Glass and Gardens

April 30, 2018
The future, while not always perfect, still has its bright, shining moments, as revealed in this forward-thinking collection. The 17 stories tackle a variety of ethical, moral, philosophical, and technological issues with an eye toward imagining a sustainable world. The emphasis is on thoughtful, even radical solutions, such as in D.K. Mok’s delightful “The Spider and the Stars,” which traces the life and career of a young woman focused on applying entomology to space research, and Holly Schofield’s “The Call of the Wold,” about an introvert tasked with solving a community’s disagreements. In “The Heavenly Dreams of Mechanical Trees,” Wendy Nikel pictures a world in which artificial forests struggle to handle the functions of the real trees they’ve replaced; Blake Jessop’s “New Siberia” sees humans adapting to extraterrestrial conditions while learning from the past. This anthology is a welcome relief from dystopias and postapocalyptic wastelands, and a reassurance that the future need not be relentlessly bleak.

November 25, 2019
This thought-provoking follow-up to 2018’s Solarpunk Summers brings together 17 diverse “solarpunk” tales, defined by Ulibarri as “optimistic climate fiction, depicting futures in which we have mitigated the worst effects of climate change, or adapted to the changes we can no longer prevent.” Each of these stories features a wintry, inhospitable setting occupied by tenacious survivors and innovators, and an emphasis on LGBTQ representation and female empowerment runs through each of these visions for more progressive futures. An Inuit scientist works to save narwhals after an oil rig explosion threatens their migration in Jennifer Lee Rossman’s “Oil and Ivory.” Thomas Badlan’s “Orchidae” follows a horticulturalist’s attempts to find space for her beloved orchids in a government-run greenhouse focused on growing crops to rebuild the human population. In Sarah Van Goethem’s “The Healing,” an ailing woman learns that her illness is inextricably linked to the bioengineered living city she cares for. Though this anthology achieves its goal of conjuring myriad ways humanity might thrive on a permanently altered planet, few of the individual stories stand out. Still, readers will take comfort in this wide range of snowy, hopeful tales.