As cli-fi genre gains traction worldwide via media reports and book reviews, it needs to be pointed out as well that NOT EVERYONE has to use the term or write in its genre category: the decision has always been up to each individual writer and reader

As cli-fi genre gains traction worldwide via media reports and book reviews, it needs to be pointed out as well that NOT EVERYONE has to use the term or write in its genre category: the decision has always been up to each individual writer and reader. You like sci-fi, write sci-fi. You like SFF, write SFF. You like speculative fiction, write spec fic. Again, it has always been the cornerstone philosphy of the cli fi community that not everyone has to use the term, or even like it or acknowledge it or write in the genre itself or call their books cli-fi. It's a completely open and voluntary genre term, and nobody has ever forced anyone to use it for their own work. Each writer decides for themselves how they want to dress their work. Those who like the cli-fi term are using it. Those who don't want to use it, well, that's what living in a free democratic world means. You choose, everyone is happy.

However, for those new to all this, there's a good chance you’ve encountered Cli-Fi, a genre you may not have even known exists. It does. As Karen Green in Canada put it the other day on her blog: "Art and literature have always acted as both barometers and mirrors for great world events and changes, measuring impact and reflecting those changes back at us until we can conceive, however uncomfortably, of our place, purpose and responsibility within them."

"The enlightenment gave us the Renaissance painters, the printing press and Shakespeare. The advent of technology gave us the new genre of science fiction in varying stages, from Jules Verne to our modern sci-fi masters and sub-genres. Dotted throughout these epochs are the voices that offer insight and perspective on humanity’s greatest (and worst) achievements, from war, civil rights, invention and exploration to expositions on where this all might take us."

"The late 20th Century brought us a new legacy: man-made climate change. It is arguably the biggest threat to the diversity of life on earth as we know it, and its changes are as far-reaching as they are grim, from shrinking water sources to rising temperatures. And it is something that wordsmiths are not able to ignore, igniting the birth of Cli-Fi, a genre that casts climate change as a main protagonist and responds to the climate crisis with a deft mixture of art, politics and sharp warning from the points of view of both activist and passive observer. And unfortunately it’s a genre which will grow in popularity before we can (hopefully) relegate it to history’s ledger as a time we’ve now safely passed."

So let me repeat: As cli-fi genre gains traction worldwide via media reports and book reviews, it needs to be pointed out as well that NOT EVERYONE has to use the term or write in its genre category: the decision has always been up to each individual writer and reader. You like sci-fi, write sci-fi. You like SFF, write SFF. You like speculative fiction, write spec fic. Again, it has always been the cornerstone philosphy of the cli fi community that not everyone has to use the term, or even like it or acknowledge it or write in the genre itself or call their books cli-fi. It's a completely open and voluntary genre term, and nobody has ever forced anyone to use it for their own work.

Each writer decides for themselves how they want to dress their work. Those who like the cli-fi term are using it. Those who don't want to use it, well, that's what living in a free democratic world means. You choose, everyone is happy. That includes writers like Paolo Bacigalupi, Ken Liu, Jeff VanderMeer, Tobias Buckell, Cindy Pon, Chang-rae Lee (a novelist and professor of creative writing at Princeton University) and others. If they don't  like the cli-fi term, that's fine, and no need for them to use it or acknowledge it or write it.

Let others who want to use it, use it. And for those who don't want to use it, that's cool, too.

Nobody has ever dictated the terms of what cli-fi is. It's just in the air, that's all. For those who want to use it, great. For those who don't want to use the term or write in the genre, don't use it and don't write it. Life is an open book and all points of view are welcome here, That's all been the case at this blog, from the get go.