What if the greatest threat to humanity isn’t science fiction—but real-world science?

Dr. Douglas Skybre is a public health professor known across campus as The Doomsday Professor. In his packed lecture hall, he delivers hard truths about climate change, nuclear proliferation, artificial intelligence warfare, antibiotic resistance, and environmental collapse. To his students, it sounds like dystopian fiction. To Skybre, it’s data.

This near-future speculative fiction novel dives deep into global survival in an age of rising sea levels, microplastics in our bloodstreams, CRISPR ethics, pandemics, and the collapse of media trust. Civilization, he believes, is facing multi-system failure.

Then hope walks into his classroom.

Dr. Gail Sidon, a psychology professor who studies resilience and adaptive optimism, challenges Skybre’s bleak worldview. Their clash of science vs. hope sparks a campus-wide debate—and an unexpected romance. But when the future becomes personal, Skybre must confront the question at the heart of this climate fiction novel: If the planet is unraveling, is it still worth bringing new life into it?

Blending satirical social commentary, philosophical debate, scientific realism, and emotional depth, The Doomsday Professor is a thought-provoking campus novel that explores whether humanity can outthink its own destruction.

If you like climate change fiction, thought-provoking science thrillers, and idea-driven near-future novels about global crisis, then you’ll love David S. Ostreicher’s bold story of realism versus hope.