Solarpunk discussion

An extra large inaugural issue of the digital magazine with 6 short stories, 3 poems, 4 nonfiction articles, an interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, and lots of art!

Keen …

This looks awesome but I will have to pass. It’s unavailable on kindle or scribd or my library. It is available for apple, enjoy!

https://solarpunkmagazine.com/product...

Anyone knows if the above link offers the EPUB version they promised to add? If so, you can convert it to any format you need--e.g. with Calibre: https://calibre-ebook.com/

(And if worst comes to worst, you can buy whatever format they offer and drop me a PM with your email. I'll send you the EPUB.)

Sorry you'll miss it, Lena! I hope they grow to the point where they can be made available on more platforms.

The Brave Dress, by Starhawk - Starhawk is one of those names I've seen pop up a few times in connection to Solarpunk, but have never actually read - and I enjoyed this first outing. Future generations will always find their own boundaries to push, and ways to rebel, even when they're the children of those who embrace ridding the world of as many tyrannies as they can.

Me too. Solarpunk for all!

Flora 2.0 - This was beautiful; almost completely speculative but grounded in reality, and definitely captured that solarpunk feeling.
Ecowatch has a good (brief) article on solar trees, too, if anyone is interested: https://www.ecowatch.com/solar-trees....

The last of the Mbahuku tribe - This mixed some fantastical elements with a Solarpunk core, and I thought it was interesting and well done.

Doomsday Derby - A brief story about preventing destruction, but not one I think will stick for long. It was just a little too short, it didn't build up enough for me to get as invested as I wanted to be.

There follows some art, from Alex Ninn - I'm a big fan of "slice of life" type drawings.

Look to the sky, my love - This was beautiful, and I think I'll come back to it again - so far it's my favourite.

The Hilarious Inside Joke of Our Overwhelming Melancholic Nostalgia - This was sad, and definitely nostalgia focussed - so firmly living up to the title. It was good, but I think shorter than it needed to be to say everything it wanted to say.

Poetry section: I'm not huge on poetry, blame it on my lack of experience with it - but I did really like Harmonious Light, so that's a good sign!

Non-fiction:
Helping Your Garden Transition with Climate Change - I follow a few permaculture organisations, and there's some really good, easy to follow advice in this article, as well as links to other resources to dig deeper.

Solarpunk: A Container for More Fertile Futures - from the admin of solarpunks.net, it's a good article for the first issue; an examination on what solarpunk really is that allows for varying interpretations along a common theme.

Utopianism: an Interview with Kim Stanley Robinson - great interview, with an author who always has a lot to say, and says it articulately. Well worth the read!

Why Eco-Fiction Will Save the World - From CliFi to Solarpunk: enjoyed this one too, though I'll admit they're writing for the easiest audience - we all want to believe fiction can help push society in the right direction! But there really is tangible evidence it can that's always nice to see.

It’s Time to Build Solar Cities - This one felt the most scholarly of the articles so far, with a ton of references and link-outs to follow. But again, well worth the time and effort to work through it.

And that's this issue! I thought it was a good debut, and hope to see more from them - hopefully as they expand they can make it more accessible, too.

I thought this would be a big draw, maybe other people had accessibility issues. That’s a big miss for Solarpunk’s first official magazine.

But fear not friends! Fiona has found something fun, accessible to all, and FREE for June! More details to come…

I missed the updates on this … anyway I was a bit slow but have been reading …

I helped kickstart this mag and still love the concept. I think they’re really just finding their feet with this first issue though. I’ve read a fair chunk of it now. It was pretty hit and miss.

That said I did still find some stuff I liked …

Doomsday Derby - micah epstein. This was a great story, fast and sharp as a Ramones song. Science fictional world consequences interacting - autonomous cars spawning waste and killing parking garages. Also an observant conclusion on punk gentrification.

Technical quibble: it would have made more economic sense to me if some parking garages converted to autonomous-only, and the ones that hadn’t became derelict. Petrol still costs money so parking an autocar is economic when parking fees are less than petrol.

The Hilarious Inside Joke - I liked the ambiguity of this, the sibling dynamics, and the fight with nostalgia. There’s a Mark Fisher / hauntology quality to the nimmy … the recorded memories. Capitalist realism as future prison