A top literary festival in 2018, after the hot, firey heatwavey summer of 2018, is featuring a panel on ''cli-fi''

A top literary festival in 2018, after the hot, firey heatwavey summer of 2018, is featuring a panel on ''cli-fi''

An INVITATION I received today from a literature festival planning committee. The planner told me by email: "One of the panels will be on Science Fiction and Climate Change, a discussion of "cli-fi", if you will. ''

The panel has been described thusly, she told me: ''Is climate change the final frontier of climate fiction? Will cli-fi boldly go where no one has gone before?"

She added: "Above is a light-hearted description for what is currently the biggest threat to humankind's survival on Earth. We envision the panel will deal with, among others, the following questions:

*How has genre fiction dealt with the issue?

*Are current climate books overly pessimistic?

*Not pessimistic enough?

*What are the best examples of current cli-fi?

*Would you be interested in and able to take part in the Cli-Fi panel?

This blogger in far away Taiwan, who no longer uses airplanes for travel, replied: ''Yes, would love to attend. Let me check my work schedule and my bank account balance for travel and hotel costs."