Future Tense Fiction Video

Extreme Heat and Climate Storytelling: An Interview With Harrison Cook

Share

Harrison Cook’s “The Shade Technician” takes us to a heat-sieged city whose residents have become functionally nocturnal. We meet an essential worker tasked with laboring during the day to fix private shade structures designed to provide shelter from the grueling sun for anyone who can pay. When the worker discovers someone is sabotaging the structures, he faces a dilemma—and then, a heat-induced emergency.

In an interview with editor Mia Armstrong-López, Cook shares the story behind his May 2025 Future Tense Fiction story.

Read the response essay by physician and researcher Pope L. Moseley here.

Future Tense Fiction is a partnership between Issues in Science and Technology and the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University.

Newsletter Signup

More Future Tense Fiction

  • Rey Velasquez Sagcal's illustration for "Tunnel Fever"
    Tunnel Fever

    On the floor of the Arctic Ocean, an isolated roadside bar buried in a vast network of tunnels is staffed by a claustrophobic waitress who dreams of life above the surface. When a pair of outlaws tries to rob the bar, its patrons and employees are forced to work together to stave them off—pushing the boundaries of survival and trust in extreme environments.

  • Rey Velasquez Sagcal's illustration for "Resisting Tunnel Vision"
    Resisting Tunnel Vision

    To work toward better climate policy and governance, we need to expand our vision of what’s possible.

  • Rey Velasquez Sagcal's illustration for "All That Burns Unseen" by Premee Mohamed
    Firefighting Chemicals Are Dangerous for the Environment. Can That Change?

    A journalist who covers wildfires responds to Premee Mohamed’s “All That Burns Unseen.”

  • Rey Velasquez Sagcal's illustration for "All That Burns Unseen" by Premee Mohamed
    All That Burns Unseen

    When a government worker is charged with collecting data from the fire-ravaged community she grew up in, she gets help from an unexpected ally: a fire-fighting drone.