I generally struggle with short fiction, but I picked this to challenge and stretch myself. It was not the easiest read for me, being more conceptual about ideas rather than characters. However it was well worth persisting and I'm glad I read this. Primarily I was interested to challenge myself with more short fiction. Secondly, I wanted to support the genre and the idea of hope and imagining a future of resistance, renewal, and eco politicism.

These were different. I'd never heard of Solarpunk before these stories. I'm not too much into ecology and saving our planet anymore; I'm pretty sure it will survive us. Still, the stories were interesting and I even enjoyed some of the poetry. The artwork I saw was alright, nice illustrations. I like short stories, so these served well when I needed to read something and short on time!

I requested this one because the description sounded unlike anything I'd ever heard of before. A whole new genre of speculative fiction. Not a dud in this collection, but your mileage may vary.

"The Boston Hearth Project," and "Last Chance" were the best stories in the collection, IMO.

Recommended for fans of sci-fi, fantasy, speculative fiction, and something completely different.

This is one of those books that gave me a real warmth in my heart while reading it. I love a good dystopian fiction as much as the next English Major but there is just something so nice about Solarpunk. I have seen the criticism that it is too simple and not realistic enough. Add that to the ongoing discussions of race, class and religion and there have been some pretty solid brawls in regards to the group. My opinion is that while Solarpunk is a nice idea, it is important to continue to have these discussions. If you are exposed to only one view the world very quickly loses definition and a realness that becomes obvious in the writing. It doesn’t need to be utopian in order to be Solarpunk, there are still struggles and arguments that happen in these worlds. There is just such an overwhelming layer of hope as the bedrock of these stories and poetry that you can’t help but see these stories as the authors’ children.

One of the things that I find difficult about anthologies, is that they are made up of short stories. I have just enough time to get into a story and connect with the characters before they are ripped away from me by the turning of the pages. I hope that there is enough of an outpouring of desire for more Solarpunk stories that some of these characters come back for further adventures. Even though I was given this by Netgalley and the publishers I exchange for honest feedback, I will be looking for a copy for my coffee table.

Well this is a bit different. I had never heard of 'Solarpunk' before picking up this collection of stories and poems and I really like it. In general not as depressing as some dystopian stories I have read and the imagery really gives you something to think about. A good read.

I'm a huge fan of Solarpunk, I really enjoy the aesthetics of it and so when I saw this anthology I knew I just had to get it. I consider myself very lucky to have received a copy of the ARC and it’s a book that took me a while to get through as I wanted to savour each story.Firstly,

Firstly, this is not just a collection of short stories. Poems and art also feature in this collection and so for that reason I would recommend a physical edition if possible. My Kindle is rather old and in black and white and so I was not able to fully appreciate the artwork although hopefully it’ll look better on newer Kindles. I’m also not a fan of reading poetry on Kindles as I feel the layout of the page is very important and I just prefer having it in physical form.

As this is a collection, I don’t want to discuss any of the pieces in too much detail as I feel that as with any collection, everybody will have different likes and dislikes and so if I focus on what I enjoyed, it might put some people off due to having different tastes. I will say that the stories covered a wide range of scenarios and I adored seeing all the futures that the authors had imagined. One in particular, involved living in shuttles in different layers of the atmosphere, was a setting I particularly enjoyed.

Indeed, I feel that the only complaint I can have about this book is that it has left me with a huge hunger for more Solarpunk stories which I know is going to be difficult to fill. If you know any, I would be more than happy to receive recommendations from you!

Anyway, this is a collection that I highly, highly recommend to anybody who enjoys Sci-Fi or is interested in Solarpunk. If you don’t know what Solarpunk is, then I highly recommend reading up on it because it’s by far one of my favourite genres and leads to some incredibly beautiful artwork.

Solarpunk is a fairly new and less well-known sub-genre of SFF. The editors and compilers of this anthology have to be commended for bringing together such a diverse group of authors, poets and artists of different academic backgrounds, cultures, nationalities and sexual orientations. As the editors explain, this is very much a community project (funded by Kickstarter). Previous to this, I had only read works by two of the authors: Jaymee Goh (from 'The Sea Is Ours: Tales from Steampunk Southeast Asia') and Lavie Tidhar (from 'Central Station'). This anthology is great value for money, there are 36 works altogether - mainly short stories, but also some poems, illustrations and artwork as well.

The short stories dealt with a range of issues concerning the environment: effects of climate change, renewable vs non-renewable sources of energy, recycling, space exploration for colonization, flora and fauna, to name just a few. One thing that is clear in the stories, by bright minds all over the world, is that changes in the environment affect all of us, no matter where we live or our station in life. There is some wistfulness and loss at times, like in "The Road to the Sea," where a family of salvagers in an unnamed future wonder why our generation didn't do more to preserve the earth for them. "The Colors of Money" addresses the issues of a foreign power (Britain, in this case) wanting to exploit the natural resources of Africa (Zanzibar) while the locals prefer to develop their oil palms and leave their petroleum deposits alone.

With some of the poems like "The Solar Powered Giraffes' and 'Fairy Tales and Other Species of Life," I felt they were too short to adequately their story and instead only conveyed a quick impression. I quite liked Sara Norja's poem "Sunharvest Triptych" with its Helsinki setting, heartbreak amid the wind turbines, solar panels and seaspray.

It is my hope this anthology (and solarpunk in general) will garner more attention and recognition for its inclusiveness, creativity and timely addressing of environmental concerns.

First off, full disclosure, I'm not really that into Sci-Fi. But I WANT to be into Sci-Fi so sometimes I will request random anthologies, especially if it's something like Solarpunk that I haven't read before, on the off-chance that I will find something I actually like. I do feel like this is a very good introduction to Solarpunk - there are prose stories of varying lengths, poems, and even some illustrations. There were a few stories that I really liked that stood out to me - the first story in the anthology - about a team of people who take over a new hotel to use as a homeless shelter - and one later on in the book - about a scientist who tries to reset the Earth back 30 years to get rid of some of the pollution.

But a LOT of the stories in this anthology were what I would call dystopian and I am just so over that sub-genre in particular. It isn't exactly like the normal dystopian stuff because it focuses more on the environment and I would say it definitely has a more hopeful tone, but by the end a lot of the stories - while not necessarily bad in and of themselves - were definitely blending together for me. It's still a good book though and I think it could easily be a 4 or 5 star read for someone who is more into Sci-Fi in general.

Sunvault is a robust and enjoyable anthology with strong ideas and a large dose of hope.

Variety is a key feature of this anthology and one that cropped up in a number of ways. The inclusion of poetry and artwork was a refreshing touch. It was nice to see these forms taken seriously in the anthology's survey of solarpunk.

The works within the anthology come from an impressive range of cultures. There was a Chinese work in translation alongside stories from Jewish and African American creators, among others. There was also work that centred disabled characters in ways sometimes reminiscent of Defying Doomsday. All of this led to a wonderful plethora of visions of the future, as well as variety in the tone of the stories. That said, hope for the future is a key element of solarpunk. There are no stories here that are unremittingly bleak, even if hope remains slim in some--such as C. Samuel Rees's Terratology. These works tend to celebrate the tenacity of humanity and our ability to come together and find solutions.

Naturally, there are stories in this anthology that are primarily focused on ideas, rather than characters and relationships. This is not generally my cup of tea, but I found the ideas interesting enough to keep me reading. Worldbuilding is a strength of most of the works in this collection, with some offering visions of the future that are more practical than others. Throughout, there is a nice balance with works that are more emotive.

Some highlights of the anthology for me were Daniel Jose Older's Dust about a genderfluid protagonist with a special connection to an asteroid hurtling towards the Earth. It deftly blended ideas and character, with a wonderful emphasis on connection to place. Similarly, Lev Mirov's The Desert, Blooming brought together religion and science in a beautiful combination, as the protagonist leaves the dome under which they have grown up for the first time to help plant trees to reclaim the desert.

All in all, Sunvault is an anthology that has been skillfully pieced together and I highly recommend it, particularly for those looking to get an overview of this subgenre.

When I first heard about Sunvault I was super excited. Solarpunk has always appealed to me as a subgenre and a method of activism. A lot of the content I see online is primarily about aesthetics though so I was really excited to see a work of solarpunk fiction.

Overall, Sunvault is a really good collection. Unlike a lot of other subgenres, solarpunk is still rather ephemeral. There's not really one thing a reader or author can point to that would be considered a revolution against despair, unlike sci-fi with spaceships, fantasy with magic, steampunk with clockwork. Different authors approach solarpunk in different ways. And for such a large collection by different authors, Sunvault tackles a lot of questions about environmentalism, climate change, hope, despair, human nature, love, and death really well. But it also winds up feeling occasionally disjointed as the stories cover everything from post-apocalyptic, science fiction, and other forms of speculative fiction.

Anthologies are always a mixed bag though and I very, very rarely love every single story in them, whether due to content or writing style. Sunvault also contains quite a few poems which I'm uncertain about. A couple of the poems really worked for me but the others just felt out of place as I tripped over them, not really expecting them.

A couple of my favourite stories include:

"The Boston Hearth Project" by T.X. Watson is by far my favourite and made a huge impact as the second story in the anthology. Written as a college application essay, this story is the essence of my understanding of solarpunk as a form of grassroots anti-capitalist activism rooted in social justice, anti-racism, anti-poverty, anti-disability. This is a story of overcoming and taking back private property for public good in order to save lives.

"Dust" by Daniel José Older is very much an anti-corporation sci-fi tale. A mining asteroid is going to hit earth and Jax, chief engineer, can stop it. Only that's not what everyone wants. I haven't read any of Older's novels before but the writing style is very reminiscent to what I love about N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season.

"The Reset" by Jaymee Goh is one of the more unique stories in Sunvault. A lot of the stories tackle life after natural disaster caused by climate change. But "The Reset" is a story about time being set back 30 years where everyone maintains their knowledge of the future and how that changes things. It's a very human story, centring on characters and human relationships as people struggle with this change.

"You and Me and the Deep Dark Sea" by Jess Barber is another character driven story, following Liam as he returns to his old costal community years after a natural disaster. Things have changed and Liam soon reunites with Ale as their relationship takes a new turn. Barber does a really good job exploring Liam and Ale's relationship, both past and present. I won't say more due to spoilers but it's a really lovely and hopeful story about community after disaster.

Great stories, many different voices, many different views of life.

I thought this book was amazing. I have never read anything like it and had no idea this genre existed. I guess it is. It makes sense because of the times we are living in now, and the stress on the environment.. The introduction did a great job of explaining what solar punk is and I was an instant fan. As the authors mentioned, 2312 is a great intro to the genre. I loved this from the very first piece, "Please." Unique and wonderful. Enjoy!