Library Journal: The greenhouse effect has caused catastrophic changes to Earth's atmosphere, guaranteeing economic, social, and environmental collapse in the near future. When Dan Randolph and Martin Humphries enter a business partnership to seek new resources in the Asteroid Belt as the only means of saving the planet, only one of them has Earth's best interests in mind. Bova's latest novel, a series opener, highlights current environmental issues and scientific speculation while simultaneously telling a tale of heroes and villains that should appeal to most fans of hard sf. --Jackie Cassada (Reviewed October 15, 2001) (Library Journal, vol 126, issue 17, p113)

Life for package delivery worker Whipps changes forever the night he handles a box of thawing pig remains. By morning he is host to a virulent new parasite, one that releases mind-altering secretions as it wrecks massive internal damage. As Whipps’ existence becomes more and more surreal, a college professor pieces together the connection between a missing student and a trailer of mutilated swine. Her search takes her to a valley of toxic industry where she stumbles upon a nightmare of unregulated waste, clandestine animal research, and a depraved drug lord. And all the while Whipps’ stowaway is developing, preparing for the stage when it will bring back reality, with exponentially increasing pain.

An anthology of thirteen original science fiction stories about how to make the world a better place.

A mysterious life force called the Yrr takes control of various forms of marine life to exact revenge on humankind, as whales begin sinking ships, crabs poison the water supply, and a tsunami devastates the coastal regions of the world.

The world is threatened by dramatic climate change in this highly acclaimed and influential novel, one of the most important early works by the bestselling author of 'Cocaine Nights' and 'Super-Cannes'.

For thirty years, a secret agency called the Southern Reach has monitored expeditions into Area X—a remote and lush terrain mysteriously sequestered from civilization. After the twelfth expedition, the Southern Reach is in disarray, and John Rodriguez (aka “Control”) is the team’s newly appointed head. From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and more than two hundred hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the secrets of Area X begin to reveal themselves—and what they expose pushes Control to confront disturbing truths about both himself and the agency he’s promised to serve.

Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer. This is the twelfth expedition. Their group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.
They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them, and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another, that change everything.

Library Journal: /* Starred Review */ Born into a politically connected family, Jennifer Ramos Kennedy chooses to attend off-world Frontera College, an institution funded by the media and tribal casinos, where the best and the brightest go to hone their skills as the movers and shakers of the future. Though Jennifer mourns the unexpected death of her twin brother, she determines to make the most of her college experience even when disease-carrying insects and invasive biochemical agents threaten to destroy the college's delicate ecology. Set on a future Earth that has been environmentally compromised by alien "ultraphytes," plantlike organisms that can destroy the native flora, this first novel in a decade from a respected author of hard science fiction (A Door into Ocean; The Children Star) brings out the complexities and anguish of the teen years while portraying a bold community of the future with all its strengths and weaknesses. VERDICT Science fiction fans of all ages should enjoy this glimpse into a possible future at once disturbing and exciting by a graceful storyteller. --Jackie Cassada (Reviewed August 1, 2011) (Library Journal, vol 136, issue 13, p68)

NoveList: Environmental Hazard Enforcement officer Shan Frankland joins a mission to the remote planet of Cavanagh's Star, only to run afoul--along with the rest of her party and a small colony of fundamentalist humans--of the planet's guardian, Aras, an omnipotent being that will destroy anything--or anyone--that threatens the world's fragile native population.

Publishers Weekly: An outstanding achievement, the concluding volume in Robinson''s Orange County, Calif., trilogy again takes place in the middle of the next century. The books are not strict sequels, providing instead several versions of an alternate world. While The Wild Shore depicted a postnuclear holocaust society and The Gold Coast reflected a period of uncontrolled technological growth, this novel is set in an ecological utopia with a reduced population and rational use of renewable resources. Because utopias can be boring, Robinson generates action through several intertwined conflicts, combining the political and personal lives of his characters. The introduction of the newly hired town attorney provides a fresh insight into the community of El Modena and an external viewpoint on its citizens'' "usual array of Machiavellian battles," as do excerpts from a diary writtten in the past. The characters are fully developed and individually motivated; the reader identifies with them easily. Robinson''s writing ranks in the highest levels of the genre, and the last sentences of the book generate a soaring optimism. Taken together, the books of the trilogy invite interesting comparisons or their several worlds, but separately each is a completely independent, excellent story. (Dec.)

Booklist: The new novel by the best-selling author of the award-winning Mars trilogy (Red Mars, 1993; Blue Mars, 1994; and Green Mars, 1996) as well as 14 other books deals with the danger of global warming. His protagonist is Anna Quibler, a scientist at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Virginia. A chunk of the Ross Ice Shelf has broken off, a chunk more than half the size of France. The Arctic Ocean ice-pack breakup has flooded the surface of the North Atlantic with freshwater, and the hypernino, now into its forty-second month, has spun up another tropical system in the Pacific, north of the equator, and is barreling northeast toward California.

Booklist: The doyenne of Canadian literature (she's won both a Booker and a Giller Prize), the versatile Atwood has an uncanny ability to write in a number of literary genres. Like The Handmaid's Tale, her latest work is set in a near future that is all too realistic and almost too terrifying to contemplate. Having once led a life of comfort and self-indulgence, Jimmy, now known as Snowman, has survived an ecological disaster that has destroyed the world as we know it. As he struggles to function without everything he once knew, including time, Snowman reflects on the past, on his relationships with two characters named Oryx and Crake, and on the role of each individual in the destruction of the natural world. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/03.]—Caroline Hallsworth, City of Greater Sudbury, Ont. (Reviewed May 1, 2003) (Library Journal, vol 128, issue 8, p152)

After accidental contact with radioactive waste, Xavier Thaxton, an art critic for a great metropolitan newspaper and an avowed enemy of popular culture, is gradually forced to assume the role of a comic book superhero.

Library Journal: As global warming, environmental distress and political turmoil signal the catastrophic collapse of society in the mid-21st century, octogenarian Moira Burke and the residents of her California commune become the witnesses to the beginning of a new order of human existence. The author of Branch Point (Ace, 1996) brings the seminal events of the 20th century to life through the eyes of her aging protagonist in a thought-provoking novel that should appeal to New Agers and other fans of ecologically correct science fiction.

In 2137, fourteen-year-old Matt is stunned to learn that, as the clone of El Patrón, he is expected to take over as leader of the corrupt drug empire of Opium, where there is also a hidden cure for the ecological devastation faced by the rest of the world. 2014 Green Earth Book Award Honor Book.

Booklist: These are not subtle stories. Bacigalupi makes no secret of his social attitudes, but he handles political commentary with grace and packs a lot of thought into quite a small space. These pieces aren't just platforms for cultural critique; they're solid, fascinating world building. From the opener, "Pocketful of Dharma," in which a homeless orphan in Chengdu finds himself with the Dalai Lama's uploaded personality in his pocket, to the title story, in which the pumps that filter all the water and sewage of a decaying future New York begin to fail, Bacigalupi extrapolates from some of humanity's most dangerous behaviors to nightmarish futures. -- Schroeder, Regina (Reviewed 03-15-2008) (Booklist, vol 104, number 14, p37)

NoveList: Discovering that the polar ice caps are melting, flooding the world, followed by the return of frigid weather, climatologist Jack Hall races to reverse the ecological destruction and to rescue his rebellious son, trapped in a frozen New York City.

Library Journal: /* Starred Review */ Four hostages freed after five years of captivity by a Spanish extremist group vow to keep in touch. But with the oceans steadily rising and governments, corporations, and determined individuals battling for a solution, the hostages find themselves caught in currents of intrigue and politics. The best-selling author of the "Time's Tapestry" series takes a familiar doomsday scenario and gives it an unexpected twist of mythical proportions. The first of two books, this science fiction horror thriller presents hard science and theoretical plausibilities in a visceral and immediate style. A new post-apocalyptic science fiction classic that should appeal to fans of disaster fiction and Kim Stanley Robinson's eco-trilogy (e.g., Forty Signs of Rain). --Jackie Cassada (Reviewed May 15, 2009) (Library Journal, vol 134, issue 9, p68)

In 1980, Omega was "recent future" science fiction, and, although the setting is now, the premise still holds. Scientists have learned to tap the power of the earth's electro-magnetic field—put 150 kilowatts of power into two electrodes on opposite sides of the globe and get 4015 megawatts. They think the world's energy problems are over! Well, not quite . . . The conflict is between the forces of technology and greed and the gentle men and women who have respect for the land, are in touch with nature, and practice the "craft of the wise"—witchcraft. Omega is a book with a lesson: there is no time like the present to start healing the great mother. And this is the kind of book that can win people to the cause of so doing.

Publishers Weekly: Working from actual U.S. Navy reports, bestseller Buckell (Halo: The Cole Protocol) produces an intimate techno-thriller about an ecological showdown in an ice-free Arctic. Anika Duncan, a U.N. airship pilot, records a radiation signal and is thrust into the hunt for a stolen nuclear weapon. Suspecting a traitor within her own agency, she turns to her contacts inside the Arctic underworld to discover who is introducing tiny airborne mirrors into the polar atmosphere. --Staff (Reviewed December 12, 2011) (Publishers Weekly, vol 258, issue 50, p)