EVERY day brings fresh and ever more alarming news about the state of the global environment. To speak of mere climate change is now inadequate, for we are in a climate emergency. It seems as though we are tripping over more tipping points than we knew existed.

But our awareness is at last catching up with the planet’s climate catastrophes. Climate anxiety, climate trauma and climate strikes are now part of many people’s mental landscape and daily lives. This is almost four decades after scientists first began to warn of accelerated global warming caused by carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere.

And so, unsurprisingly, climate fiction, climate-change fiction, “cli-fi” — whatever you want to call it — has emerged as a literary trend that’s gained astonishing traction over the past 10 years.