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Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World (September 2018)
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Lena
(last edited Aug 08, 2018 08:54PM)
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rated it 4 stars
Aug 06, 2018 06:56PM
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1. Her expanded definition of solarpunk which resonates with me!
The solar in solarpunk has come to represent not only the ecological aspect of this budding subgenre, but also the idea of brightness and hope.
2. This is a translation of a 2013 Brazilian work so some cultural context would help.
Brazil is actually one of the world’s leaders in renewable energy, with 76% of the country’s energy in 2017 coming from wind, solar, and hydropower. Brazil’s political landscape, however, is certainly not a liberal utopia. Far (very far) from it. Some of these stories reflect that dynamic and defy the notion that sustainable = utopian.
Thus, with some trepidation, I begin the journey!
Hello Lena and everyone!I'll be a few days late in joining because I'm just finishing another international anthology. But this one looks terrific. :)
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Soylent Green is People! by Carlos Orsi ★★★★☆
“She was smiling. Not a fake smile, but something that accentuated the cruel aspect of her face: she had regained her composure.”
Interesting start. An old timey detective story where the beautiful dame filled with secrets comes asking for help.
As the title unsubtly hints there are experimental energy technology aspects to the crime. That said, this story would be right at home in a Best of Detective/Murder Mystery Anthology.
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I'll be a few days late in joining because I'm just finishing another international anthology. But this one looks terrific. :)"
Woohoo! Don’t worry about being behind. I like the pace of reading about one a day.
We will be reading this until October 9th, plenty of time.
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Nailed it!
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Absolutely, it seems to be gaining some well-deserved traction at the moment. And I think everyone welcomes the overall positivity of it!
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I felt that way when I read The Moonlit Garden and found it to be her only translated work.
Translations give us the opportunity to see different perspectives.
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When Kingdoms Collide by Telmo Marçal ★★★★☆
“Come pick a flower.”
The first part of this story was written with the grace of a drunken juggler.
But it gets better.
Better and better the more I think about it.
It’s gone up a Star just as write this review; thinking on what an amazing episode of The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror it would make.
A portion of the population that have altered themselves to live without food has been given an autonomous region by the government.
Now some of them are disappearing and have quietly contacted the government for aid.
Our MC must solve the case at great personal cost.
(view spoiler)
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Breaking News! - This one got us back into the realm of farming and genetic modification. It was an interesting read, but I think maybe the translation got in the way for some of it? There were some very clunky sentences.
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Breaking News! by Romeu Martins ★★☆☆☆
I think Fiona is right, translation failed this story because I wasn’t sure if this was a preparation for alien invasion story, a new world order story, or an evil rich men story. All of the above? None?
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Fascinating - I think you're onto something there! I'll check that book out too, it looks really interesting.
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I'm jumping onto the bandwagon too. :)First, a caveat: usually, I set to write down my impressions only when a text has a) appealed to me, or b) annoyed me--in both cases, to a significant extent. ;) I spend no time on texts that have elicited no strong reactions; I've already wasted enough time reading them, as it is.
(Also, I have a weird sense of humor. If you're ever offended by something I say, it's probably a joke. :)
Second caveat: I apologize if I repeat someone else's observations or even quotes in this thread. Thing is, I need my notes for the final review. In most cases, I won't read what others have said about a particular piece before I'm done with it; I'm easily influenced, so I'd rather have my first impressions pristine.
Now to my individual impressions:
~ Sarena Ulibarri's preface made me want to read Pacific Edge. That's an achievement, given my love-hate relationship with Kim Stanley Robinson, which dates back to his Mars trilogy. Robinson is a master of social analysis but can be uncomfortably detached when it comes to individual human beings.
And triple yay for:
Weariness with dystopian plots, coupled with a growing awareness of climate change, has been a driving force in the renewed interest in ecological science fiction in the 2010s.
Oh, for how long I've been waiting for this change of (global) mind ....
This is a fact I didn't know, and it's amazing:
Brazil is actually one of the world’s leaders in renewable energy, with 76% of the country’s energy in 2017 coming from wind, solar, and hydropower.
Ulibarri's reflections on the (lack of) connection between renewable energy and left-wing liberalism were also eye-opening.
Lena wrote: "When Kingdoms Collide by Telmo Marçal ★★★★☆ “Come pick a flower.”
The first part of this story was written with the grace of a drunken juggler.
But it gets better.
Better and better the more ..."
On one level, animals are simply mobile plants without lignin and chlorophyll.
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The story changed focus several times, and perhaps if it had started from (view spoiler) it would have been more successful for me.
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I don’t even know where to start. There was just too much going on. I guess the point was that even with our power needs met ecologically, and with the hopes of substantial social and scientific advancement, there will still be terrorism.
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But agreed - so much was packed into that story that I ended up only just following most of it.
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~ Up until its last quarter, Carlos Orsi's "Soylent Green is People!" reads like a lively Chandleresque story (those knees are killing me :) set in a colorful near future. The setting sometimes reminds me of my own part of the world, where you can indeed find a friendly hacker to fix your comp for a bottle of beer. ;)Then the solarpunk element kicks in for real:
“Generally speaking, more energy is extracted from a liter of oil than from a kilo of cane. And the global demand only increases. Soon we will reach a point where it will again make sense, economic sense, at least to extract and refine oil, as it was done in the twentieth century. Unless we can extract more energy from plants.”
“Cellulose?”
“Cellulose, yes. Plants are made of things other than sugar, such as cellulose, fat, and protein, and there are biological pathways to convert all of those into fuel. The point is only about price and unwanted waste. Cellulose started to be a part of the scene in the beginning of the century. Animal fat has been used for decades to produce aviation kerosene. Protein is the new frontier, mainly because of waste.”
“Waste?”
“Ammonia. Nitrates. In the old days, people thought that this wouldn’t be a problem, that after yeast and bacteria finished turning the protein into fuel, the part with the nitrogen could be reused as fertilizer. A closed cycle: nitrates for soil, soil for plant, plant for nitrates. But then… Have you ever heard of nitrogen pollution?”
I shook my head. He swallowed three more olives.
“Bottom line, having loose nitrogen compounds in the soil, air, and water is not a good idea. Acid rain. Pollution of lakes and oceans. Bad, really bad. Not at first, but over time… Synthetic fertilizers had to be regulated almost to extinction some ten years ago. Hence, the golden dream of the protein biofuel was sent to the compost heap.”
“Unless someone invented a process that could neutralize nitrogen,” I added. “Which was what Raul and Sabrina were working on.”
And then it gets sinister.
~ The language of Telmo Marçal's "When Kingdoms Collide" is brutiful. Kudos to the translator for all the slang and idioms.The plot is not.
~ Here's how the adoption of renewable energy spreads around the world in Antonio Luiz M. C. Costa's "Once Upon a Time in a World":After the unification of the planet, the Rebouças brothers’ study showed the dangers of greenhouse effect amplification for the climate and the planetary environment, after which UN resolutions increasingly restricted the use of fossil fuels. And also of nuclear energy, after its risks were evidenced when an earthquake followed by tsunami devastated the plant of Paramonga, in the Tauantinsuio.
Fifty years later, there were only thirty experimental nuclear power plants and three hundred small research reactors operating in the world, all under strict supervision by the Union of Nations Commission on Science and Culture. And coal, oil, and gas were being used only as chemical raw materials. Former mining and industrial centers disappeared in many places. Although the Union financed the substitution of renewable energy sources, the imposition aroused much resentment in Eurasia, where many saw the threat of global warming as a forged pretext to deprive them of their technological independence and subject them to the uniform and oppressive vulgarity of solar panels and wind turbines that turned magnificent landscapes in ugly things to behold.
Right, Eurasia? Right? :D
The alterfascist revolutionaries are also spot on:
“Can’t you go faster, Corporal?” asked Marinetti.
“No, mein Führer, the machine will follow the normal programming.”
“Could they not? Can the Union stop the damn engine?” he asked furiously.
“Rosenberg and Salazar were able to cut off the communication, the cameras, and the locks, but they didn’t figure out how to take direct control without damaging everything.”
“Maledetto robot!” he mumbled. “In the new order, vehicles will have steering wheels, brakes, and accelerating pedals. A machine is a woman, and it’s not fitting for it to refuse a man’s command!”
All in all, this is an ambitious alternate history novella whose appreciation depends on our knowledge of the people and events spoofed. I could get most of the European references, but I don't know much about South America, so I must have missed a ton of stuff (such as who the Union of Nations measurement units were named after). It's a minor issue anyway.
My more serious problem was that there're too many characters and each needs more screen time to get properly fleshed out.
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Escape by Gabriel Cantareira ★★★★☆
After a war destroys 70% of the fossil fuel supply large-scale solar satellites are built.
While the world may be changing for the better the 1% are willing to throw it away to retain power.
Not if Mariana can help it!
This short story was an enjoyable mini action movie.
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Gary Johnson by Daniel I. Dutra ★★★★☆
“He said that science was above moral issues...”
Vicious story about an alternative clean energy future that could have been.
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Yikes, some of the things this guy has said - I will never understand people who defend the idiots who say things like this. Whoever it's against, someone in a position where they make policies that affect their entire country shouldn't be someone who holds any kind of prejudice about its inhabitants.
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Gary Johnson - Daniel I. Dutra: The aftermath of early experiments in a new source of "clean" energy, this one is hard to talk about without spoilers! But it was intriguing and well written, the translation seems to be getting better as the book goes on.
Xibalba Dreams of the West - Andre S. Silva: Fantastic five star story. In a world where the Aztecs and Mayans became the predominant cultures of South America, a teacher learns that not all is as it seems in their very controlled society.
This collection is definitely a grittier view of Solarpunk, but coming from Brazil (which already looks like a dystopian society: https://emerge85.io/wp-content/upload...) it's easy to see why. And the cultural differences and flavours to the stories are the best kind of new. Really enjoying this one!
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Xibalba Dreams of the West by André S. Silva ★★★★★
This needs to be expanded into a book immediately! This alternate history/future(?) brings us a modern-day, storm-powered, unconquered Mesoamerica. It's a world of gods and demons, sacrifice and secrets. I want to know more!
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Sun in the Heart by Roberta Spindler ★★★★★
It’s a beautiful new world where the sun provides for humans completely through photonutrient tattoos.
But not equally.
Not everyone can afford the tattoos that bring perfect healthy and doubled life span.
This story is one family’s drama of differing perspectives on the technology and their sick child.
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This was a gorgeous, touching story about a sick child receiving a potential cure - but of course, nothing comes for free. So beautifully written and well done, particularly the conflict between the husband and the wife.
Cobalt Blue and the Enigma, by Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro - Possibly another one where the translation got in the way, it took me longer to get invested in this one. But then it turned into (view spoiler) and all of a sudden I was right back on board.
And then I was finished! Unexpectedly - that kind of crept up on me.
A grittier buddy read this month, thanks everyone for the awesome and thought provoking discussions/reviews :)
I'm about halfway through the book and while there hasn't been much hope offered, some of the stories do have very interesting elements. The stories themselves are quite uneven and I often seem to wonder what exactly makes them solarpunk instead of being simply science fiction focused on renewable energy and genes and bacteria. For now I think my favorites are: Carlos Orsi's Soylent Green is People for the style, Telmo Marçal's When Kindoms Collide for the scifi vision, Romeu Martin's Breaking News! for overall idea and Antonio Luiz M. C. Costa's Once Upon a Time in a World for the visions for another kind of society.
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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Oh, I forgot to write my final thoughts. Overall the anthology was quite uneven, which is very typical of anthologies. However there were enough stories with inspiring ideas that it was worth reading. I kind of still miss the positivity I associated with solarpunk before I joined the group, but based on the foreword it exists, so I'm sure I'll find it eventually.
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https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
There’s going to be a sequel:
Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Winters
Submissions are currently open if you were serious about writing.
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I think you'll love it, Christine, it's definitely got that positive feeling.
Solarpunk
Books mentioned in this topic
Pacific Edge (other topics)Holy Anorexia (other topics)
The Moonlit Garden (other topics)
