Solar Punk Best Novels?

[The Soloist]

Wiki: Solarpunk is a literary, artistic, and social movement, closely related to the hopepunk movement, the "solar" represents solar energy as a renewable energy source and an optimistic vision of the future that rejects climate doomerism, while the "punk" refers to do it yourself and the countercultural, post-capitalist, and sometimes decolonial aspects of creating such a future.

As a science fiction literary subgenre and art movement, solarpunk works to address how the future might look if humanity succeeded in solving major contemporary challenges with an emphasis on sustainability, human impact on the environment, and addressing climate change and pollution. Especially as a subgenre, it is aligned with cyberpunk derivatives, and may borrow elements from utopian and fantasy genres.
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What are the best Solar Punk novels according to you?

 

[zakael19]

Really Enjoyed A Psalm for the Wild Built and its follow-up.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

TBH, I don’t know that I’ve read any solarpunk whatsoever. I’ll watch this thread and maybe have my interests piqued.

 

[A2Z]

Really Enjoyed A Psalm for the Wild Built and its follow-up.

Anything by Becky Chambers seems like it might fit into solarpunk I think.

I'm not sure if this fits or not but I've been enjoying the Mossa and Pleiti series by Malka Ann Older. I think it fits a more hopeful future vibe anyway.

 

[Clint_L]

Cyberpunk is an inherently dystopian genre, so I always find it weird when it gets fused with utopian subgenres. "Solarpunk" just does not seem like an apt description of Becky Chambers' work, at all, to me. And I love her writing! Like, I dunno...to me "solarpunk" seems kind of like trying to fuse punk and progressive rock. Antithetical, though I like both, for different reasons and in different moods.

 

[zakael19]

Chamber's work is mostly Hopepunk, pushing against societal norms and having a core of optimism. It's basically the opposite on the axis from classic cyberpunk.

Her Robot and Monk pairing are explicitly Solarpunk, as they're doing the "utopian working within the world and its resources, trying to fix past wrongs where that wasn't done" thing cited above. I think they might be among the poster children for the genre?

Basically, classic *punk tends to be nihilistic/dystopian. This stuff is optimistic instead. Both suggest that our current reality is untenable.

 

[Mannahnin]

Basically, classic *punk tends to be nihilistic/dystopian. This stuff is optimistic instead. Both suggest that our current reality is untenable.

Cyberpunk was/is usually dystopian. Are retro-futurist genres like Steampunk and Dieselpunk usually as well?

Punk by itself implies anti-authoritarian, kicking against the system and status quo. That can be either hopeful or nihilistic.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Cyberpunk was/is usually dystopian. Are retro-futurist genres like Steampunk and Dieselpunk usually as well?

Steampunk used to be, when it started out, with things like The Difference Engine, but rapidly became often like, "unreflected" to the point where the society was no longer of interest/consequence, just the aesthetic as cute backdrop to some tale of derring-do. At this point it's obviously a misnomer to call it Steampunk as it pretty much never focused on outsiders in those societies or people who rejected them, so only the dystopian elements were keeping it there, and it's thus just "steam-age fantasy" or "whimsical victorian era SF".

There is some dystopian steampunk still though, I'm struggling to remember the name but I read a novel like that a few years ago (it had other problems and was a bit unearned Franz Fanon-y though).

EDIT: Oh re: dieselpunk, there is a lot less of that, but virtually all of it I've come across has been at least partially dystopian and significantly punk. But some people include things like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow or the Rocketeer, which to me, is clinically bananas, because that's a different genre - that's just pulp with SF elements (which a lot of pulp always had), and it long pre-dates dieselpunk as an idea.

Punk by itself implies anti-authoritarian, kicking against the system and status quo. That can be either hopeful or nihilistic.

Yup. There's no requirement for nihilism, even if it's common. I kind of feel like nihilism is more a younger Boomer/Gen X writer thing in general, it's a lot rarer in writers outside that age-group I feel (though hardly unseen).

 

[zakael19]

Cyberpunk was/is usually dystopian. Are retro-futurist genres like Steampunk and Dieselpunk usually as well?

Punk by itself implies anti-authoritarian, kicking against the system and status quo. That can be either hopeful or nihilistic.

Im not as familiar with the works in those subgenera but I'm assuming they're pretty dystopian in their own ways?

At least in cyberpunk that I'm familiar with, generally they're nihilistic in that like, sure you can struggle but the Corps are going to grind you down or whatever.

I guess I'd contrast The Water Knife with A Psalm for the Wild Built?

 

[zakael19]

Yup. There's no requirement for nihilism, even if it's common. I kind of feel like nihilism is more a younger Boomer/Gen X writer thing in general, it's a lot rarer in writers outside that age-group I feel (though hardly unseen).

I do have a theory kicking around bout Gen X and nihilistic media, lol. Almost all of the grimdark resurgence was all Gen X writers/directors.

I think the categories in teh OP tend to be younger authors? In the TTRPG space the games I see exploring these themes are often queer GenZed or just on the line of millennial.