Nothing against dark and dystopian; such books have a worthy place in the wide universe of science fiction and fantasy (SF/F). But I feel the upbeat is sometimes dismissed as somehow less significant. I like a lot of things, but I do prefer to read stories with characters who hang in there and triumph in at least some way. This is where my writing tends to be as well (though I won't promise that all of my stories will be optimistic; I have to keep the readers guessing!).

So I'm starting an "Optimistic SF/F" shelf in Goodreads. "Optimistic" does not mean all sunlight and roses; some of these stories get pretty harsh and some of the characters get pretty ambiguous. But deep down, they know they need to try to do what's right, and they generally succeed eventually, even if not in the way they originally wanted.

Not surprisingly, there's a lot of overlap with my "Favorites" shelf, but the two are not identical--non-favorites can be optimistic, and favorites don't have to be upbeat. I recommend these books to anyone looking for good, optimistic science fiction and fantasy.