Imagining a Brighter Tomorrow: The Best Solarpunk Fiction to Read Now
Posted on August 29, 2024
by Amy H
The solarpunk genre presents a more optimistic outlook to the future of humanity than traditional dystopian novels, with stories that are either set in a world where enlightened characters and technology lead to benevolent ecological progress, or with a narrative progression that takes the story to a brighter future with solarpunk aesthetics. People are still people, though, so skullduggery and shenanigans happen, and drama still exists, never fear! Below are some great examples of this growing genre.
the bear by Andrew Krivak
In an Edenic future, a girl and her father live close to the land in the shadow of a lone mountain. They possess a few remnants of civilization: some books, a pane of glass, a set of flint and steel, a comb. The father teaches the girl how to fish and hunt, the secrets of the seasons and the stars. He is preparing her for an adulthood in harmony with nature, for they are the last two left. But when the girl suddenly finds herself alone in an unknown landscape, it is a bear that will lead her back home through a vast wilderness, which offers the greatest lessons of all, if she can only learn to listen. A cautionary tale of human fragility, of love and loss, The Bear is a stunning tribute to the beauty of nature's dominion.
a psalm for the wild-built by Becky Chambers
It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools and wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again fading into myth and urban legend. One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. Turns out they're going to need to ask it a lot.
station eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time-from the actor's early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains-this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor's first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.
new york 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson
The waters rose, submerging New York City. But the residents adapted and it remained the bustling, vibrant metropolis it had always been, yet also changed forever. Every street became a canal. Every skyscraper an island. Through the eyes of the varied inhabitants of one building, Robinson shows us how one of our great cities could change with the rising tides, and how we too could change.
the complete ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach
Twenty years have passed since Northern California, Oregon, and Washington seceded from the United States to create a new nation, Ecotopia. Rumors abound of barbaric war games, tree worship, revolutionary politics, sexual extravagance. Now, this mysterious country admits its first American visitor: investigative reporter Will Weston, whose dispatches alternate between shock and admiration. But Ecotopia gradually unravels everything Weston knows to be true about government and human nature itself, forcing him to choose between two competing views of civilization. Since it was first published in 1975, Ecotopia has inspired readers throughout the world with its vision of an ecologically and socially sustainable future. This fortieth-anniversary edition includes Ernest Callenbach's final essay, “An Epistle to the Ecotopians.”
the ministry for the future by Kim Stanley Robinson
Robinson tackles climate change head-on in this gutsy, humane view of a near-future Earth careening toward collapse. Mary Murphy, head of the Ministry for the Future, a UN watchdog agency created as a result of the Paris Agreement, spends her days promoting relief for the afflicted and wrestling with the financial powers-that-be to change the carbon balance before it tips too far. Mary is abducted by the traumatized ecoterrorist survivor of a heat wave that killed 20 million in India, hoping to demand change. Galvanized by his demands, Mary attempts to work in secret within the Ministry for the Future to make larger changes than she can aboveboard-only to discover that this effort already exists. Robinson masterfully integrates the practical details of environmental crises and geoengineering projects into a sweeping, optimistic portrait of humanity's ability to cooperate in the face of disaster.
walkaway by Cory Doctorow
Hubert, Seth, and their ultra-rich heiress friend Natalie are getting a little old to hang out at the techno-raveups in abandoned industrial spaces, full of insta-printed drugs and toys. And Natalie was finished, years ago, with her overcontrolling zillionaire dad. And now that anyone can manufacture food, clothing, and shelter with 3D printers, there seems to be little reason to stick with the world of rules and jobs. So, like hundreds of thousands of others in the mid-21st century, the three of them...walk away. Mind you, it's still dangerous out there. Much of the countryside is wrecked by climate change, and predators are with us always. Yet when the initial pioneer walkaways flourish, more people join them. Then the walkaways discover the one thing the ultra-rich have never been able to buy: how to beat death. Now it's war--a war that will turn the world upside down.
the dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Unwilling to accept that his anarchist world must be separated from the rest of the civilized universe, Shevek, a brilliant physicist, risks his life by traveling to the mother planet of Urras in the hope of offering wisdom to its inhabitants and to reunite the two long-alienated worlds.
too like the lightning by Ada Palmer
Mycroft Canner is a convict. For his crimes he is required, as is the custom of the 25th century, to wander the world being as useful as he can to all he meets. Carlyle Foster is a sensayer--a spiritual counselor in a world that has outlawed the public practice of religion, but which also knows that the inner lives of humans cannot be wished away. The world into which Mycroft and Carlyle have been born is a hard-won utopia built on technologically-generated abundance, and also on complex and mandatory systems of labelling all public writing and speech. Gender distinctions are now distinctly taboo in most social situations, and most of the world's population is affiliated with globe-girdling clans of the like-minded, whose endless economic and cultural competition is carefully managed by central planners of inestimable subtlety. Mycroft and Carlyle have stumbled on the wild card that may destablize the system: the boy Bridger, who can effortlessly make his wishes come true. Who can, it would seem, bring inanimate objects to life.
gamechanger by L. X. Beckett
First there was the Setback. Then came the Clawback. Now we thrive. Rubi Whiting is a member of the Bounceback Generation. The first to be raised free of the troubles of the late twenty-first century. Now she works as a public defender to help troubled individuals with anti-social behavior. That’s how she met Luciano Pox. Luce is a firebrand and has made a name for himself as a naysayer. But there’s more to him than being a lightning rod for controversy. Rubi has to find out why the governments of the world want to bring Luce into custody, and why Luce is hell bent on stopping the recovery of the planet.
woman on the edge of time by Marge Piercy
Connie Ramos is a Mexican American woman living on the streets of New York. Once ambitious and proud, she has lost her child, her husband, her dignity-and now they want to take her sanity. After being unjustly committed to a mental institution, Connie is contacted by an envoy from the year 2137, who shows her a time of gender and racial equality, environmental purity, and unprecedented self-actualization. But Connie also bears witness to another potential outcome: a society of grotesque exploitation in which the barrier between person and commodity has finally been eroded. One will become our world. And Connie herself may strike the decisive blow.
stealing worlds by Karl Schroeder
Sura Neelin is on the run from her creditors, from her past, and her father's murderers. She can't get a job, she can't get a place to live, she can't even walk down the street: the total surveillance society that is mid-21st century America means that every camera and every pair of smart glasses is her enemy. But Sura might have a chance in the alternate reality of the games. People can disappear in the LARP game worlds, into the alternate economy of Notchcoin and blockchains. The people who build the games also program the surveillance networks-she just needs an introduction, and the skills to play. Turns out, she has very valuable skills, and some very surprising friends.
the quantum thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist, and trickster known throughout the Heterarchy for his daring heists. Now he's confined inside the Dilemma Prison, where every day he has to play a suicidal game of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her sentient spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars, where time is currency and memories are treasures. Mieli offers Jean a chance to win back his freedom and the powers of his old self-in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed. The Quantum Thief is a crazy joyride through the solar system several centuries hence, a world of marching cities, ubiquitous public-key encryption, people communicating by sharing memories, and a race of hyper-advanced humans who originated as MMORPG guild members. But for all its wonders, it is also a story powered by very human motives of betrayal, revenge, and jealousy. It is a stunning debut.
infomocracy by Malka Older
It's been twenty years and two election cycles since Information, a powerful search engine monopoly, pioneered the switch from warring nation-states to global micro-democracy. The corporate coalition party Heritage has won the last two elections. With another election on the horizon, the Supermajority is in tight contention, and everything's on the line. For Ken, this is his chance to do right by the idealistic Policy1st party and get a steady job in the big leagues. For Domaine, the election represents another staging ground in his ongoing struggle against the pax democratica. For Mishima, a dangerous Information operative, the whole situation is a puzzle: how do you keep the wheels running on the biggest political experiment of all time, when so many have so much to gain?
island by Aldous Huxley
On the remote Pacific island of Pala, an ideal society has flourished for 120 years. Inevitably, this island of bliss attracts the envy and enmity of the surrounding world. A conspiracy is underway to take over Pala, and events are set in motion when an agent of the conspirators, a newspaperman named Faranby, is shipwrecked there. What Faranby doesn't expect is how his time with the people of Pala will revolutionize all his values and-to his amazement-give him hope.
way station by Clifford D. Simak
Winner of the 1963 Hugo Award for best novel. Enoch Wallace is not like other humans. Living a secluded life in the backwoods of Wisconsin, he carries a nineteenth-century rifle and never seems to age-a fact that has recently caught the attention of prying government eyes. The truth is, Enoch is the last surviving veteran of the American Civil War and, for close to a century, he has operated a secret way station for aliens passing through on journeys to other stars. But the gifts of knowledge and immortality that his intergalactic guests have bestowed upon him are proving to be a nightmarish burden, for they have opened Enoch’s eyes to humanity’s impending destruction. Still, one final hope remains for the human race . . . though the cure could ultimately prove more terrible than the disease.
always coming home by Ursula K. Le Guin
Having survived ecological catastrophe brought on by relentless industrialization, the Kesh are a peaceful people who reject governance and the constriction of genders, limit population growth to prevent overcrowding and preserve resources, and maintain a healthy community in which everyone works to contribute to its well-being. This richly imagined story unfolds through a series of narrated “translations” that illuminate individual lives, including a woman named Stone Telling, who travels beyond the Valley and comes to reside with another tribe, the patriarchal Condor people. With sharp poignancy, Le Guin explores the complexities of the Kesh’s unified society and presents to us-in exquisite detail-their lives, histories, adventures, customs, language, and art. In addition to poems and folk tales, Le Guin created verse dramas, records of oral performances, recipes, and even an alphabet and glossary of the Kesh language. The novel is illustrated throughout with drawings by artist Margaret Chodos and includes a musical component-original recordings of Kesh songs that Le Guin collaborated on with composer Todd Barton-bringing this utterly original and compelling world to life.
three californias by Kim Stanley Robinson
Three stories present three possible futures for the same place in California. What if... there were a limited nuclear war that left the United States blockaded and fragmented, the few survivors living in the ruins of a once-great nation? What if... this goes on, and technology continues to accelerate, and power continues to be consolidated into corporate culture, a developer's dream world gone mad: an endless sprawl of condos, freeways, malls, and designer drugs? What if... a revolution happens, and the United States addresses climate change in a responsible way and normal people make up and govern themselves in anarcho-syndicalist towns? There is peace and health and yet still, heartbreak.
orion shall rise by Poul William Anderson
Centuries ago, humankind was nearly destroyed in a nuclear apocalypse. Many generations have passed since that terrible time, and the remnants of civilization have re-formed into separate, vastly different societies. The dominant culture of a widely diminished Earth, the ecologically sensitive Maurai hold fast to their belief that "non-green" science is an unacceptable evil. But the reborn dream of space flight harbored by a forward-thinking few could herald the revival of the nuclear technology that once ravaged the planet and its people - and the powerful Maurai Federation will take every step necessary, no matter how drastic, to prevent doomsday from dawning again.
every sky a grave by Jay Posey
Since decoding the language of the universe 8,000 years ago, humans have reached the very edges of their known galaxy and built a near-utopia across thousands of worlds, united by a powerful organization known as the Ascendance. The peaceful stability of their society relies solely on this ancient Language. As the Ascendance prepares for the next stage of human evolution-making the leap from one galaxy to the next-they send an agent, Elyth, to the edge of the galaxy on a clandestine mission to suppress an uprising before it begins. While doing reconnaissance, she follows the trail of a unique speech pattern thought to be extinguished long ago and comes face-to-face with a man who should no longer exist-Varen Fedic, the First Speaker and one of the Ascendance's most dangerous adversaries. Elyth soon learns that the disciples whom she mistook for followers are actually his captors who plan to use Varen's powers against an unknown force that is stopping humanity from leaving the galaxy. And now Elyth and Varen face something truly alien-an unknown species for which the Language has no name.
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