Cli-Fi
Entry updated 12 May 2025. Tagged: Theme.
Item of Terminology coined by obvious analogy to Sci Fi and denoting speculative fiction about Climate Change (which see for this encyclopedia's main discussion of the topic). As with the "critical" term High Concept in its 2020s sense, "Cli-Fi" was coined and became fashionable almost entirely outside the world of sf and sf criticism (see Critical and Historical Works About SF), and was intended from the first to "rescue" "worthy" sf novels from being so designated. As this encyclopedia is not focused on the premise that sf needs to be rescued from itself, and as the term lacks any analytical point, "cli-fi" is not discussed at length here. The journalist Dan Bloom claims that he coined the term in 2007, and Margaret Atwood was an early adopter, perhaps because the term could be conceived of as enlarging the comfort zone of a Mainstream Writer of SF. Hence the symptomatic newspaper headline "Don't call it 'science fiction'. Cli-fi is literary fiction." (26 April 2013 Christian Science Monitor). Despite puffs of this calibre, any assumption that the use of the term might usefully separate sheep from goats has seemed increasingly precarious. [DRL]
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