Akis Linardos on ecofiction
If we’re clinical about it, eco-fiction is any sort of story where nature plays an important role in the plot. It can’t just be a fantastical environment in a space setting unless the flora or fauna messes with the ongoing events. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an adversarial force that grinds you down to make compost of your flesh (though I do love that kind of thing, it’s cathartic to be reminded of our place in nature’s structure when modern times show us the absurd heights of human arrogance) but it can also be the primary thing the characters try to protect.
Writing is an outlet for me, and I have both envisioned nature taking revenge, or characters larger-than-life protecting what I feel powerless to protect in the real world, and both shades are ecofiction.
Truthfully though, I am wired for dark stories, so the first bell to ring on my head at the sound of ecofiction is ecohorror and existentialism. It’s how I think of nature: this nonchalant, blind entity ruled by probabilities that creates everything by accident. It’s also inescapable: everything is interconnected, which can be both heartwarming and horrifying in a beautiful Vandermeer sort of way.
This interconnectedness becomes more horrific when it takes away your consent (or when you witness a character consent to things you never would), which can mean forcing you to be part of the vegetation like the elements of Annihilation, or an angler-fish sort of siren that lives in a burrow, pulling you in to make you food. What better way to remember you’re not above the life chain but still connected to it, than become the meal of something else?
Akis is a writer of bizarre things, a biomedical AI scientist, and maybe human. He also enjoys cooking, playing piano, gaming, and hanging out with new and old friends. His words have wormed their way into Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, Flame Tree, Cosmic Horror Monthly, and Uncharted, among others. Visit his lair for more: akislinardos.com
