Our Shared Storm tells the overlapping stories of four characters as they play out in five different future scenarios. Each of the five parts of the book takes place in the year 2054 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Conference of the Parties—better known as the COP—as a superstorm approaches. The characters’ roles, motivations, and actions differ, though, as a result of how their worlds have dealt or failed to deal with the effects of climate change.

There’s Diya, whose job is different in each story, but who is consistently a power player within the world of climate negotiations. There’s Luis, a Buenos Aires local who exists around the periphery of the conference, from being a driver in one story to a kidnapper in another. There’s Saga, a climate activist (and in one story, a pop star) whose level of pessimism—and comfort—in dealing with government delegates oscillates from part to part. And then there’s Noah, whom Hudson described as his “personal id,” a mid-level U.S. delegate (or, in the same story as pop star Saga, an exploitative entrepreneur) who has limited control over his country’s commitments but who does what he can to grease the diplomatic wheels.

“I got this idea of these four characters and figured out how to sort of remix them each time,” Hudson said. “It’s really fun to do [that], to take your characters and rethink who they are in all these different ways. One thing you can do then is try to find these moments of opportunity and figure out where your characters swerve, and then figure out what that says about the different worlds.”

In a blurb for Our Shared Storm, the celebrated science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson wrote that Hudson succeeded in finding creative ways to explore those swerves and the worlds that led to them.

“Hudson has found a way,” Robinson wrote, “to strike together the various facets of our climate future, sparking stories that are by turns ingenious, energetic, provocative, and soulful.”

Negotiating the Future

The book’s futures are based on a set of climate-modeling scenarios called the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, or SSPs, which were developed by climate experts in the 2010s and used in the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment report in 2021. The scenarios range from “Sustainability,” in which aggressive climate goals are met and a more utopian future takes shape, to “Middle of the Road,” a continuation of current trends of inequality and consumption, to three more dire possibilities—“Regional Rivalry,” “Inequality,” and “Fossil-Fueled Development”—each of which would bring its own variety of high-level threats.

Hudson came across the SSP framework after starting the master’s degree program in sustainability at Arizona State University’s Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation in 2017 and realized that it laid out scenarios for the future much in the same way that so much speculative fiction does, and in this case, with the explicit backing of scientific research.

“As soon as I read about [the SSPs], I was like, ‘Oh, these are science fiction stories,’” he recalled.

After visiting the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Vienna, which houses the SSP database, and meeting with scholars there to talk further about their research, Hudson realized that by writing five futures set in the same time and place with the same characters, he could eliminate variables and make it a kind of experiment.

“Originally,” he said, “a big part of the way I framed it as a master’s thesis was, ‘I’m going to do practice-based research to analyze my own experience writing these stories and figure out just how hard or easy it is to create literature based on scientific models and rigorous ideas about the climate.’”

Then, in December 2018, a member of his thesis committee at ASU, Sonja Klinsky, arranged for him to be part of the university’s observer delegation at COP24 in Katowice, Poland. Attending the conference, and thinking about the storytelling possibilities of a hypothetical climate event affecting that kind of event, helped him flesh out the book’s structure.

“When I talked with IIASA, we had thought, ‘How does each scenario handle a climate shock?’” Hudson said. “What could show how, [if]a superstorm hits, each scenario handles it differently based on the investments they’ve made?”

In the book, the storm is very strong and causes damage in each scenario, but local and global communities’ ability to deal with that damage—and the levels of suffering and violence that go with it—vary widely.

An Intellectual Journey and a Speculative Movement

Hudson grew up in St. Louis and moved to New York City to enroll at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, where he majored in political science with a minor in creative writing. He also was the opinions editor for the The Observer, the award-winning student newspaper at the Lincoln Center campus.

“The Observer, doing the opinions page, writing a column—all those things definitely were steps on my intellectual journey … of being really keen on stories about arguments,” Hudson said. “And I think discovering that I liked talking to people about their writing was a big discovery that happened there.”

After graduating in 2009, he spent a year working as a journalist in India, where he had studied abroad as a Fordham undergrad, and when he got back to the States, he became a reporter at the St. Louis edition of Patch. From there, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he did freelance writing and political and nonprofit consulting.

In 2015, Hudson wrote an essay called “On the Political Dimensions of Solarpunk,” which laid out the practical implications of an aesthetic movement that portrays a utopian future in which solar energy is harnessed creatively to build beautiful, sustainable cities and communities. Like the dystopian cyberpunk genre before it, solarpunk is more than just an art movement—it was meant to portray real possibilities for how the world might look in the future.

When trying to define the term in the essay, Hudson wrote, “Let’s tentatively call it a speculative movement: a collaborative effort to imagine and design a world of prosperity, peace, sustainability, and beauty, achievable with what we have from where we are.”

Hudson met, around that time, another writer and futurist thinker, Adam Flynn, who in 2014 had written an essay on solarpunk. The two co-wrote a short story, “Sunshine State,” that won the first Everything Change Climate Fiction Contest sponsored by ASU’s Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative. Seeing the work that was taking place there led Hudson to apply to the university’s sustainability master’s program, from which he graduated in 2020. In addition to his work as a fiction writer, Hudson has stayed on as a fellow at the Center for Science and the Imagination’s Imaginary College, which partners with individuals and groups “advancing [the] mission of fresh, creative, and ambitious thinking about the future.” The college counts Robinson among its resident philosophers, along with other notable writers like Margaret Atwood, Neal Stephenson, and Bruce Sterling.

And while Our Shared Storm began as his master’s thesis, with its publication by Fordham University Press, Hudson hopes that it can help a wider audience see that we still have options for what our climate future will look like.

Science Fiction as an Impetus to Action

While Hudson does believe that speculative fiction can help people imagine a brighter future, he said stories alone can’t save the world.

“I think they’re a necessary, if not sufficient, part of the process, [and] we need a huge tidal wave of mobilization that includes a huge amount of culture making. We’re going to need art. We’re going to need music. We’re going to need TV shows that do for solar panels what TV and movies did for cars back in the ’50s and ’60s, [making] car culture cool. We’re going to have to do that for these technologies of sustainability.”

But without massive organizing and political action, Hudson believes, “we could figure out how to communicate this to the public in a really effective way and still lose.”

Our Shared Storm touches on the conflicts that often arise when people and communities want to effect change—is it easier to accomplish goals through established political systems or through grassroots work that doesn’t rely upon state action?

Hudson has described solarpunk as a countercultural movement. “It should not be about the people in power,” he said recently. “It should be about the people who are not in power, who are sort of challenging those systems.” But after witnessing firsthand—and writing about—the geopolitical mechanisms that dominate spaces such as the annual COP meetings, he has come to appreciate the need to work within traditional political and diplomatic systems.

“I think learning how the institutions work—the national, local, and state governments that are trying to implement the treaties—and then kind of inserting yourself into those processes can be really powerful,” he said. “The stories are there to help people understand these dynamics and institutions, and help them get a little smarter about policy, get a little more strategic about where they put their efforts, [so they’re] not going to get taken for a ride.”

In Our Shared Storm’s most optimistic story, a strong labor movement is key to influencing government policy, and while he acknowledged that there is no one easy solution, Hudson believes that the working class uniting—and pushing for things like a Green New Deal through general strikes—has the potential to positively shape the path ahead.

So, with the scenarios laid out, and with some ideas about the actions necessary to avoid the worst-case ones, what kind of climate future does Hudson see us moving toward? That kind of prognosticating, he insisted, is not part of his project.

“What I was interested in was how we’re shaped by opportunities and material conditions,” Hudson said, harking back to his characters’ changing circumstances and swerving fates.

“All these things that I think end up shaping our lives—those were kind of the pivot points that I wanted [to show readers]. The point being that climate and the investments we make to deal with it are going to be a big factor in shaping those pivot points for billions of people.”

“Touching the Face of the Cosmos: On the Intersection of Space Travel and Religion,” was inspired by the 2015 anthology of the same name, that was edited by Paul Levinson, Ph.D., professor of communications.

In one of the day’s panels, Levinson, fellow Fordham communications professor Lance Strate, Ph.D.,and novelists Alex Shvartsman and David Walton sat for a wide-ranging discussion, “Science Fiction Looks at Space Travel and Religion.”

“As far as we can tell, we alone not only adapt our environment, we change our environment,” said Levinson. “There’s one form of literature that addresses those quintessentially human activities. That is science fiction.”

Panelists discussed works they felt most profoundly melded issues of faith and science fiction. For Walton, C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy (Scribner, 1996) —is the most provocative illustration of the intersection of faith and science. Shvartsman cited Stranger in a Strange Land, (Ace, 1987) by Robert A. Heinlein. The main character comes back from to Earth, having been raised by Martians.

“He’s been completely removed from human culture, so the book is seeing humanity through his eyes, and how he essentially starts a brand-new religion. It’s about what a religion is, and how one might be started, which I feel is both fresh and radical.”

Strate made a case for H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, in part because Wells was a student of Thomas Henry Huxley, who was known as “Darwin’s bulldog.” In the end of the story, when aliens are felled by disease, Wells speaks of “the humblest things that God, in his wisdom put upon this earth.” Strate said this was originally a reference to natural selection. In the 1953 film adaptation of the story, however a priest who is acting as a peace envoy is vaporized; an act that is treated as the aliens’ first—or original—sin. The same line of dialogue thus takes on a much more religious tone when they perish at the end.

“Religion is trying to find answers to core questions like ‘Who I am?’, ‘Where did I come from?’, ‘What is my purpose in life?’, and ‘Where are we going?” said Walton.

“These are the stories that science fiction writers grapple with whether they explicitly deal with religion or not.”

As for the genre’s effects on religion, when Star Wars: The Last Jedi came out, Strate noted that an op ed appeared in the magazine Tablet that criticized it as “Reformed Jedi-ism,” a none-too-subtle jab at Reform Judaism.

“There was something very positive that anyone could be a Jedi and be in touch with the Force. It was missing from all of Lucas’ work, but at the end of the last Jedi, they suddenly introduced this idea,” he said.

In many ways, Shvartsman said, science fiction writers are advance scouts for philosophers and religious leaders.

“If we develop interstellar flight, and humanity does spread to the stars, what will happen if the Messiah comes? Will he go around collecting people off those planets, or are people who leave Earth screwed? If we meet aliens and they’re intelligent, do they have souls?

“These are all really complicated questions, and the good thing for us science fiction writers is we don’t have to answer them. That’s not our job. Our job is to ask the question. But asking the question will give everyone else time to consider them and come up with eventual answers before the science catches up with the fiction.”

The conference also featured panels discussions “Triangulating Creed: Identifying Memories that Form Values (A Creed), which Portray a Future” and “What Little Children See in Space,” and a keynote speech, “Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?” by Guy Consolmagno, S.J., director of the Vatican Observatory.

It’s safe to say this is the first year that a fishman/woman romance flick has been nominated for Tinselstown’s top award. We sat down with assistant professor of Spanish Miguel Garcia, Ph.D., who is an expert in Mexican literature, cinema, and science fiction. Movie buffs beware: Spoilers ahead!

Full transcript below

Patrick Verel: This year, one of the 10 films fighting for the Oscar’s Best Picture Award is The Shape of Water, a film by Mexican Director Guillermo del Toro. And it’s safe to say that it’s probably the most romance flick between a fish man and a mute woman to fight for the top award.

I’m Patrick Verel, and my guest today is professor Miguel García, an expert on both Mexican literature and cinema and Mexican science fiction. Now, a warning for some of you film buffs out there, there may be spoilers in our conversation.

So, what did you think of the film?

Miguel García: I loved the film. I was surprised by the visuals of the film. I was also surprised by the music. Not really a fan of musicals, but I think that the music aspect of it was very well done. For me, that was one of the main reasons why I liked the film, that it was very elegant in the way it resolved different things. This strange relationship between a mute and a creature might be either a great idea for a science fiction film or also, a ridiculous idea.

The structure of the film was very straightforward, but then this relation was very transgressive, the relationship between, well, this inter-species relationship. And to me that was an unexpected way to carry the film, but also, with two characters that don’t speak alike. That was also very interesting, how he was able to connect these two experiences without resorting to language, to verbal language. Because of course there’s communication, but it’s non-verbal.

To me the aspect that struck the most in this movie was the respect that del Toro has for the monster, because even though he’s a monster and he has some human characteristics, he definitely remains a monster throughout the film. When I was waiting for the movie to come out, I was scared that he was going to somehow humanize the monster too much, so the monster would end up being just like a regular human. But he didn’t. I mean, you see when he eats a cat, the creature. That also speaks of that political commentary in the idea of being able to be you even if you are an other.

Patrick Verel: Now, you studied Mexican science fiction. What does distinguishes it from other kinds of science fiction?

Miguel García: One of the things that has been a distinctive feature of Mexican science fiction is the way it combines different genres. You usually have science fiction elements, but you also have horror elements and fantasy elements and comedy elements. So, it’s a strange mix that usually works very well when you watch those movies, especially from the 50s and 60s. And the thing that holds them together, I think, it’s the character of the ‘luchador’ or wrestler. So they would fight aliens but then also, monsters, and then also witches. They would be like the glue that holds everything together.

So now we have this new way of Mexican filmmakers who are doing science fiction. But the difference now is that they’re not using wrestlers. They’re not interested in that imagery of the 50’s and 60’s, because one the criticisms of that period is that they were low budget films.

Patrick Verel: Well, that brings me to the next question is, where do you see this movie within that genre?

Miguel García: I don’t see direct connection to the images or sounds from the Mexican movies. But here what I see is more a connection to his first feature film, which was shot in Mexico and is called Cronos. In that film you have this old man who finds a device that gives him eternal life, but also turns him into a vampire. And in that movie you have his granddaughter who does not speak, and they have this strange bond. Maybe in The Shape of Water, he’s not doing that very explicitly, but I think that he’s drawn from the underlying connections to it, like the combination of genres, as you mention, the go back to comedy, to horror, to fantasy. I think that’s definitely the connection to science fiction.

Patrick Verel: When you think about works that he’s done that really harken back to his heritage…

Miguel García: I would say Cronos and Pan’s Labyrinth. And Pan’s Labyrinth, if you remember you also have this very authoritarian figure. You have a general who is also very obsessed with control. As in The Shape of Water you have Strickland. So you have … and also very strong female characters who are rebelling against that power.

I think that he’s very interested in that character, who is usually male. In this you have the added characteristic of being a white middle-class male.

Patrick Verel: I want to talk a little bit about some of the social commentary. There was one particular scene. There’s a rather biting observation from a general who actually says to Colonel Strickland, the main villain, he says … and I quote, “Decency is an export. We sell it because we don’t use it.”

Miguel García: In The Shape of Water you can very clearly see these political commentaries like the one you mentioned, but I’m not as sure that he’s attacking American culture per se. I think that what he is criticizing is the idea of authoritarianism in all of its forms. So I think that in this case, the authority is reflected in this white middle-class male that is very driven. He wants to use the monster to have an edge in the cold war against the Russians. He wants to use the creature. He’s not interested in any other interesting things that the creature might offer. He’s just interested in the utilitarian aspect of it. And I think that that’s what del Toro is criticizing in this movie and in other movies, the utilitarian drive that many people have, the individualistic aspects of culture that do not let us see or form a community. What he wants to point out is that when we do that, when we focus only in that, we tend to exclude other forms that are different from our expectation.

Patrick Verel: One of your research interests is the intersection of eugenics and race in Mexican sci-fi, so you must’ve caught when the villain … again, this is Colonel Strickland who’s white, and says to Octavia Spencer’s character, who is black, that the Lord looks, and I quote, “Just like me or even you. A little like me. More like me, I guess.”

Miguel García: I definitely made that connection, as well. The point of eugenics is to create homogeneity. The interesting thing with Octavia Spencer’s character, but then also with Elisa’s neighbor, who is a gay character, and then with the monster, is that they are different. All these monsters, I think that they disturb the eugenic model by being different, by being anomalist to the system.

In other countries that employed eugenics, one way to deal with difference was to assimilate, to combine it, to create something new with that difference … to make a new race, let’s say. Like in Mexico, you have this idea of a cosmic race, the idea that all races would combine into a more perfect fifth race.

But in the U.S., eugenics dealt with difference by erasing it. So here, the ambition of this character, Strickland, is to kill the monster at the end. He doesn’t want the monster to survive because it’s the evidence that there’s something outside of his frame of reference.

In the movie, you see that with the monster but also with the other characters that also … Eliza is a good example because she’s also an anomaly because she cannot speak. She would be in the eugenic model, one subject that’s does not deserve to live or does not deserve to reproduce. And here, when you see the sexual act with the monster, you see that fear of reproduction. Because, as I was watching that, I was thinking, “Well, what if the film presents at the end that they have a son or a daughter?” I was thinking of that. How would that be presented in the movie? Of course, you don’t see that.

Patrick Verel: I want to come back to something you said before about the music. Del Toro often paired this sort of jaunty upbeat music along with the scenes that were anything but uplifting, particularly in the lab where the River God as del Toro would have, was living. Is this juxtaposition, is this a common technique for him? Or is this something new?

Miguel García: I think this was something new. I was not expecting this. I was watching an interview with del Toro, and he was asked about how he could talk about these very dark subjects but then also remain optimistic. His short answer was, “Well, because I’m Mexican.” And by that he meant that Mexicans, in general, tend to have this very strong connection to death as something that is inevitable, but is not necessarily an end. And I think that the music in The Shape of Water serves that purpose, as well. Serves to underline that there’s something positive in all the darkness.

Patrick Verel: Where you surprised at the very end when you had the big reveal with her neck?

Miguel García: I was surprised, yes, at the end to see this … her scars kind of become gills.

Patrick Verel: Yeah!

Miguel García: … so she’s able to be underwater and kind of … If I remember correctly, they live together, right? They …

Patrick Verel: That’s they live happily ever after, in a way.

Miguel García: I was surprised, again, because I was expecting something really dark as in Pan’s Labyrinth. But then again, I think I forgot that I was in the presence of a river god. But I think that it was an excellent ending for the movie. I think that it would be a terrible thing to finish on a dark note after you had seen all these contrasts.

Patrick Verel: Any predictions for Oscar night?

Miguel García: I think that it’s offering very Oscar-worthy material when he’s engaging with these issues of race or the role of women in the workplace, right? The idea of harassment in the workplace is there. He’s speaking to something very contemporary. I just think that there’s a lot of competition.