Ice-Fi: the motion pictur-ice-sque legacy of The Day After Tomorrow
It’s Day After meets…a whole list of films based at least in part on its success. But is humans’ affinity for this abrupt-ice-age vision a challenge to be overcome? Early in The Player, Robert Altman’s...
View ArticleThe long melt: the lingering influence of The Day After Tomorrow
Like some of the severe storms related to a warming climate, the now 10-year-old Day After Tomorrow has a ‘long tail’ of influence … both on films that have followed in its path, and on public...
View ArticleInterstellar: looking for the future in all the wrong spaces
Interstellar fails the test of being serious ‘cli-fi’ but might still teach a lesson: Keep worrying about Earth’s well-being until our solar system gives us a functioning wormhole. Those eagerly...
View Article(What) do we learn from cli-fi films? Hollywood still stuck in holocene
America’s gridlocked political debate may have constrained Hollywood’s efforts. But filmmakers’ engrained ways of thinking lead to climate change mis-representations. Noah Gittell, in his review for...
View ArticleCli-fi joining sci-fi in movie theaters
An expert researcher takes an in-depth look at emerging theater interest in ‘cli-fi’…from ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ through ‘Interstellar’ and more to come. Listen to today’s Climate Connection...
View ArticleHollywood’s missed, and mixed, messages
Once upon a time, Hollywood looked to the Fourth of July to draw big crowds to the cinema. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was “the third biggest movie-going day of the year.” Not so this year....
View ArticleHow will N.Y. cope with climate change?
The respected Chicago Review of Books recently launched a regular monthly “cli-fi” feature, and Senior Editor Amy Brady in the second installment interviewed science-fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson...
View ArticleCli-fi novel retells Joan of Arc story
Yuknavitch: “What’s always been so cool about science fiction writers is that they can take all our fears, intentions, and hopes, and dreams, and kind of pitch them forward into the imagination.”...
View ArticleMr. Eternity: Interview with the author
In Aaron Thier’s novel Mr. Eternity (recently released in paperback), an ancient and beguiling figure known as Old Dan lives nearly a thousand years, from the 1500s to the 2500s. During that time, sea...
View ArticleCli-fi books for the summer solstice
Cli-fi, or climate fiction, is a genre of fiction that transforms climate science into human stories. The genre’s authors explore what it means to be human in a world beset by warming temperatures,...
View ArticleCli-fi novels get personal
A new genre of fiction is joining the ranks of sci-fi, fantasy, and mystery. It’s called cli-fi, or “climate change fiction.” Amy Brady is senior editor at the Chicago Review of Books, a literary...
View ArticleNew cli-fi novel on Antarctic collapse
As a new generation of writers confronts global warming, a new book genre has emerged: “climate fiction”, or “cli-fi”. Russell: “In my secret heart, I hope that all these books that are now talking...
View ArticleClimate fiction need not be science fiction
Climate fiction, or “cli-fi,” carries certain connotations among readers and critics alike. Most associate the genre with science fiction, and therefore sci-fi’s most recognizable tropes:...
View ArticleInterview with author of ‘Autonomous’ novel
Autonomous, written by Ars Technica’s Tech Culture Editor Annalee Newitz opens approximately 150 years in the future, on a pirate ship in a thawed-out arctic where the Northwest Passage is traversable...
View ArticleHow will climate change affect your grandchildren?
Beginning on November 6, leaders from around the world will convene in Bonn, Germany for the annual United Nations conference on climate change. Not only will the meeting potentially affect...
View ArticleCan ‘cli-fi’ make a difference? (Hint: Yes)
Climate change – or global warming – is a term we are all familiar with. The warming of the Earth’s atmosphere due to the consumption of fossil fuels by human activity was predicted in the 19th...
View ArticleGeostorm: A (very) imperfect storm
For fans of cli-fi movies (fictional films about climate change), there’s both good news and bad news. The good news is that after a hiatus of 18 months, in which no film produced for cinema or cable...
View ArticleJeff Goodell book: ‘Engaging … terrifying’
T.S. Eliot proposed the world would end “not with a bang but a whimper.” But according to several climate scientists, the end will come with water. The seas are rising because of climate change,...
View ArticleDystopian climate fiction gets personal
Born in Manchester, the award-winning poet Megan Hunter publishes her first novel this month. The End We Start From stars a young mother who gives birth during a massive flood that wipes out most of...
View ArticleCli-fi novel retells Joan of Arc story
Yuknavitch: “What’s always been so cool about science fiction writers is that they can take all our fears, intentions, and hopes, and dreams, and kind of pitch them forward into the imagination.”...
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