Staying Mobile in Postapocalyptic Cli-Fi

This chapter examines how the rising popularity since the 1990s of works of postapocalyptic cli-fi (i.e. climate change fiction) has provided science fiction writers a convenient opportunity to explore issues of mobility and transportation. After first examining an early postapocalyptic cli-fi work from the 1990s by Octavia E. Butler, the chapter then advances this book’s chronological analysis to some twenty-first century works of science fiction. In its discussion of a novel by Paolo Bacigalupi and one by Benjamin Parzybok, this chapter shows how more restrained modes of transport play a vital role during times of apocalypse in keeping a society functioning and keeping us as individuals from slipping into disempowerment.