Preface

Sarena Ulibarri

The literary roots of solarpunk stretch back decades (at least), influenced and inspired by thought experiments such as Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia. One of the clearest forerunners is perhaps Kim Stanley Robinson’s Pacific Edge, the last of his “Three Californias Triptych.” The first of these three possible futures for California, The Wild Shore, envisions a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by nuclear war. The second, The Gold Coast, is a dystopian tale of rampant capitalism. To round them out, Robinson presents a third vision, Pacific Edge, a quasi-utopian future in which income inequality has largely been deflated and technology and architecture have adapted to create ecological harmony.

Though the Brazilian publisher Editora Draco was not directly influenced by Robinson’s triptych, the Solarpunk anthology had a similar genesis. First came Vaporpunk, an anthology of Victorian era alternate histories, showing a world run on steam power and clockwork. That was followed by Dieselpunk, alternate histories of the World Wars era, with the gritty aesthetic of gas-powered tanks and planes. When I asked editor Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro why he went with “Solarpunk” next, rather than some more established genre like cyberpunk, he told me, “after polluting Brazilian’s fantastic literature biosphere [with coal and then petroleum] it was the right time to write stories in self-sustaining fictional civilizations—no matter if those were located in future Earths or alternate history timelines—greener and more inspiring futures or timelimes not troubled by pollution, overpopulation, famine, mass extinctions and anthropogenic global warming. After all, as a reader, I was feeling rather bored myself with all those old dystopian plots.”

Weariness with dystopian plots, coupled with a growing awareness of climate change, has been a driving force in the renewed interest in ecological science fiction in the 2010s. The term “Solarpunk” was independently coined by about half a dozen different sources amidst a host of similar terms: ecopunk, hopepunk, brightpunk, eco-fabulism, eco-speculation, etc. While it is part of the larger movement of “climate fiction,” the “solar” in solarpunk has come to represent not only the ecological aspect of this budding subgenre, but also the idea of brightness and hope. Fascinating discussions have developed about what the genre is or isn’t, what it should look like, where it should stand politically, etc. Indeed, there is much more written about solarpunk than there is solarpunk fiction itself.

The limited cannon of self-proclaimed solarpunk fiction was one reason I thought it was so important for this anthology to be translated into English. When I negotiated the deal with Editora Draco, I didn’t know if the stories would even fit what was being defined as solarpunk in the English-speaking realm. But I knew it was essential that these early examples not be erased from the conversation simply because they were written in a different language.

The stories in this anthology are far less utopian and pastoral than much of the English-language solarpunk I’ve read. There is quite a lot of death and violence in them, and several of the stories show that just because a corporation or government is “green” doesn’t mean it’s free of corruption. And, no surprise when you understand the context in which they were published, two are alternate histories: “Xibalba Dreams of the West” envisions a high-tech Mayan and Tupi-descended society, untouched by European colonization, and “Once Upon a Time in a World” depicts a world in which the industrial revolution was replaced with a sustainable one, leading to accelerated technology and relative world peace—but certain familiar figures still want to make their grab for power. I was particularly surprised by the amount of gothic influence, most notably the immortal monster in “Cobalt Blue and the Enigma” and the overlap of science and religion in “Gary Johnson.”

All of these stories feature “sustainable” energy sources, but these energies aren’t always shown in a positive light. Because renewable energy has become so politicized in the United States, Americans tend to associate it with liberalism and left-wing ideology—the very idea of a world run primarily on renewables is often dismissed as idealistic and utopian. Brazil is actually one of the world’s leaders in renewable energy, with 76% of the country’s energy in 2017 coming from wind, solar, and hydropower. Brazil’s political landscape, however, is certainly not a liberal utopia. Far (very far) from it. Some of these stories reflect that dynamic and defy the notion that sustainable = utopian. The photosynthetic humans in “When Kingdoms Collide” are hiding a nefarious secret; “Soylent Green is People!“ shows how some scientists’ extracurricular experiments go very wrong; “Breaking News” covers a protest against a GMO greenhouse that takes a sinister turn; “Gary Johnson” is a Borgesian tale of an energy source that is just as unethical as it is abundant.

The two stories I think readers will most readily recognize as “solarpunk” are “Escape,” which is a race against time to prevent a planned disaster, and “Sun in the Heart,” a much more subtle tale about sacrifices and privilege in a world struggling with food shortages. But I hope you will read all of these stories generously and appreciate the rich and diverse worlds these writers have created. Many thanks to all of the Kickstarter backers who made this translation possible, as well as to the translator, Fábio Fernandes, who has been enthusiastic and diligent through this whole long process, and to the illustrator José Baetas, who has a brilliant eye for picking just the right scene to draw. Extra special thanks to Luca Albani for connecting me with Erick Sama and Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro at Editora Draco and therefore making this whole project possible.

And thanks to you, reader, for picking up this anthology, whatever it was that drew you to it. If you find these stories worthwhile, please tell a friend or leave a review. The world is connected through words, and yours matter just as much as anyone else’s.