High Concept
Entry updated 12 May 2025. Tagged: Theme.
Item of critical Terminology coined in the later twentieth century to cover works, usually in Cinema and Television, that are easily summarized by a single-sentence – even a single-phrase – premise or pitch. More recently in the 2020s, the term has been increasingly adopted as a label to describe fiction by authors whose narratives are shaped by a strong foregrounded premise: a definition which arguably includes any sf text. But there is some nuance in its use, and the term seems to be applied in the respectable press mainly to texts where some radical change in the rules of the universe (see Alternate Cosmos; Alternate World) is dramatized through the experiences of individuals whose lives, leisurely unpacked, manifest the consequence of the change; it may be argued that tales so described weigh life-stories very much more heavily than tends to be the case in traditional Genre SF (but see Fantastika and Science Fiction for a broader understanding of the nature of sf and the increasing sophistication of its strategies and grasp over the past century).
Authors likely to have been described as high-concept, and who have entries in this encyclopedia, include Kate Atkinson, Solvej Balle, Kaliane Bradley, Matt Haig, China Miéville, David Mitchell, Audrey Niffenegger, George Orwell, Adam Roberts, Kim Stanley Robinson, Neal Stephenson, Harry Turtledove and Jo Walton; there are very many more. A term (or rather, slogan) whose application is so easily and loosely inclusive may be of some use to some readers for affinity guidance. It is certainly more congenial as a marketing gesture than the similarly positioned Cli-Fi, which was clearly invented in order to exclude Fantastika from serious attention, rather than to expand it. [JC]
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