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Eco-disaster novels--can anybody recommend some good ones?

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raccoon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-23-08 11:38 AM
Original message
Eco-disaster novels--can anybody recommend some good ones?
(That is, scientifically sound, and believable.)

I enjoyed this one, from some time ago:

The Sheep Look Up is a science fiction novel by British author John Brunner, first published in 1972. The novel's setting is decidedly dystopian, the book dealing with the deterioration of the environment in the United States. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1972.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sheep_Look_Up
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phantom power Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-23-08 11:44 AM
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1. There is a recent trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson:
Forty Signs of Rain
Fifty Degrees Below
Sixty Days and Counting

I've been calling them the "Younger Dryas" trilogy, because they loosely revolve around a Younger Dryas event, made famous in "Day After Tomorrow"
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phantom power Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-23-08 11:46 AM
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I also liked "Mother of Storms" and "Heavy Weather"
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NEOhiodemocrat Donating Member (624 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-26-08 08:54 PM
Response to Reply #1
4. thanks for the recommendation phantom power
I went to the library and am started on Fourty Signs of Rain and am really enjoying it.
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Forkboy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-16-09 11:05 AM
Response to Reply #1
9. KSR is my favorite author.
For me, the guy can do no wrong.
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Dogmudgeon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-23-08 11:46 AM
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2. "The End Of The Dream" (Philip Wylie, 1970)
A classic from the fellow who gave us When Worlds Collide.

Just move the dates back 30 years.

--p!
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YankeyMCC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-23-08 01:16 PM
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3. Check out Paolo Bacigalupi
Edited on Wed Apr-23-08 01:33 PM by YankeyMCC
Not a novel but a collection of stories "PUMP SIX AND OTHER STORIES", I haven't read them all (I don't have the collection - yet - but I've read several of the stories in their original published locations)

http://windupstories.com/pumpsix/

On Edit: You can see a sample of the story "Yellow Card Man" here http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_06122/yellowcard.shtml

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annette101 Donating Member (1 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-14-09 04:45 PM
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5. I have two; looking for more
HI, here are two:
Flood, by Stephen Baxter. He has a sequel coming out this month.

The Swarm, by Frank Schatzing. Really good.

Both, scientifically plausible.

Let me know if you read any other good ones. Thanks!
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david13 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-14-09 09:46 PM
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6. If you are interested in eco disaster I recommend you try the non-tiction
section.
There are some excellent books there, true stories. Truth is stranger than fiction.
dc
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david13 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-14-09 09:50 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. There was a good one on tv yesterday about the RocketDyne
nuclear reactor accident in 1959 in Simi Valley, an area of the San Fernando valley of Los Angeles, which released more radiation that 3 Mile Island (maybe 100 times more) and was completely covered up by the Atomic Energy Commission at the time.
The reactor had no containment building. It was just in an ordinary metal industrial building.
So the radiation was just released. And ignored.
dc
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Greyskye Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-15-09 01:33 PM
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8. "Zodiac" is a great eco-thriller
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Forkboy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-16-09 11:07 AM
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10. Going back a bit, but War Day is a good one.


Warday is a novel by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka, first published in 1984. It is a fictionalized account of two reporters traveling across America five years after a limited nuclear attack in order to assess how the nation had changed after the war. The novel takes the form of a research article and is written in first-person narrative form. It includes fictionalized government documents and interviews with individuals regarding the events and aftermath of the war.

As an aside, I'm convinced that Max Brooks has read this book, as World War Z takes much the same approach.
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pitohui Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-16-09 04:14 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. everyone read that book, it was a huge best seller
Edited on Wed Sep-16-09 04:14 PM by pitohui
back in those days strieber was actually a legitimate author
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Onceuponalife Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-17-09 12:22 AM
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12. I enjoyed Ill Wind by Kevin J. Anderson
All the oil in the world is destroyed (including petroleum products like plastic). Chaos ensues.
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