.
In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse—mathematical genius and young Captain in the U.S. Navy—is assigned to detachment 2702. It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Waterhouse and Detachment 2702—commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoe-is to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence…
Reading and writing speculative fiction is a big part of how I make sense of the world—particularly complex problems like climate change. I also believe our environmental problems are inherently political, which is why I went to grad school to study sustainability and the institutions trying (and often failing) to fix our broken planet. After attending the UN COP24 climate conference, I came back more sure than ever that we need a range of stories about future environmental politics to help us understand the onrushing challenges. I hope this book list is a good place to start!
Sometimes climate fiction can feel a little less technologically futuristic than its older cousin science fiction, and that’s often a good thing. But Sterling manages to put together a wild (and entertaining) tale of clones, augmented reality, ubiquitous computing, and other fantastica that also has a lot to say about the politics of environmental collapse. Years after reading it I still think a lot about the rival factions this novel invents, like the everything-is-entertainment Dispensation and the utopian hive mind Acquis. Plus, this book features one of my all-time favorite lines from speculative fiction: “I won’t hide from the bandits in a nuclear robot suit! That useless strategy is for cowards!” A great, weird romp.
Alongside William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling stands at the forefront of a select group of writers whose pitch-perfect grasp of the cultural and scientific zeitgeist endows their works of speculative near-future fiction with uncanny verisimilitude. To read a novel by Sterling is to receive a dispatch from a time traveler. Now, with The Caryatids, Sterling has written a stunning testament of faith in the power of human intellect, creativity, and spirit to overcome any obstacle–even the obstacles we carry inside ourselves.
The world of 2060 is divided into three spheres of influence, each fighting with the others over…
The books on this list have inspired me to expand the horizons of my imagination and to think boldly about the future. So often, it feels like we’re stuck living with our forebears’ bad choices and our leaders’ cynical and self-serving constructions of reality. In defiance, I write books for people who have struggled to fit in, who look around at our world and imagine how things could be better, and who want to read about realistic but optimistic futures. I write alternative history and cyberpunk to highlight how our cultural, technological, and political choices affect our future and how creating change starts with imagining it.
I was hesitant to pick up this book. Previously, I had enjoyed several of Neal Stephenson’s novels while finding others a bit of a slog. I was skeptical of the premise of Seveneves (the Moon is mysteriously destroyed with disastrous consequences for Earth) because it seemed too simplistic and apocalyptic. Oh boy, was I wrong!
This book delves into the politics of hard choices, the costs of survival, and the small and large-scale tragedies that come during the unrest. The science in this book is astounding: orbital mechanics, genetic engineering, space construction, geophysics and biology, and on and on. But the humans at the heart of the story will win you over. This book stayed with me for a LONG TIME. Unforgettable.
The astounding new novel from the master of science fiction. President Barack Obama's summer reading choice and recently optioned by Ron Howard and IMAGINE to be made into a major motion picture.
What would happen if the world were ending?
When a catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb, it triggers a feverish race against the inevitable. An ambitious plan is devised to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere. But unforeseen dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain...
Five thousand years later, their progeny - seven distinct races now three…
I have long been fascinated by what makes us human. Great art is about the human condition. We are very quick to reject art that gets that human condition wrong. I’m a poet, a playwright, and a scientist. While my science has found itself at the center of fields such as computational psychiatry and neuroeconomics, I find myself turning again and again to the insights from great novels to understand the subtleties of the human condition. So to complement the scientific questions of morality (because morality is all about the human condition), one should start with great novels that ask who we are and why we do what we do.
A science fiction tale couched in the language of a novel study of academia, Anathem by Neal Stephenson describes a world in which monk-like academicians ensconce themselves away in “maths” which shut their doors to the world for a day, a year, a decade, a century, or a millennium.
A marvelous vision on what it means to study something, to understand it, and, thus to see the world from a different perspective.
Since childhood, Raz has lived behind the walls of a 3,400-year-old monastery, a sanctuary for scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians. There, he and his cohorts are sealed off from the illiterate, irrational, unpredictable "saecular" world, an endless landscape of casinos and megastores that is plagued by recurring cycles of booms and busts, dark ages and renaissances, world wars and climate change. Until the day that a higher power, driven by fear, decides it is only these cloistered scholars who have the abilities to avert an impending catastrophe. And, one by one, Raz and his friends, mentors, and teachers are summoned forth…
I like to think I’m the smart female protagonist of my own life. Each of the women I’ve described in this book calls out to me in some way. They’re misunderstood or devalued by the people around them. They know more than they’re given credit for. I think most women feel that to some degree. I think its understood now that representation matters. We all want to see ourselves in the media we take in. I saw myself in these protagonists, or I saw a need that these books would fill in my life if I lived in their worlds.
I can’t stop thinking about this book. The setting is Florida in the near future, where climate change has reached a point where the ocean is reclaiming the state. The book spans the entire life of the protagonist, Wanda. Wanda broke my heart. She suffered so much loss, none of which was her own fault. But, smart and curious, she found a way, led primarily by an older woman who took her under her wing.
I felt for Wanda as she lost her family and friends, dealt with bullies, and lost her home. And I cheered her on when she found ways to survive. Wanda is the light: the message of the book, which could easily have been horribly depressing, was that love will find a way—life will find a way if you give it room to breathe.
Set in the near future, this hopeful story of survival and resilience follows Wanda—a luminous child born out of a devastating hurricane—as she navigates a rapidly changing world: A “symphony of beauty and heartbreak” (Associated Press).
A Good Morning America Book Club pick · #1 Indie Next pick · LibraryReads pick · Book of the Month Club selection · Marie Claire #ReadWithMC book club selection · 2022 NPR “Book We Love” · New York Times Editors’ Choice
Florida is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels wreak gradual havoc on the state’s infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches…
A visit to the American Museum of Natural History when I was seven years old hooked me on dinosaurs and geology in general. I have maintained that passion to uncover the history of the earth with fieldwork on all seven continents, cutting-edge research, and teaching undergraduates to appreciate the implications of our tenancy on the planet, and our place within the solar system, the galaxy, and the wider universe.
Brannen examines the major mass extinctions in earth’s past and concurrent times of eruptions of massive floods of lava. He introduces us to the front-line researchers who are using the forensic tools of modern geology to uncover the connection between these titanic eruptions and the release of volcanic gases, severe greenhouse warming, ocean stagnation and eventual mass extinctions of life. This leads to the possibility that catastrophes can come from inside as well as outside the earth.
'A book about one apocalypse - much less five - could have been a daunting read, were it not for the wit, lyricism, and clarity that Peter Brannen brings to every page.' Ed Yong, author of I Contain Multitudes
Apocalypse, now?
Death by fire, ice, poison gas, suffocation, asteroid. At five moments through history life on Earth was dragged to the very edge of extinction.
Now, armed with revolutionary technology, scientists are uncovering clues about what caused these catastrophes. Deep-diving into past worlds of dragonflies the size of seagulls and fishes with guillotines for mouths, they explore how - against…
