books, films, blog posts, whatever really. just curious about people’s opinion of the essential works of the genre and who has shaped the movement
If you were asked to define the solarpunk “canon”, what would you include?
DiscussionWorking on making some, but I like pointing to Nausica and the Valley of the Wind. Not only for alternative energy but courageous non-violence.
Courageous non violence makes me think of “The Fifth Sacred Thing” by Starhawk. Phenomenal book all around that has a lot of solar punk elements.
I’m reading it right now. Amazed that it came out in the nineties. I find the magic disconcerting, tho. It adds an element of implausibility it a societal framework I would like to take seriously.
It’s been a little while since I read it but are you referring to the incident with the bees? Or something else?
Magic healing.
I really liked The Fifth Sacred Thing, and I normally wouldn't touch something by someone with a name like StarHawk LOL. I forget the incident with the bees, but, if I recall correctly, there were computers that were crystals that people communicated with telepathically. Overall, though, I did like the book, and I still recommend it to people from time to time.
re-reading the manga right now and “courageous non-violence” is such a perfect description
I really wanted to watch this movie on the weekend but I couldn't. The totally unintentionally skin coloured skin tight pants and the unrealistically flowy super short skirt really rubbed me the wrong way
The works of Ursula K Le Guin, Ghibli films, and philosophers like Bookchin would be on my list probably
Specifically, Ursula Le Guin's book Always Coming Home is the founding text of solarpunk
I looked that up in my library and it keeps showing me the Earhsea series. Is that a glitch or is it an alternate name for the same books?
Nah, Earthsea is a different series by Le Guin - they're fantastic fantasy books but Always Coming Home is the solarpunk novel she wrote separate from that series.
Thanks. My library has very few of the books on this thread. I did find one I hadn’t read yet though. I’ll keep checking. Keep the suggestions coming!
Elinor Ostrom's work on the commons, Bill Mollison "Permaculture: designers manual" and David Holmgren's "Permaculture principles and pathways beyond sustainability", Peter Bloch "Community", Edgar Cahn's timebanking
Ecology of Freedom - Murray Bookchin
Doughnut Economics - Kate Raworth
The Dispossessed - Ursula K LeGuin
Ecotopia - Ernest Callenbach
Walkaway - Cory Doctorow
Island - Aldous Huxley
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Also the more recent Psalm for the Wildbuilt series by Becky Chambers is incredible.
I heard an interview with kate raworth and iirc I think she did a good job of explaining what others could call socialist ideas in a way that was accessible to “normies” as one might call them. will have to revisit. thanks!
The method of freedom, Malatesta. A paradise built in hell, solnit.
like rebecca solnit? love her. will have to read that
I'd recommend adding some visual art, like Imperial Boy's work.
would love to have more visual or performing art included
Chobani commercial 🤣🤣
This is the only correct answer
Rock of Ages by Jay Lake. Spy thriller set in a world on the brink of a world war between multiple mutually ideologically contradictory factions, all of them some variety of ideological solarpunks. Cory Doctorow-style Open Source Everything Maker Communities, luddite amish, an artificially-created Gaia collective consciousness formed from legalistic AIs representing nature which double as the banking system and petrodollar-equivalent global currency by keeping track of how indebted everyone is for their 21st Century ancestors' environmental impact, malthusian ecofascists, etc.
Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit—Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts by Ken Liu. An inhabitant of a civilization rebuilt along solarpunk lines in the aftermath of environmental cataclysm and the descendant of a modern billionaire survivalist inhabiting their family's private space colony discuss the retrospective merits of their cultures, each arguing against their own. Aka, this onion article in story form.
Is rock of ages only an audiobook? I cant find a regular paperback.
I found it in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-First Annual Collection anthology.
Cory Doctorow’s “Walkaway“ and ”Lost Cause“. Ghibli. “Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler
Murray Bookchin, Jeremy Rifkin, Terrence McKenna, Jacques Ellul I haven't read any really solarpunk book yet (e.g: book written specifically to coincide with the movement), and I think it would need a lot of practical book (gardening, building, repairing)
One genre I think MUST be included is botanical art aka gardens.
Plants are, after all, the first solar panel creators. They have harvested the clean free energy from the beginning, paving a way for the animals to live a somewhat higher order life by "consuming light." Animals are terrestrial in that they must consume things of the earth, yet plants are partially celestial as their energy is powered by our sun. It is through the grace of the botanical world that we can physically sustain ourselves with the power of the celestial.
The punk in the name means something. Specifically no one point of view owns the ethos.
You shouldn’t be capable of defining what is and what isn’t with strong clarity if it’s truly punk…you should only know what you’re rebelling against. and even that can tolerate plenty of disagreement.
While I see what you’re saying, I would respond by noting that no matter how decentralized a movement is, there are still works (of many media) that were highly influential on members of the movement and can serve as useful expressions of its ideas. even anarchism has its foundational texts.
also, solarpunk does have a definition. it isn’t just anything. it’s generally speaking a synthesis of ecology, optimism and post-capitalism, while there are divergent views within that, there is still agreed upon definition of it.
post-capitalism
Only if you are dismissing those that still seek social and civic reforms and change in our immediate lives vs those that simply look forward towards a yet to be shaped future.
Like I said - there isnt an agreed upon definition. There are shared values, but that’s about it.
You can try to put things in a box on a Reddit forum, but even these efforts will decay in a matter of weeks or months because a firm definition, doesn’t apply, and isn’t particularly relevant.
It’s as much punk as it is anything. Hence the genre roots in fluidity. It’s not anarchy…but it’s close.
Anyone drawing a picture of people in harmony with nature can be solar punk…or just nice environmentalism.
Throwing seed bombs on unused land to bring back pollinators can be solar punk…or it can be just punk as well.
That’s your problem. There is no clear membrane at the edge of the definition. Because it wasn’t meant to be an idea with clear boundaries or goals.
It might not have clear boundaries, but it has a body.
Ecotopia and Ecotopia Emerging by Ernest Callenbach
Bolo'Bolo by PM
Project Kamp. They have a youtube channel and a website. They build an off grid community in portugal. I like what they do, but I wanna say, to me they sometimes feel a bit culty and I dont like that I cannot find information online about who runs this, how money flows, etc.
A weird one but the lancer ttrpg. I love that the authors made union with such good intentions and have sort of revived the idea of utopian sci fi for me
A free for all era where people are candor and community runs on combined effort and community work and mostly based on art and how bonded we're with nature, and of course there is no "capitol" for anyone and the whole world is a free space that is entrusted on everyone , if everyone is Brought up like this then the coming generations will not deviate ,(maybe a few) this ensures an eco-utopia we all persevere for .
I'm inclined more to the non-fiction than the fiction. The futurist works of Buckminster Fuller like Critical Path, Alvin Toffler's Future Shock series (Future Shock, The Third Wave, and Powershift), and Hans Widmer's bolo'bolo which first set out the picture of the post-industrial culture and ideas of planetary sustainability. The design work of Ken Isaacs and his How To Make Your Own Living Structures or N55 in Denmark. The Whole Earth Catalog and the other very hand-made independent publications of the community that seemed to grow up around it and influence the later Maker movement. Like the alternative building books of Lloyd Khan and Shelter Publications and the work of John Muir/Peter Aschwanden like The Velvet Monkey Wrench and How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive. (Aschwanden, with his Comix-influenced style, subtle Art Nouveau/classic rock poster influences, revival of anachronisms like 'illuminated' book pages, decorative borders, and inset illustrations, and humorous 'folksy' approach to quite technical illustration making them more accessible is the quintessential Solarpunk illustrator IMO, even if he was gone before the movement took off and high-tech and the future not his typical subjects. This is the organic, hand-made, look and feel I wish the movement could most capture and replicate for its media, as antidote to the computer-generated slickness of corporate media and counter to its Greek-Temple-On-A-Golf-Course techno-utopianism)
solarpunk still a fairly new genre. I would consider becky chambers psalms for the wild built and prayers for the crown shy to be more intentionally solar punk. I would grandfather in a lot of eco sci fi like kim stanley robinson red/green/blue mars trilogy and ecotopia.
I'd add Progress and Poverty by Henry George to the list.
The Fall of the Soviet Union That is exactly what will happen if the average Solarpunk here tries to run society their way.
Here before the “You aren’t truly solar punk until you’ve read X”. gatekeeping shows up.
Well, here after the socialist and commies keep banging on about their failed and outdated ideology, so you experienced the good times
I'm just here to be really hyped about seed bombs, composting, biking, and making rational changes towards sustainability in my local politics.
I also like some dope ass concept art along the way.
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