Can anyone recommend any good novels or short stories set in a solar punk setting? I read a lot of sci-fi but somehow have never read anything set in this setting, I guess The Culture books could be considered solar punk in some ways but it’s almost too futuristic.
I’m not sure it totally fits, but Always Coming Home by Ursula K LeGuin was an amazing read. The premise is that an ethnographer of the future is writing about a future, post climate change California people called the Kesh. Most of the book is actually stories the Kesh themselves tell, be it poetry, folk tales, an autobiography, and even a snippet from a novel.
It’s an absolutely transformative book that I can’t recommend it enough. It’s like nothing else I’ve ever read.
“Psalm for the Wild-Built” is set in a solar punk world! Can’t recommend Becky Chambers highly enough.
I recently listened to the audiobooks of this and its sequel, ‘A Prayer for the Crown Shy’ for free on Libby.
It made a very nice change from my usual dark dystopian sci fi reads…