In recent years, we have seen California’s long-term drought, Australia and Canada caught ablaze in massive wildfires, the Pacific Northwest suffering its own disastrous fires, and the Summer 2023 heatwave that smothered much of the United States. So it might come as no surprise that the same drama and issues capture the imagination in fiction. The materials in this theme are all about what happens when the world succumbs to the heat of the Sun and how people live with a dearth of available water.