In late 2023, I was invited by Shepherd to post an article of my favourite three reads of 2023. I had earlier posted on Shepherd an article describing what I considered to be the best eco-fiction books that make you care and give you hope.
I started out by reviewing what I had read in 2023. It looked like I’d read about thirty odd books, almost half and half non-fiction to fiction. That’s not many, but I’m a slow reader. I pore through each book at a snail’s pace, spending time making notes with some, particularly the non-fiction books, which I use to research my writing. With fiction, I dive in deep and thoroughly savor each word and sentence like a mouthful of an excellent meal made with loving hands. Books varied from non-fiction scholarly works on forest ecosystems (The Treeline by Ben Rawlence) and post-capitalism (Four Futures by Peter Frase) to literary fiction, political thrillers, speculative fiction, clifi, and eco-fiction.
It was a tough choice, but I came up with three choices and a thematic rationale that resonated with me and made a deep kind of sense for that year: all three books were eco-fiction of sorts and featured hopeful stories of strong women, acting out of compassion and in solidarity with intelligence, kindness and courage. For me, 2023 was a year of strong feminine energy for the planet and my favourite books reflect that. Here they are (read the original article on Shepherd here):
The first of my favourite three books of 2023 is Michelle Min Sterling’s Camp Zero.
Set in the remote Canadian north—a place I love for its harsh beauty—this feminist climate fiction explores a warming climate through the perilous journeys of several female characters, each relating to her environment in different ways. Each woman exerts agency in surprising ways that include love, bravery and shared community. The strength of female power carried me through the pages like a braided river heading to a singular ocean. These very different women journey through the dark ruins of violent capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy—flowing past and through hubristic men pushing north with agendas and jingoistic visions—to triumph in an ocean of solidarity. I empathized with each woman as she found her strength and learned to wield true heroism—one based on collaboration and humble honesty.
My second favourite book of 2023 is Yevgeni Zamyatin’s We.
I enjoyed this 1920 hopeful dystopia for its courageous and unprecedented feminism.
While the story centres on logical D-503, a man vacuously content as a number in the One State, it is I-330—Zamyatin’s unruly heroine—who stole my attention. Confident, powerful and heroic, the liberated I-330 embraces the Green Wind of change to influence D-503. A force of hope and resilience, she braves torture to successfully orchestrate a revolution that breaches the Green Wall—feats typically relegated to a male protagonist in novels of that era.When pregnant O-90 refuses to surrender her child to the State, I-330 helps her escape to the outside, where the Green Wind of freedom blows.I resonated with Zamyatin’s cautionary tale on the folly of logic without love and Nature.
My third favourite book of 2023 is Hugh Howie’s Wool (first of the SILO series).
Juliette—humble and gutsy, kind and relentlessly motivated in her journey for the truth—kept the pages turning for me. Juliette is a mechanic from the Down-Deep of the underground Silo, humanity’s last refuge to a toxic world. When Juliette inexplicably lands the job of sheriff, she treats her new position as a tool to seek the truth about her lover’s mysterious recent death. At her own peril, she pulls on threads that ultimately reveal a great conspiracy.
Juliette’s literal and metaphoric rise from the Down-Deep to the Up-Top is a feminist’s journey that transcends intersectional barriers as she battles small-minded men of power and maintains her integrity by refusing to abide by the inhumane Up-Top rules of order. By the end, I sensed a victory for humankind through womankind.
Also check out Shepherd’s 100 best books of 2023.
You might be interested in two of my own eco-fiction novels that feature several strong female protagonists:
Darwin’s Paradox follows the complex dynamic of a brave mother and her willful teenage daughter, both ‘gifted’ by a virus living inside them. Accused of murder and deliberately spreading the virus that killed many, Julie fled the enclosed city and settled in the climate wastelands with her husband and their child. Years later, when their harsh refuge is threatened by city forces seeking mother and daughter for experimentation, Julie leaves her family and gives herself up to the city, hoping they will abandon pursuing her daughter. Still psychically connected to the city’s AI community (now evolving into an autonomous entity with the intelligent virus), Julie tangles with political intrigue while her daughter, who followed her to the city, stumbles into her mother’s violent past.
A Diary in the Age of Water follows the climate-induced journey of Earth and humanity through four generations of women, each with a unique relationship to water. Centuries from now, in a dying boreal forest in what used to be northern Canada, Kyo, a young acolyte called to service in the Exodus, yearns for Earth’s past—the Age of Water—before the “Water Twins” destroyed humanity. Looking for answers and plagued by vivid dreams of this holocaust, Kyo discovers the diary of Lynna, a limnologist from that time of severe water scarcity just prior to the destruction. In her work for a global giant that controls Earth’s water, Lynna witnesses and records in her diary the disturbing events that will soon lead to humanity’s demise.
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