Ever since 1718, when Jean Baptiste le Moyne de Bienville, a French colonist, decided to build his settlement on a hurricane-prone patch of swampland surrounded by three huge pools of water (the Mississippi Delta, the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Pontchartrain), New Orleans has been living in nature's shadow.

ECONOMIST: Hurricane Katrina

Avice Benner Cho, a human colonist, has returned to Embassytown after years of deep-space adventure.

FORBES: Introducing A Science Fiction Book Club