Spatiotemporal Construction and Ecological Reflection in Climate Narratives of The Long Summer in the Anthropocene

Abstract

The advent of the Anthropocene marks that human activities have become the core force shaping the Earth’s geological and ecological systems, and the climate crisis is its most intuitive manifestation. Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Long Summer, grounded in rigorous scientific narration, constructs a literary world that confronts global warming head on, establishing itself as a classic text of contemporary climate fiction. Through layered construction of diverse spaces and artistic arrangement of multi dimensional time, the novel achieves a concrete representation of the Anthropocene climate crisis. Its spatiotemporal narration is not merely a formal innovation but a core carrier of ecological critique and value reconstruction. Supported by ecocriticism and ecological narratology, this paper analyzes the spatial forms and temporal logic of climate narration in The Long Summer within the Anthropocene context, explores the ecological reflections and value orientations embedded in its spatiotemporal narration, and interprets the novel’s literary response to the ecological dilemmas of the Anthropocene, so as to provide theoretical references and textual models for the study of contemporary climate fiction and the construction of ecological culture.