A Short Pre-History of Climate Fiction

What is it about?

The paper argues that contemporary climate fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction rather than a distinct and separate genre for two main reasons: first, because its texts and practitioners relate primarily to the SF "selective tradition;" and second, because its texts and practitioners articulate a "structure of feeling" that accords centrality to science and technology, in this case normally climate science. Not only is "cli-fi" best understood as SF, it also has a much longer history than is commonly allowed, which arguably stretches back to antiquity. The paper distinguishes between texts in which extreme climate change is represented as anthropogenic and those where it is represented as theogenic, geogenic or xenogenic. And it provides a brief sketch of the (pre-) history of stories of anthropogenic, xenogenic and geogenic extreme climate change.

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Why is it important?

Because climate change is the most important question of our time; and science fiction is a central way of addressing it.