The best climate change thrillers

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been interested in the environment, ever since I studied Human Ecology under Professor Roger Revelle at Harvard. Several summer jobs in the Arctic with the Geological Survey of Canada gave me an early appreciation of what climate change meant for the polar region, and a more recent visit to Greenland brought the environmental devastation there more into focus. Also, having escaped from Communist Hungary in 1956, I have keenly followed Russia and its superpower ambitions, so it was natural for me to combine these two areas of interest into an environmental thriller. I am now writing a sequel, Arctic Inferno.


I wrote...

Arctic Meltdown

By Geza Tatrallyay,

Book cover of Arctic Meltdown

What is my book about?

Arctic Meltdown, a gripping environmental thriller, is set against the backdrop of the melting polar icecap and the ensuing jostling for jurisdiction over additional seabed resources. Hanne Kristensen, a beautiful Danish geologist, has to contend with a corrupted UN process, China's growing interest in Arctic resources and maritime routes, Russian military aggression, and the resulting international tension to try to save the world from war and the Arctic from environmental catastrophe. A potential complication in this real-life situation is that resource-rich but population-poor Greenland is egged on toward independence from Denmark by Chinese money and Russian military domination—toward the eventual possible outcome of annexation. This is a book that presages what is actually happening in the Arctic today.

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The SOOF

Geza Tatrallyay Why did I love this book?

This is the kind of book I love, based on deep knowledge of and research into the subject, with the construction of a highly, engaging, gripping plot. You get both learning and titillation. In this book, the lovely environmental scientist, Dr. Samantha Stone is tasked by the US president to lead a submarine mission with Captain Ira Coen to seek out and destroy “The SOOF”, a secret command and control facility in the Sea of Okhotsk built by renegade parties in the Russian military. The mission is fraught with danger, but its success is critical for both sides and the survival of the world.

By Samuel G. Tooma,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The SOOF as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Dr. Samantha Stone, a civilian environmental scientist, is thrust into the middle of the male-dominated nuclear submarine world when the president tasks her to help plan a suicide mission in the Sea of Okhotsk. The objective: to locate and destroy a top-secret Russian command and control facility called the SOOF.

The SOOF has been built out of sight, under the waves and sea-ice canopy of the Okhotsk, to support a Russian military coup that has been in the works for ten years-a coup that is only the first step on the path to world domination. Critical to both sides, the…


Book cover of Chilly Winds

Geza Tatrallyay Why did I love this book?

As with the previous book, this one too shows the author’s deep knowledge of the subject and his ability to weave that into a gripping thriller. Here too, you get both learning and titillation. In this book, Brooks Yeager, a former advisor to the Arctic Council and environmental negotiator, combines the high-stakes dynamics of international Arctic politics and many of the critical environmental issues facing us there and elsewhere, with other key ingredients such as well-constructed characters, lots of romance and an engaging plot to create a book you cannot put down.

By Brooks B. Yeager,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Chilly Winds as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

2021 American Fiction Award Winner in Adventure: General

Taz Blackwell, former environmental negotiator and now a trouble-seeking drinker and romantic charmer, tries to find a new life and love against a backdrop of espionage, corporate plunderers, and devious diplomats.

Escaping a failed marriage, Taz moves to the island of Chincoteague on Virginia's Atlantic Coast, where he explores friendships with a cast of small-town misfits and romance with a beautiful but wary divorcee. Meanwhile, he fights a corporate land grab on the shore and a shady billion-dollar mining play in the international Arctic.

Why is a Chinese mining conglomerate stealing the…


Book cover of Tipping Point

Geza Tatrallyay Why did I love this book?

As with most of the other thrillers among the five on my list, this one too—like Rosser’s other novels in the genre—combines solid research and scientific knowledge with gripping international intrigue. Robert Spire, an environmental lawyer, and British GLENCOM (Global Environmental Command) agent is hired to look into the mysterious deaths of two climatologists. Tracked by a sexy Russian spy, he gets enmeshed in uncovering an international conspiracy to melt the Arctic polar ice cap and bring the world to environmental disaster.

By Simon Rosser,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Tipping Point as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Ecological disaster looms in the Arctic. An eminent climatologist drops dead in his London apartment. Appointed executor and lawyer, Robert Spire is about to have his life turned upside down... Having relocated from London to Wales to run his own law firm, Spire is contacted by Doris Stanton, mother of the late UK climatologist Dr. Dale Stanton, with a request that he finds a suitable home for her dead son's legacy - a large sum left to global warming organisations. Spire sets out to investigate, but soon realises his life is in danger as he uncovers a conspiracy with far…


Book cover of Climate Change, Incorporated: A New Environmental Thriller

Geza Tatrallyay Why did I love this book?

This underrated novel is interesting because it extrapolates the story of climate change to a new level, where mankind believes it has developed a technological solution to the problem, but the question becomes how real a solution is this? It brings into focus whether the technical solutions our scientists may come up with to control the weather and reverse climate change, will indeed work or not. Petra Sands joins Climate Change, Incorporated, a multinational that has developed a device to regulate the climate that it positions between the sun and the earth. Initially, everything goes according to plan with this technological solution to the evils of climate change, but then things start to unravel…

By Darcy S. Law,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Climate Change, Incorporated as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When Petra Sands takes a job with Climate Change, Incorporated, she assumes it will be low stress, low responsibility - just what she wants after being let go from a stressful job. After all, how hard can it be to give weather reports when the weather has already been planned? Soon she will find herself having the most responsibility of anyone in modern society - if it lasts. As the multi-national company releases a device between the earth and sun to regulate climate, all seems to be running perfectly: global temperatures cool, tornados and hurricanes are un-wound before they can…


Book cover of Drought

Geza Tatrallyay Why did I love this book?

This book is different in perspective from the other ones on my list, since it focuses on climate change caused drought and the actions individual human beings might have to resort to in the face of the stresses of the environment and a corrupt political world. Yet this is an engaging climate change-related thriller, more at the micro-level. Ex-Marine Martin Makepeace is faced with dire choices as he has to save his loved ones in a world where water has become an impossible scarce resource…

By Graham Masterton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Drought as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

What would happen if the water ran out?

Ex-Marine Martin Makepeace only learned the truth of the maxim that you don't know what you have until you lose it, the day his wife walked out on him with their two kids. Now, the social worker does his best to take care of those who need it most.

But good deeds mean nothing when the water just . . . disappears. It hasn't rained for months, and now, in the height of summer, the taps run dry. And not, as they first suspect, because of a burst water main. In the…


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Book cover of Dulcinea

Ana Veciana-Suarez Author Of Dulcinea

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I became fascinated with 16th-century and 17th-century Europe after reading Don Quixote many years ago. Since then, every novel or nonfiction book about that era has felt both ancient and contemporary. I’m always struck by how much our environment has changed—transportation, communication, housing, government—but also how little we as people have changed when it comes to ambition, love, grief, and greed. I doubled down my reading on that time period when I researched my novel, Dulcinea. Many people read in the eras of the Renaissance, World War II, or ancient Greece, so I’m hoping to introduce them to the Baroque Age. 

Ana's book list on bringing to life the forgotten Baroque Age

What is my book about?

Dolça Llull Prat, a wealthy Barcelona woman, is only 15 when she falls in love with an impoverished poet-solder. Theirs is a forbidden relationship, one that overcomes many obstacles until the fledgling writer renders her as the lowly Dulcinea in his bestseller.

By doing so, he unwittingly exposes his muse to gossip. But when Dolça receives his deathbed note asking to see her, she races across Spain with the intention of unburdening herself of an old secret.

On the journey, she encounters bandits, the Inquisition, illness, and the choices she's made. At its heart, Dulcinea is about how we betray the people we love, what happens when we succumb to convention, and why we squander the few chances we get to change our lives.

3 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in drought, tropical cyclones, and gender roles?

10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about drought, tropical cyclones, and gender roles.

Drought Explore 19 books about drought
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Gender Roles Explore 118 books about gender roles