Scan barcode
clare_cedar's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
danthequeer's review against another edition
3.0
Caught Root: 3/5 ⭐️
The Spider and the Stars: 4/5 ⭐️
Riot of the Wind and Sun: 2/5 ⭐️
Fyrewall: 3/5 ⭐️
Watch Out, Red Crusher!: 2/5 ⭐️
The Call of the Wold: 2/5 ⭐️
Camping with City Boy: 2/3 ⭐️
A Field of Sapphires and Sunshine: 2/5 ⭐️
Midsummer Night's Heist: 2/5 ⭐️
The Heavenly Dreams of Mechanical Trees: 4/5 ⭐️
New Siberia: 3/5 ⭐️
Grover: Case #C09 920, "The Most Dangerous Blend": 2/5 ⭐️
Amber Waves: 2/5 ⭐️
Grow, Give, Repeat: 2/5 ⭐️
Cable Town Delivery: 2/5 ⭐️
Women of White Water: 2/5 ⭐️
Under the Northern Lights: 2/5 ⭐️
The Spider and the Stars: 4/5 ⭐️
Riot of the Wind and Sun: 2/5 ⭐️
Fyrewall: 3/5 ⭐️
Watch Out, Red Crusher!: 2/5 ⭐️
The Call of the Wold: 2/5 ⭐️
Camping with City Boy: 2/3 ⭐️
A Field of Sapphires and Sunshine: 2/5 ⭐️
Midsummer Night's Heist: 2/5 ⭐️
The Heavenly Dreams of Mechanical Trees: 4/5 ⭐️
New Siberia: 3/5 ⭐️
Grover: Case #C09 920, "The Most Dangerous Blend": 2/5 ⭐️
Amber Waves: 2/5 ⭐️
Grow, Give, Repeat: 2/5 ⭐️
Cable Town Delivery: 2/5 ⭐️
Women of White Water: 2/5 ⭐️
Under the Northern Lights: 2/5 ⭐️
gondorgirl's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
jasoncomely's review against another edition
5.0
These sci-fi short stories are a breath of unpolluted air. This is a genre I hope to read more of.
blerdgirlromance's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
informative
inspiring
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Overall, a fantastic anthology filled with sumptuous worldbuilding and fresh ideas surrounding a post-climate change (and in some cases post-capitalist) world where societies have come together to fashion existences where nature and technology work in balance.
The first short story, "Caught Root" drew me in immediately and it's only around the middle that the spirit of Solarpunk seems to get a little lost. Hang in there and see it through and the anthology picks back up in its expansive exploration of daily life, adventure, travel, exploration, and - in some cases- finding love.
Glass and Gardens is a great way to get back into reading if you've been in a bit of a slump and my personal short story faves were:
Caught Root
The Spider and the Stars
Fyrewall
The Heavenly Dreams of Mechanical Trees
New Siberia
Cabletown Delivery
Women of White Water
Under the Northern Lights
The first short story, "Caught Root" drew me in immediately and it's only around the middle that the spirit of Solarpunk seems to get a little lost. Hang in there and see it through and the anthology picks back up in its expansive exploration of daily life, adventure, travel, exploration, and - in some cases- finding love.
Glass and Gardens is a great way to get back into reading if you've been in a bit of a slump and my personal short story faves were:
Caught Root
The Spider and the Stars
Fyrewall
The Heavenly Dreams of Mechanical Trees
New Siberia
Cabletown Delivery
Women of White Water
Under the Northern Lights
knittyreader's review against another edition
5.0
I received a free copy through Netgalley in return for an honest review.
The short stories in this book are light, bright and optimistic. That does not mean everything is easy and perfect. It does mean they are full of hope.
Off course, as always with short stories, there were stories that resonated with me better than others. I did like them all, and feel motivated by them to look into the future.
The short stories in this book are light, bright and optimistic. That does not mean everything is easy and perfect. It does mean they are full of hope.
Off course, as always with short stories, there were stories that resonated with me better than others. I did like them all, and feel motivated by them to look into the future.
tinynavajo's review against another edition
4.0
Optimistic
An optimistic look in a world where green energy is the focus. It is a world that I hope we will eventually be able to turn to in order to keep this planet of ours alive.
An optimistic look in a world where green energy is the focus. It is a world that I hope we will eventually be able to turn to in order to keep this planet of ours alive.
emilielures's review against another edition
3.0
I sometimes think I'm just not that into short stories, but others have captivated me more, even if I just wasn't in the mood. I found myself wanting to skim while at the same time wishing for more depth and description. Perhaps my impatience lies in the dichotomy of craving an actual manual for a real solarpunk future and not enough flesh to get lost in the stories. Thought the romances would ask least hook me but little to no build-up. Realizing this is a tricky genre to get the right blend of information sharing/ecoactivism while still being engrossing as literature. This was an early anthology of a new genre that I look forward to seeing how it plays out- and hopefully how it inspires our future.
ruxandra_grr's review against another edition
3.0
I am all about imagining the future and the ways we could be and the ways we could do - much better than now. And that's why I am drawn to solarpunk. The book is nice. There are plenty of ideas for the future there. There is hopefulness (in most cases) and there is imagination.
But this collection felt mostly disappointing. Sure, the technology part is represented, but that feels superficial to me. If you have sustainable technology, then the people who are raised in this world surely cannot be exactly like the people who live in our neoliberal world. The part about human relationships feels massively under-thought and under-developed. There is not enough imagination there. It still feels pretty amatonormative (full of couples in the very traditional sense) and a lot of the current gender politics are present.
Maybe it's an issue of my expectations, but beyond technology and such I expected radical humanity, beautifully radical ideas about how humans will be like in their environments.
And it sucks and I'm annoyed at myself for being so critical, because I simply *adore* the idea of solarpunk and what we could do with it. There is so much potential there, so many ideas. But in the end, we have to start from somewhere and this collection is a good starting point. I think my critique is mostly meant to challenge us (yeah, myself included, I have wanted to write stuff in this genre since I learned of its existence) to work on it, to push it further, in a gentle, aware way.
Caught Root - this story was wholesome, it's a romance over a new plant, between two scientists and it worked for me.
The Spider and the Stars - perhaps my absolute fave out of all of them.
Riot of the Wind and Sun - this is a well written very human story, one that gets its emotional point across in a very simple and effective way. Bioluminescence and showing the world you're still there! Who can argue with that?
Fyrewall I really liked this one. There's technology and there is also a lovely human element & conflict, with a group of troublemaker teens taken on a trip to be reformed. This felt like it tapped more than others into what humans might be like in a more secure future.
Watch out, Red Crusher! I realllly did not like this one and it felt much more dystopian than utopian. Thanks to some solar powered nanites implanted in children at birth (without consent), everyone literally wears their emotions on their skin - in colors! The main character frets about everyone seeing she is literally blue/ depressed - which basically makes her mental health even worse!! -, but the kicker here is that a kid with a red aura has been ostracized for years because of his anger issues. And the story does not see fit to have any compassion towards him, but basically turns him into an aggressor. This one doesn't human very well, in the sense of having humanity or understanding humans, but really the whole concept gritted between my teeth start to finish. Also, as an afterthought, in this future, nobody expresses themself through clothing or makeup or anything (bothers me, because these things have always been about art and self expression, and they're not necessarily tied to fast fashion and consumerism)
The Call of the Wold - a future in which a lot of people make the shift to self-sustaining collectives. I liked this one, mostly, it actually is about conflict resolution in intentional communities and about an inner conflict that works in a solarpunk future: an introvert also needs to socialize and put down some sort of roots.
Camping with City Boy - a future in which there is an Exclusivity patch (some sort of weird contraception that is genetically coded to the guy's sperm, which is strange to me, because I guess if the woman got pregnant, then she cheated?! That seems convoluted and kinda useless), and in which gender politics don't seem to be that different from ours, which is a disappointment. The main character in this sells herself short in regards to her boyfriend, performs literally all the labor (physical and emotional) for the camping group.
A Field of Sapphires and Sunshine is fun and cute and weird in the best way: a bi woman going through a breakup travels back home and is stressed out about being judged because of her family's crocodile farm. But it felt a bit slight and I don't know exactly what it wants to say about the world, relationships and such. Still, this one has one of the more interesting details about the world and how it works.
Midsummer Night's Heist is cute! I really liked the collective characters, how a solarpunk heist can look like (hint: pretty darn great) and I enjoyed the resolution. Of course, it was a bit tough to remember all the character names and their traits, but it is a short story and we still should have short stories about collectives! Who do great work. I particularly liked the wholesome relationships between the members of the group and their co-conspirators, a lot of warmth, caring and affection.
The Heavenly Dreams of Mechanical Trees was rather beautiful, but more of a fantasy-scifi hybrid than solarpunk. Still, it was imbued with feeling and melancholy and urgency.
New Siberia - an unexpectedly horny story, but it unfortunately it happens on another planet, because we fucked over Earth. This is nice because of how it explores the relationship with an alien race. But is it solarpunk? I do not know the answer to that.
Grover: Case #C09 920, The Most Dangerous Blend - initially, I was excited: a solarpunk whodunnit! But I can't tell why this is solar punk and not regular old scifi, especially since we have a cop (acab), which I would not put in a solarpunk future, and I empathize with her being sleepy and needing coffee, but her behavior at the end was horrible (calling the culprit 'fuck' and making a pun as she caught him, which felt disrespectful towards victims.
Amber Waves - um, so did I get this, right, did they kill the pickup of the corporate goons and left them there before a super storm tornado thing? Also, this didn't feel very scifi-ish to me even, and once again, is it solarpunk to have 3.000 acres of field just you and your wife?
Grow, Give, Repeat - this one was cute and felt solarpunky and I really liked the kid as a main character, the bits of parenting I could see and her commitment to help the world and her community. Was she a tad too precocious? Yes. But also I loved that she made a mistake and she worked hard to fix it.
Cable Town Delivery is a story I really really liked, with a cool librarian and an even cooler library, but it had such an abrupt ending, it felt jarring and unresolved.
Women of White Water - oof. This one started out interesting human-relationship wise, with the main character discussing consent and boundaries in a cool way, and then it got to a rather strange and awkward place. Still, I enjoyed the focus on human relationships rather than the technology!
Under the Northern Lights - quite a cute love story, proving further my suspicion that romance is one of the genres uniquely suited to meshing with solarpunk. The two people still seemed very contemporary to me, but I liked them.
But this collection felt mostly disappointing. Sure, the technology part is represented, but that feels superficial to me. If you have sustainable technology, then the people who are raised in this world surely cannot be exactly like the people who live in our neoliberal world. The part about human relationships feels massively under-thought and under-developed. There is not enough imagination there. It still feels pretty amatonormative (full of couples in the very traditional sense) and a lot of the current gender politics are present.
Maybe it's an issue of my expectations, but beyond technology and such I expected radical humanity, beautifully radical ideas about how humans will be like in their environments.
And it sucks and I'm annoyed at myself for being so critical, because I simply *adore* the idea of solarpunk and what we could do with it. There is so much potential there, so many ideas. But in the end, we have to start from somewhere and this collection is a good starting point. I think my critique is mostly meant to challenge us (yeah, myself included, I have wanted to write stuff in this genre since I learned of its existence) to work on it, to push it further, in a gentle, aware way.
Caught Root - this story was wholesome, it's a romance over a new plant, between two scientists and it worked for me.
The Spider and the Stars - perhaps my absolute fave out of all of them.
Riot of the Wind and Sun - this is a well written very human story, one that gets its emotional point across in a very simple and effective way. Bioluminescence and showing the world you're still there! Who can argue with that?
Fyrewall I really liked this one. There's technology and there is also a lovely human element & conflict, with a group of troublemaker teens taken on a trip to be reformed. This felt like it tapped more than others into what humans might be like in a more secure future.
Watch out, Red Crusher! I realllly did not like this one and it felt much more dystopian than utopian. Thanks to some solar powered nanites implanted in children at birth (without consent), everyone literally wears their emotions on their skin - in colors! The main character frets about everyone seeing she is literally blue/ depressed - which basically makes her mental health even worse!! -, but the kicker here is that a kid with a red aura has been ostracized for years because of his anger issues. And the story does not see fit to have any compassion towards him, but basically turns him into an aggressor. This one doesn't human very well, in the sense of having humanity or understanding humans, but really the whole concept gritted between my teeth start to finish. Also, as an afterthought, in this future, nobody expresses themself through clothing or makeup or anything (bothers me, because these things have always been about art and self expression, and they're not necessarily tied to fast fashion and consumerism)
The Call of the Wold - a future in which a lot of people make the shift to self-sustaining collectives. I liked this one, mostly, it actually is about conflict resolution in intentional communities and about an inner conflict that works in a solarpunk future: an introvert also needs to socialize and put down some sort of roots.
Camping with City Boy - a future in which there is an Exclusivity patch (some sort of weird contraception that is genetically coded to the guy's sperm, which is strange to me, because I guess if the woman got pregnant, then she cheated?! That seems convoluted and kinda useless), and in which gender politics don't seem to be that different from ours, which is a disappointment. The main character in this sells herself short in regards to her boyfriend, performs literally all the labor (physical and emotional) for the camping group.
A Field of Sapphires and Sunshine is fun and cute and weird in the best way: a bi woman going through a breakup travels back home and is stressed out about being judged because of her family's crocodile farm. But it felt a bit slight and I don't know exactly what it wants to say about the world, relationships and such. Still, this one has one of the more interesting details about the world and how it works.
Midsummer Night's Heist is cute! I really liked the collective characters, how a solarpunk heist can look like (hint: pretty darn great) and I enjoyed the resolution. Of course, it was a bit tough to remember all the character names and their traits, but it is a short story and we still should have short stories about collectives! Who do great work. I particularly liked the wholesome relationships between the members of the group and their co-conspirators, a lot of warmth, caring and affection.
The Heavenly Dreams of Mechanical Trees was rather beautiful, but more of a fantasy-scifi hybrid than solarpunk. Still, it was imbued with feeling and melancholy and urgency.
New Siberia - an unexpectedly horny story, but it unfortunately it happens on another planet, because we fucked over Earth. This is nice because of how it explores the relationship with an alien race. But is it solarpunk? I do not know the answer to that.
Grover: Case #C09 920, The Most Dangerous Blend - initially, I was excited: a solarpunk whodunnit! But I can't tell why this is solar punk and not regular old scifi, especially since we have a cop (acab), which I would not put in a solarpunk future, and I empathize with her being sleepy and needing coffee, but her behavior at the end was horrible (calling the culprit 'fuck' and making a pun as she caught him, which felt disrespectful towards victims.
Amber Waves - um, so did I get this, right, did they kill the pickup of the corporate goons and left them there before a super storm tornado thing? Also, this didn't feel very scifi-ish to me even, and once again, is it solarpunk to have 3.000 acres of field just you and your wife?
Grow, Give, Repeat - this one was cute and felt solarpunky and I really liked the kid as a main character, the bits of parenting I could see and her commitment to help the world and her community. Was she a tad too precocious? Yes. But also I loved that she made a mistake and she worked hard to fix it.
Cable Town Delivery is a story I really really liked, with a cool librarian and an even cooler library, but it had such an abrupt ending, it felt jarring and unresolved.
Women of White Water - oof. This one started out interesting human-relationship wise, with the main character discussing consent and boundaries in a cool way, and then it got to a rather strange and awkward place. Still, I enjoyed the focus on human relationships rather than the technology!
Under the Northern Lights - quite a cute love story, proving further my suspicion that romance is one of the genres uniquely suited to meshing with solarpunk. The two people still seemed very contemporary to me, but I liked them.
jwillis81's review against another edition
2.0
I only recently discovered the solarpunk subgenre and I immediately became very excited to read more about it. I love its aesthetics and themes, and some of the solarpunk artwork that I've seen has been truly stunning. This was y first foray into solarpunk writing, and I have to say that it left me feeling a little disappointed.
Ultimately, most of the stories in this collection suffer from a style over substance issue, where they do a great - and sometimes downright beautiful - job of conveying the stylistic elements of solarpunk and describing them in excellent visual detail... but the story and characters are often lacking. Most of the stories in this anthology weren't compelling or exciting to read, and I rarely found myself feeling anything for the characters in them.
I know that solarpunk is a relatively new genre and many people are still figuring out what elements the genre consists of. While I understand that and can even appreciate that this is an early collection of works in a new genre, I feel like constants in fiction of any kind are "tell a good story" and "make us care about the characters," which is not something this collection of stories was able to accomplish very often.
I would definitely like to read more in this subgenre, but I'm not sure another collection of short stories along these lines will be one of them.
Ultimately, most of the stories in this collection suffer from a style over substance issue, where they do a great - and sometimes downright beautiful - job of conveying the stylistic elements of solarpunk and describing them in excellent visual detail... but the story and characters are often lacking. Most of the stories in this anthology weren't compelling or exciting to read, and I rarely found myself feeling anything for the characters in them.
I know that solarpunk is a relatively new genre and many people are still figuring out what elements the genre consists of. While I understand that and can even appreciate that this is an early collection of works in a new genre, I feel like constants in fiction of any kind are "tell a good story" and "make us care about the characters," which is not something this collection of stories was able to accomplish very often.
I would definitely like to read more in this subgenre, but I'm not sure another collection of short stories along these lines will be one of them.