When I began writing POLLY some seven years ago, my hazy vision of the future world it would depict was informed by increasingly insistent social, political, and climatological trends. But I had not heard of “cli-fi.” I hadn’t heard of cli-fi until a few months ago, in fact. The new genre has caught on, it’s clear. With worldwide recognition of the phenomenon of a fast-changing climate, a new thematic focus in fiction has emerged: the futuristic depiction of those changes and their disruptive, if not catastrophic, consequences.
Will this kind of new attention make a difference in cultural attitudes and public policy? I think it will, particularly for younger readers–by stirring their imaginations with visions of grim outcomes whose possible beginnings are apparent today, in the nurturing world we know. A debate last month in the New York Times presents a variety of views on the topic.
It’s really good to read this, Don. If you’re interested in cli-fi it would be great to see you at the Facebook cli-fi group (Cli-fi Central). Here’s the link https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/320538704765997/
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Here is an early take from Dan Brown, coiner of the term “cli-fi.”
“Polly and the One and Only World” is a dystopian YA cli-fi novel
that tackles some pretty heavy themes, and author Don Bredes has pulled it off without a hitch. The story he tells is stormy, dark, and deep, but it ends with a note of hope as well, as befits a YA novel. It’s not all gloom and doom. It’s a story for our times, and it’s going to hit some might big nerves along the way to publication and acceptance. Given that America is still a very Christian nation, and that Bredes’s book goes into some pretty strong issues concerning free thought and Christian fundamentalism, I asked the well-respected Vermont author if he expects criticism and backlash and even perhaps nationwide book banning due to pressure from the legions of Christian fundamentalists and climate denialists (sometimes the same people, but not always) out there.
He told me: ”Sure, I do expect some criticism and vitriol, especially from fundamentalists–that is, if the book gets any attention at all.As it happens, my first novel, “Hard Feelings,” in 1977, which was a popular success, was also a banned book in many communities. What will I say in 2014 and 2015 if this new novel runs into protests and book banning from religious groups nationwide? First, I’ll point out that the novel is a fantasy, of course–a cautionary fantasy for young people. It presents a futuristic realization of the dire outcomes of trends we can see today in our culture and in the wider world. Will America become a repressive theocracy? Probably not. But the possibility is undeniably there, and there are, right now, virulent factions in the culture that would love to make it happen. Beyond that, I decry the indoctrination of children into organized systems of belief in the supernatural. I would like young readers to consider the perspective, exemplified by Polly, that gods are not real and that the stories embraced by faith systems are old myths whose purpose as guides to conduct and as soothing counters to all we fear, like death, is no longer very helpful or useful. Far better to believe only in what we can be reasonably (if provisionally) sure is true.
“Just as alarming are the trends toward a severe disruption in the
delicate balance that the world’s climate has enjoyed for many thousands of years. Increasingly intense storms, permanent drought, coastal flooding, the collapse of the Gulf Stream and of industrial agriculture and international trade–and, as a consequence of those wrenching stresses, the potential for religiously inspired terrorist violence a thousand times more devastating than 9/11–are unquestionably worth pondering right now, for the sake of forestalling them if we can. “Then, too, the main character, Polly, and the book’s heroes are witches. Their recourse to magick spells, which we know are not real, stands on the same plane in the novel with things like exorcism and belief in angels and demons, which we should know are not real.”
I thoroughly enjoyed reading “Polly and the One and Only World,” but then again, I’m a deep green climate activist and a longtime untheist. But get ready for when this 333-page YA novel hits the streets! The proverbial you-know-what is going to hit the fan and all hell is going to break loose among the Christian fundamentalists who populate this evolving nation in pockets north, south, east, and west. Polly is going to be a big wake-up call for teenagers everywhere, but along the way it’s going to meet some strong, mean resistance. It’s always been this way in America. Don Bredes has done it again!
–Dan Bloom, August 28, 2014
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