Stories about a better future can help break the dominance of the story that says you’re screwed, says legendary science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson

New York, under water by 2140, has people living in office blocks Jon Shireman/Getty

The drowned city on the cover of your book New York 2140 may mislead people that it’s a dystopian climate change book. But it’s fun, a tale of driving stakes into vampire capitalists – the superwealthy who don’t even generate wealth.

I’ve always written utopian science fiction. The story to tell now is utopian science fiction jammed into near-future history. To avoid an environmental crash, we need an economic solution. I wanted to show people coming together in an accidental collective to do good things – financiers, reality stars, Silicon Valley people. There’s …