From Rachel Carson to Annie Dillard to Barbara Kingsolver, environmental writing has a strong foundation, but environmental fantasy—not so much. Google it and science fiction tends to crop up, or eco-fiction which is its own fabulous sub-genre that tends to sell the urgent message right at the ticket window. E F allows us to read for the pleasure of escaping into the story, and as Madeleine L'Engle once advised in Walking on Water, Reflections on Faith and Art, not allowing the higher purpose of the work to parade "like a slip hanging below the hem of a dress" makes a much stronger impact anyway.
If the resonating message of our work is environmental responsibility, writers must show a call to stewardship, by all means lavishly concealing our warning within the land of make-believe. This is where Environmental Fantasy has the advantage of drawing believers in by not over preaching.
So what does this subtle sub-genre look like? Time to peruse the classroom shelves for some iconic examples, the most obvious being Richard Adams' beloved classic, Watership Down. Told from the perspective of a rabbit, this character-driven story enchants, thrills and makes the heart race, while the threatening environmental message looms in the background right where it belongs. Adams shows us what it would be like to live in a warren on the edge of environmental disaster. We are forever changed, never again to dismiss a field with a real estate sign staked through its heart.
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Other examples of EF would be Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies which certainly raised a ruckus with its parallels to Watership, and Dr. Seuss's The Lorax. Although it's a picture book, the story has all the elements of EF: a voice crying in the wilderness against human destruction; a world built with fantastic, anthropomorphic species; and a setting in the here and now, or at least not so far away in time or space as Dystopian or Sci-Fi.
What world building has to take place before the EF story even begins! When it comes to setting, scale is important. Are we waist high to a wildflower or towering like starfish islands? What compels us to go back to this world that is so different and yet so like our own?
