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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.
natmoon's review against another edition
2.0
I LOVE the idea of Solarpunk: an emerging genre that shares optimistic takes of our future in light of the climate crisis. However, with the exception of 2-3 of these short stories, I found the anthology itself a bit dull. But still—it was very nice to read and imagine alongside the authors all of these potential solutions and new challenges we may face in the future.
solardavy's review against another edition
challenging
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
imbelhs's review against another edition
1.0
Plusieurs (beaucoup) de ces nouvelles sont juste mal écrites
raffomania's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
ablazingpiggy's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
it serves it's purpose as an introduction to solarpunk themes. my hope is that the authors featured have improved their prose since.
lemonlord_of_the_south's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
2.25
The stories were hit of miss for me. I borrowed it from the library so I had a time limit and that definitely effected my reading. I think it would be more enjoyable if I had read each story In the way someone might read fanfiction.
Ideas were interesting I just wasn't able to get into it
Ideas were interesting I just wasn't able to get into it
adalheid's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
The short stories in the collection were very hit or miss for me, but almost all of them described interesting solarpunk worlds/futures so I feel that goal was met. Looking forward to reading the next anthology in the series.