Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers by Sarena Ulibarri, editor


Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers by Sarena Ulibarri, editor
Publisher: World Weaver Press
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Suspense/Mystery
Length: Full Length (293 pages)
Heat Level: Sweet
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Solarpunk is a type of optimistic science fiction that imagines a future founded on renewable energies. The seventeen stories in this volume are not dull utopias—they grapple with real issues such as the future and ethics of our food sources, the connection or disconnection between technology and nature, and the interpersonal conflicts that arise no matter how peaceful the world is. In these pages you’ll find a guerilla art installation in Milan, a murder mystery set in a weather manipulation facility, and a world where you are judged by the glow of your solar nanite implants. From an opal mine in Australia to the seed vault at Svalbard, from a wheat farm in Kansas to a crocodile ranch in Malaysia, these are stories of adaptation, ingenuity, and optimism for the future of our world and others. For readers who are tired of dystopias and apocalypses, these visions of a brighter future will be a breath of fresh air.

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Daesha’s mission in “Fyrewall” was simple, but that didn’t mean it would be easy to accomplish at all. The only way for her community to survive was if Daesha figured out how to fix the Fyrewall her grandmother had built out of ocean water and other natural materials to shelter their community from the wildfires and air pollution that were destroying the rest of California. I empathized with this character’s struggle to understand technology that she hadn’t built and only half understood. The plot twists in it were fantastic as well. They fit this world that had been dramatically changed by climate change beautifully, and they made me wish for a sequel.

All of the stories in this anthology had fantastic premises. With that being said, there were a few that I would have liked to see explained in a little more detail. For example, “Grow, Give, Repeat” was about a young girl named Alex whose family was struggling to grow enough food to eat on their farm. After losing their previous flock of chickens, the new birds they received were like no other animal I’ve ever heard about before. They were an odd combination of machine and living beings, and I struggled to picture what they might look like or how they could exist. These chickens were such an integral part of the plot that it would have been easier to understand what was going on if I could have imagined them in better detail.

“The Heavenly Dreams of Mechanical Trees” was one of the highlights of this collection for me. In it, a sentient, robotic tree named Ailanthus realized that she was going to stop functioning permanently soon and began a desperate attempt to communicate with the humans who maintained her to see if anyone could fix her before it was too late. I was mesmerized by the thought of a robot fulfilling almost all of the same functions that a real tree does, and I couldn’t wait to find out if Ailanthus’ mission would be successful. The thought of a forest without her kind and patient personality was such a sad prospect.

I’d heartily recommend Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summer to anyone who is in the mood for an optimistic vision of what the future might be like for humans and all of the other creatures who live on Earth.

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