This is a Rant. I know I should write my own fiction with blackjack and hookers but just let me get it out of my system.
I’ve read some solarpunk at this point (mostly short stories) and the number of times that I’ve read the equivalent of “and we all decided not to be jerks to one another and agreed to a bunch of stuff” it’s basically a meme at this point. Yes, Solarpunk doesn’t need to be hard sci-fi, there can be fantastical elements, but can we get over the “we magically work as one humanity now”?
I think it’s OK to have a world that, without mass media and government control, we would realise that people are friendly and getting things done is easier than it seems, but it’s also OK for this to be done in pockets. It’s OK for there to be raiders and selfish people and people who still endeavour to pollute and it’s OK to have bad guys. It’s OK for the indigenous ways to just be the norm rather than the exception, but there are still a lot of ancap crazies out there.
So, if you’re writing climate fiction / Solarpunk, please consider not doing that. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
still better than “benevolent billionaire saves us all with his special ‘green’ technology that he’s been developing in secret”
I like the meme that came not too long ago:
Frank Herbert: Special drugs will save humanity.
Isaac Asimov: Special mathematics will save humanity.
🤣 true dat. I guess the capitalist fiction we have to swallow every day is even more infuriating.
It’s good to know there are others who feel this way. I’ve been feeling like I’m just not optimistic enough or don’t have enough solutions to offer to write solarpunk. My attempts at it often look more like rural cyberpunk with environmental rage or postapocalyptia with less rugged individualism than usual. I think I have an tenancy to bring a little too much mil-scifi to what’s supposed to be an upbeat genre. It’s hard to find markets for that.
Visual art is easier, I can show off concepts I want to be included in solarpunk without having to build a plot that fits them and the ethos of the genre.
Have you read The Postman? It’s not solarpunk but it has a surprising number of overlapping themes.
I don’t mind optimism. We can be optimistic, we can have happy endings, we can have decent beginnings, but it doesn’t need to be one beat. I haven’t read The Postman, I’ll put it on the pile.
No, there cannot be magic in a solarpunk future. Solarpunk is a shovel with a sense of purpose. You can move earth to despoil and destroy or you can move it to further enrich the earth itself.
The only reason I embrace solarpunk is that I see a clear path to living, even a little bit, in that dream.
I want to separate my critique from a critique of Solarpunk itself. I love the stories and I want to see more, but the “and then everyone came together and held hands and now we have paradise” trope is bad.
As for fantasy, I think other than the hardest of science fictions, we need a bit of fantasy, if only because no one can really create a future world from whole cloth and have it obey the laws of physics and social dynamics. It’s just too hard. So some unrealistic stuff is OK, but That One Trope!
a shovel with a sense of purpose
You might like “A Different Aftermath” by Ursula Vernon. It’s a very quick comic book/graphic short-story https://imgur.com/a/tLZ5JFa
Indeed I did like that, much appreciated. It is exactly the sort of hopeful realism I need.
I think what I was trying to say with my original comment is that, to me, solarpunk sci-fi is the hardest of hard sci-fi. There is such a thing as solarpunk fantasy too, but that genre doesn’t speak to me. Tell me how to make the better world, I beg you. Don’t describe it and then decline to give details.
The oceans won’t boil, the future that awaits us without a real course correction is much more boring. We can choose by default to accept a near permanent crisis that just grinds on forever and leaves us numb. I still fight against that.
Good hard stories give courage, a dose of realism and teach us how to make a better alternative. Overemphasis on and slavish devotion to technology got us here. Solarpunk yokes technology in the service of the human, not the other way around. The stories I need are adriot with tech and with the human side of the wrenching changes we face.
The stories I need are adriot with tech and with the human side of the wrenching changes we face.
I assume you’ve read Ursula le Guin’s stuff? I’m drawn to her short stories and later novels in particular.
Edit: “Ursula” is becoming a theme among my favorite authors. Hmmm…
Oh my yes. That particular Ursula is my favorite. Her upbringing as an anthropologist is definitely a perspective we need. The tech is here, we need to build the culture.
I might have something for you.
Do you have any experience playing role-playing games?
Yes.
Some friends and I have been developing a tabletop RPG. It’s a sandbox style game meant to provide the same kind of flexible general foundation for solarpunk that D&D provides for fantasy and Shadowrun provides for cyberpunk.
Part of what I wanted to achieve with this was giving players the feeling of living in the real world. People disagree. There are factions. Some of it is serious, some of it is silly.
Here is the game manual: Fully Automated! Solarpunk RPG
Here are the stories: Fully Automated! Campaign 1: Regulation
Here are the prefab characters, which give you a sense for what kind of characters you can play.
It’s currently in beta release with the intention of releasing it fully for free by the end of the year, so you can share it with anyone you want. If any of this appeals to you and you’d like to join one of the play testing sessions, let me know.
Nice. It’s on the reading pile :)
I am admittedly very similar. I found the few short stories where it is based more off the modern era and how they are using the technology and ideals of community they have to counteract the way the world is. But that is also weirdly just the kind of person I am as a Solarpunk appreciator. I see it as the way that the current world is being changed, piece by piece, without having to be apocalyptic or fantasy.