''What sets cli-fi apart from other genres? Here are the main elements:''

''What sets cli-fi apart from other genres? Here are the main elements:''

Cli-Fi writer William A. (Bill) Liggett blogged this:


''After I had completed a couple of drafts of my first novel, I stumbled onto the term “cli-fi” and discovered what I had written fit into that genre. Cli-fi is a catchy label, whose goal was to draw attention to an emerging body of fiction dealing with critical environmental issues facing our planet.''

''The term was selected because it had a nice rhyming sound (like sci-fi) and was short enough to fit easily into headlines. Cli-fi seems to have caught on and is here to stay, as illustrated by the number of books in the cli-fi category on Goodreads.''

''What sets cli-fi apart from other genres? Here are the main elements:''

1 Climate change is a central theme.
2 The focus is the planet earth.
3 The story makes environmental science more approachable.
4 The effects of climate change are described in personal terms.
5 It represents a bridge between science, the humanities, and advocacy.

''The majority of stories in this genre paint a bleak future for humanity, serving to motivate people to address the human-caused factors driving climate. Examples include Benjamin Warner’s ''Thirst,'' in which services such as water and electricity suddenly stop, and ''The Water Knife'' by Paulo Bacigalupi, describing the impact of West Coast weather patterns on society.''

''It seems there is a growing groundswell of interest in this genre in direct proportion to the sobering findings about our world’s climate coming

-- Bill Liggett