Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Winters -- Happy book birthday!

Solarpunk, yes it's a thing!

Happy book birthday to Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Winters! I have a story in this collection, "Set the Ice Free," and also a story in Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers, "Watch Out, Red Crusher!". Editor Sarena Ulibarri, solarpunk champion, was fabulous to work with.

I'm a swooning fan of optimistic science fiction and of those writers who undertake the difficult task of imagining positive futures and making engaging stories about them. Overall, it's fun be a part of this anthology and enjoying the stories as a reader makes it even better — dare I say, thrilling!

I love that Publishers Weekly noted Solarpunk Winters', "emphasis on LGBTQ representation and female empowerment" and I love that this is a book filled with the best of humanity including love of beauty, art, and a lot, lot, of fun parties.

Me=muppet flailing about stories I love. So, I'm just going to tell you just a bit about what I loved about each story and go ahead and gush about those I especially connected with. I have two overall critiques for the collection, which I'll save for the end.

“Wings of Glass” by Wendy Nikel — Snow bees!
“Halps’ Promise” by Holly Schofield — Loved the structure and premise.
“A Shawl for Janice” by Sandra Ulbrich Almazan — "We belonged here as much as the birds did, no matter what feathers we clothed ourselves in." — Loved the premise and trans protagonist.
“The Healing” by Sarah Van Goethem — Living cities!
“The Fugue of Winter” by Steve Toase — Extreme survival — and music!
“Recovering the Lost Art of Cuddling” by Tessa Fisher — Doggos to the rescue! Loved this ending.
“Orchidaceae” by Thomas Badlan — Rainforests in the winter — the Amazon!
“The Things That Make It Worth It” by Lex T. Lindsay — Felt beauty and peace.
“Glâcehouse” by R. Jean Mathieu — Beautiful ending, evokes Les Misérables.
“Snow Globe” by Brian Burt — Love Okwi Bearheart, the park ranger protagonist.
“Rules for a Civilization” by Jerri Jerreat — A teacher hero protagonist who saves her students. Appreciated the childhood bullying theme and plot points.
“On the Contrary, Yes” by Catherine F. King — "A renewable resource. Art—love—winter—" "Friendship!"
“Set the Ice Free” by Shel Graves — I wrote this!
“Black Ice City” by Andrew Dana Hudson — Ooh, this style — beautiful lyrical, evocative, wistful. Great story to end on.

Three stories I especially connected with:

Yay, Cascadia! I'm also from Washington State and Heather Kitzman's “The Roots of Everything” set at Fort Lewis following the Cascadia earthquake got my attention. I loved the description of community coming together after disaster (which reminded me Rebecca Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell), bioluminescent mushrooms, emotionally intelligent lover (which reminded me of Nathaniel in Mary Robinette Kowal's Lady Astronaut series) and the themes: imagination creates reality and science as art.

Ooh! I'm a volunteer editor at Luna Station Quarterly, which publishes speculative stories by women-identified authors. I've had the pleasure of reading Jennifer L. Rossman's submissions and being able to say, "Oooh, this one!" See her stories in LSQ: "One Last Ride on the Horse with Purple Roses" and "Pocketful of Souls." In Solarpunk Winters, Rossman's "Oil and Ivory" had me in tears and cheering. A pregnant protagonist! Narwhals! Hmm, I haven't checked out her novel "Jack Jetstark's Intergallactic Freakshow" also published by World Weaver Press. Maybe I should.

Fist raised! A "Midsummer Night's Heist" by Commando Jugendsil and Tales from the EV Studio was one of my favorites in Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers. So, I was really looking forward to their “Viam Inveniemus Aut Faciemus" — and rightly so! It was great to see Stabby and Loopy return and meet some new characters, too. These stories really put the punk in solarpunk. I love that they are written by a collective of creators and activists about the adventures of a collective of activists. Love these characters — and the romance sub-plot. Love the use of gender neutral pronouns. Love these descriptions: "Loopy might like heights, but Stabby'd rather take zir chances with fascists than with gravity."; "If Bilbo Baggins' cottage and the lair of a mad scientist had an architectural lovechild..." The title of the story translates as "I shall either find a way or make one."

Two critiques:

More animals, please. I faulted my own story in Solarpunk Summers for not having any animals in it. Seriously Shel, a positive future set on earth without mention of nonhuman animals? I fixed this in my Solarpunk Winters story and was pleased to see relations with other animals here: some sled dogs, conversations with whales, and one cat (Thank goodness for Jerri Jerreat's inclusion of Apple in "Rules for a Civilization" — People, do you really want to live in a future without cats?). Still there are 8.7 million species on Earth. Solarpunk futures feature a lot of interesting and nurtured plant life, but could have way more animals.

I'm really excited about World Weaver Press' call for stories for a new anthology Multispecies Cities in partnership with the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature in Kyoto, Japan. I will definitely be buying this book.

We could get weirder. I'd love to see us speculate even harder about what the future holds --weirder tech, weirder worlds, stranger cities, more unusual cultural changes, and even less status quo. I love what we're doing, and I'd love to challenge us to be even more fearless and fantastic. Happy writing!