This week, I'm wrapping up my reviews for the stories in the anthology Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology.

Did you see parts 1 and 2 of my Wings of Renewal solarpunk book review? You can click here and here to see my reviews of the first 15 stories.

I definitely have favorites, and I definitely have criticisms, but overall, this book has been an enjoyable read. With so few options out there for books and stories that identify as solarpunk, this is a good place to start, and to gather ideas for your own solarpunk stories.

A couple of kids find an old airplane in the off-limit ruins, and, through some salvage work and genetic engineering, build it into a living dragon. The imagery of this story is absolutely gorgeous: elevated bike paths made from sea shells and shaded by solar panels, a central vertical garden draped in greenery; streets designed with colorful mosaic tile. This is also the best example in the book of a co-operative, post-capitalist society. It seems like a lovely world to live in, but it doesn't feel like a static utopia—things are not perfect, and there are consequences for pushing boundaries the way our main characters do. Unfortunately, we never actually get to see those consequences, because the story ends so abruptly. It lacks resolution, ending right at the climax, and on quite a negative note. One of the key things people are looking for in solarpunk is optimism. Does that mean solarpunk stories have to have happy endings? If not happy, I think, then at least hopeful. This story, though it had many beautiful moments and ideas, ultimately left me on a sour and unsatisfied note.

One of the few stories in this book told from the point of view of a dragon, this a galactic guardian sent to rescue the last remaining humans from Earth before the sun is destroyed—if only the humans will agree to be rescued. Overall, the writing is strong and the imagery is great. The premise is intriguing, though I think vastly oversimplified. Still, it's a nice tale of the complexity of human nature and perseverance against great odds.

Mixing fantasy and science fiction can work, but the rules and limitations of the world need to be established and consistent. (Have you noticed my primary criticism of stories in this anthology is usually worldbuilding?) This one does not feel consistent at all. The sci-fi and solarpunk aspects seem tacked on to what would otherwise be a coherent fantasy story, and could be extracted and replaced with lower-level fantasy tech or magic—both of which already exist in this world, though there's little explanation for why one is used rather than another for any given reference. Still, there are a lot of things to like about this story. It's a unique twisting of Snow White. The writing is vivid and engaging, and the author has an excellent knack for tension and pacing. I would have liked this one a lot better just as a fantasy story. The solarpunk themes feel forced, and the technology is unexplored.

A sweet story (no pun intended) about a boy who wants to do something nice for a dying dragon that helped his village become self-sufficient. There's not a lot at stake, and there's a lot of "telling" exposition, but overall it's a nice story with interesting tech, likeable characters, and good disability representation. The final scene is vividly rendered and memorable.

If we accept solarpunk as an aesthetic or a mode rather than a genre (as I suggested in my Part 2 review), then this is a solid example of solarpunk fantasy. On the tech and setting level, it's light, but it's there. Two important scenes directly involve solar panels, and there are several mentions of algae lamps. But in terms of solarpunk themes—environmental balance, community and cooperation, accepting others, hope and optimism, etc.—it has those in droves. This is one of the better written stories in this anthology. A Leslie Knope-type community organizer makes it her personal mission to get the anti-social witch on the hill involved with community activities. It's a lovely story of mutual redemption, and really, the anthology is worth buying just for this story alone.

To be honest, I didn't entirely understand the plot of this story, but it has something to do with a couple of "Wanderers" (which seems akin to the aboriginal "walkabout") who help a dragon and a dragon-lady. The stakes are high—humans and dragons are not allowed any contact, on penalty of death—but seem arbitrary. The background and logic of this law are never explained or explored. Though, maybe that's part of the point. Maybe, like much paranormal romance, it's a metaphor for "forbidden" types of love (i.e. queer relationships or kink). I'm not sure. But while the plot didn't hold together for me, the characters and interpersonal relationships were well drawn and kept me engaged. This is another fantasy story with a solarpunk overlay, and while nothing is lost from that overlay, I don't think much is gained from it either.

This is a wonderful story, and a perfect end to this anthology. I may have teared up a little bit...  In a world where dragons have come to Earth to be caretakers and guide humans back to the right path, the last two guardian dragons have reached the end of their lives. But as her partner prepares for death, the last one seeks a miracle that will ensure they are not actually the last. As solarpunk continues to develop, I'd love to see it focus on how humans can save ourselves, without aliens or magic or divine intervention, but even though dragons save us in this story, the themes of environmental stewardship and cooperative responsibility are crystal clear. And if we must be saved, then I can think of no better saviors than gorgeous, kind, queer dragons. This is a world I would definitely love to live in.

This week, I'm delving into the middle stories in the book Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology, edited by Claudie Arseneault and Brenda J. Pierson.

Did you see the first part of my Wings of Renewal Book Review? If not, click here for reviews of the first eight stories.

Not sure what "solarpunk" means? Check out my blog post on the World Weaver Press site called "The Brighter Futures of Solarpunk," as well as the comprehensive "Solarpunk Reference Guide."

And that is all the ado I shall give this week. On to the reviews:

A water energy scientist learns a corporation is allowing fusion reactors to collapse and profiting from people who are fleeing Earth for a Martian colony, so he creates a virus to shut down the reactors—which makes things worse. I enjoyed the science in this story, but wish the author had delved a little deeper into it. The protagonist is working on a method to harness energy from ocean currents. Cool! But why is this the green tech that's going to save us, more than, say, wave energy (which already exists), or any of the other renewables? I'd have loved to know more.

Note: It has come to my attention that this story is not included in the re-issued edition of Wings of Renewal. I am reading a first edition, published by Incandescent Phoenix Books. The new edition republished by Claudie Arseneault contains fewer stories than the original.

A community works together to extinguish a fire that threatens the forest their forebears planted to stop the encroaching desert. Like a lot of the stories in this anthology, it could have used a bit more in the way of worldbuilding and characterization, but overall, this was a nice story about cooperation and perseverance.

A stranded spaceship pilot is rescued by an ethereal dragon and taken to a utopian planet. This story would be right at home in a space opera or space adventure anthology, though it is a bit rare to see true utopias (that don't turn out to be dystopias in disguise). This story faces head-on a lot of the concerns writers have about utopian settings, and through exploration and contrast, comes to a satisfying conclusion. The author claims to be writing a novel in this world. I'll keep an eye out for it.

The idea that dragons and other creatures of myth returned once we cleaned up the planet is a pretty common theme in this anthology. To be honest, that was the angle I took in the story I wrote for their call for submissions (which was rejected, as it should have been. It wasn't ready!). This story had some nice moments, but the narrative style was quite distancing for me, and I don't feel it will stick with me as one of the more memorable pieces. And to be honest, by this point in the anthology, I'm craving a little more "solarpunk" and a little less "dragon."

I enjoyed the Romanian setting of this story—it's not one I see very often in science fiction. I can't speak for authenticity or representation, but nothing stood out to me as an obvious stereotype, and the setting did feel integral to the story. A bit more violent than the others so far in this anthology (though vastly less so than an average SFF tale these days), with a satisfying non-violent resolution.

Note: It has come to my attention that this story is not included in the re-issued edition of Wings of Renewal. I am reading a first edition, published by Incandescent Phoenix Books. The new edition republished by Claudie Arseneault contains fewer stories than the original.

I ranted last time about how I thought solarpunk should remain science fiction and not get too tangled up with fantasy and magic, but this story is making me question that assertion. This is urban fantasy in a solarpunk setting, and, I don't know, it kind of works. Is solarpunk a genre, or is it an aesthetic, the way horror can be considered an aesthetic? Can solarpunk be overlaid onto other genres without losing its core? Maybe it can. Magic exists in Dubas's world, but it wasn't magic that reversed our ecological damage. The backstory about climate change and renewal is too brief, glossing over how we got to this world, but that's also not the focus of the story. Really, it's a symptom of the fact that this should be a novel. It feels like a first chapter rather than a fully-realized short story, and if it were given the room to breathe, I'm sure we'd get all that backstory much better fleshed out. One of the most awesome parts of this story was The Red Door. This is such an great idea, and so much more could be done with it.

In a world where people harvest dragon scales to use like solar panels, someone is hunting and shooting down the dragons. Like the previous story, this is much more of a first chapter than it is a complete short story. It raises a bunch of story questions but resolves none of them. Our protagonist finds one of the injured dragons and becomes a caretaker for its baby. That's great, but it's the start of a story, not a whole story. The characterization and worldbuilding on a micro scale is pretty good—I always had a good sense of the immediate setting, and the diversity of the characters is one of the best parts. We have a hijab-wearing Muslim protagonist, and Mandarin-speaking background characters, which is an intriguing mix. However, I was kind of lost on the macro scale: Are we in a future earth where dragons have reappeared (like many of the other stories in this book)? Are we in an alternate present-day earth where dragons have always existed? Are we on a new planet like Pierson's "New Persia"? Are we in a secondary fantasy world inspired by Islamic culture? I really couldn't tell.

The solarpunk tech in this story was mostly background, but there was a satisfying amount of it: "solar trees," which, without additional description, I'll choose to imagine like those awesome Singaporean solar collectors; molten-salt batteries for solar storage; ornithopter drones; electric bikes; etc. The idea of literal dragon scales as solar converters is dampened a bit for me by the fact that "Dragon SCALEs" is an actual type of flexible solar technology, but that probably didn't even exist when this story was written. Overall, my biggest critique of this story is that it really needs to be a full novel, and if it were, I'd definitely keep reading when I got to the end of the first chapter.

Come back next week for Part 3 of my Wings of Renewal solarpunk book review!

The first time I ever heard the term solarpunk was in the call for submissions for the Wings of Renewal "solarpunk dragons" anthology. I've already blogged about how solarpunk gave a name to something I was already deeply craving in my science fiction, and the darker the world gets, the brighter I want my fiction to be—both what I write and what I read. I tried my hand at a solarpunk dragon story for this anthology, but the Wings of Renewal editors politely (and rightfully) declined it. I bought the anthology when it was first released, but it's taken me a while to actually read it, for various (not very good) reasons.

As I read, I found that I had MANY OPINIONS, both about the stories themselves and about how solarpunk is and is not developing as a genre and a movement. And what is a blog except a perfect place to bark my opinions into the wind?

It's a long book (22 stories and 500+ pages), so I'll be spreading my reviews out over three blog posts—one per week is the plan. These are solely my opinions, and I have nothing at stake here except a general interest in helping make solarpunk a thing. (You can see what I'm doing on that front here and here.) I'd also like to note that editor Claudie Arseneault is donating proceeds from sales of Wings of Renewal to NoDAPL, so that's as good a reason as any to pick up a copy.

Ready? Okay, here we go.

Usually an anthology starts with the strongest story, and that's definitely not the case here. The writing is competent, but lackluster, full of beginner crutches and weak constructions. I had about a thousand questions about the worldbuilding, though much of it intrigued me as well. I assume the editors chose this one to open the book because it best fit their vision of what solarpunk should be. The conflict of this story revolves around a girl trying to 3D print a prosthetic leg for a dragon while poachers pursue. It's inclusive and optimistic in all the best ways, with interesting and colorful sustainable tech ranging from stained glass solar panels to algae-powered ships to electric bikes. If this story were illustrated or made into a graphic novel, it would look just like one of those awesome solarpunk Pinterest boards.

A group of travelers fly in an interstellar "dragonship," a sentient creature that functions through a mind-meld with the pilot—until [slight spoiler] the pilot has an aneurysm and the life support systems start to shut down. Except for the green, nature-centric imagery of the dragonship's interior, this is pretty much a straightforward science fiction story. That's not to take anything away from it—it's a wonderful story, with strong writing and likeable, sympathetic characters. The solarpunk setting gives it a unique feel that sets it apart from other space travel adventures, and the hopeful, happy ending feels just right. 

This one starts out darker than the others. A supervolcano has erupted, the sun is blocked by clouds and debris, and the fumes are slowly killing people. Dragons have mysteriously arrived, circling the poisoned skies. Though it begins dark, it takes a beautiful, optimistic turn near the end. This has what I think will become a quintessential solarpunk theme: perseverance in the face of extreme environmental conditions. "The Shape of the Sun" is one of my favorite stories in the anthology.

This is a lovely story, but I can't see it as solarpunk. It's an agrarian fantasy with fairy tale underpinnings, and though it's all about gardening and caring for the earth and dealing with drought, those things aren't uncommon in this type of fantasy. I think it's important for solarpunk to develop as a science fiction genre—to showcase sustainable technology we already have, to speculate about green tech we could have, and to imagine the new social norms and conflicts that arise because of it. If solarpunk goes the way of steampunk and gets too tangled up with magic and the fantastic, it ceases to be a future we can actually strive for. That's not what's happening in this story, though: it's just a full-fledged fantasy, and as fantasy, it's pretty good, and definitely refreshing in its portrayal of queer and non-binary characters. A girl steals a flower from a witch's garden and has to go work for her to appease the theft, but quickly realizes she's not the villain the townspeople make her out to be. While the writing is generally strong, the tone is a bit uneven, and at times the language felt too contemporary for the setting.

I propose that rather than solarpunk, "Petrichor" is an example of noblebright, a fantasy movement formed as a reaction against the grimdark fantasy that's so pervasive in the genre these days.

I had trouble figuring out when and where this story took place. It starts off feeling like traditional fantasy, then later scenes have more contemporary technology, but with something of a 19th century safari feel. Finally, I decided it must just be a secondary world fantasy based loosely on the Amazon, with dragons and a little bit of technology. The lack of worldbuilding really pulled me out, though, and the solarpunk aspects felt tacked on. We have boats that run on solar power (except the scene is at night?) and "solar lamps" (what do they look like? how are they any different than battery powered lamps?). If you were to edit out those references, the story wouldn't be substantially different. Also, throughout many of these stories, I'm noticing a trend in solarpunk names: character names like Bright, Sol, Marisol, etc. This is cute, but could get cliché real quick.

On the planet of New Persia, humans have developed a symbiotic civilization with elemental dragons. When one of the irrigation dragons goes missing, our narrator ventures into the jungle to find it. The personal conflict (his wife wants kids but he's not ready) coupled with the high stakes of losing the dragon (their town will dry up without enough dragons) worked together to create a highly satisfying story. The Arabic-style world was interesting and refreshing, and though the green tech aspects were light, they were definitely sprinkled in. The humans' relationship with the various dragons offers a good metaphor for sustainable energy. A wonderful story.

A neuroatypical artist who makes dragon automata struggles to level up his dragons to win a contest at an upcoming festival. The imagery of the stained glass dragons is beautiful, but is the presence of stained glass and the mention of vaguely-defined "gardens" enough to make it solarpunk? I'd have loved to see and understand more about the world this story takes place in. The stakes of the conflict were also poorly defined, and information known to the characters was withheld from the reader until the end—a personal pet peeve of mine. If the characters all know something, it's not a "twist" or a "reveal." If the only reason the reader has to keep reading is to get to this withheld information, then it's a Band-Aid covering the fact that the conflict and stakes of the story aren't strong enough on their own.

The future empire of Solarium overlays modern New York, and now that the pollution has cleared, dragon nature spirits have returned to balance the ecosystems over which they preside. Our protagonist is a Dawnlight Knight, charged with tracking down the Prince's missing dragon. Our antagonist is capturing and genetically engineering the dragons because she believes it's dangerous and unsustainable to be so dependent on them. She's a great villain because she truly believes what she's doing is right, and this argument over independent sustainability vs. symbiotic dependence makes a fantastic solarpunk conflict. Personally, I think the editors should have put this story first. It's the most fully realized and fleshed out of any of the stories so far. I would absolutely love to read a full YA novel set in this world.

Note: It has come to my attention that this story is not included in the re-issued edition of Wings of Renewal. I am reading a first edition, published by Incandescent Phoenix Books. The new edition republished by Claudie Arseneault contains fewer stories than the original.

Check back next week for part two of my Wings of Renewal solarpunk book review!

I graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder, with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing on May 9, 2014—three years ago exactly. It was a three year MFA program, so I have now been out of the MFA as long as I was in it. I thought this would be a good chance to reflect on my MFA experience in general, and on what I've done (and not done) since finishing the program.

A few people have asked me whether I recommend getting an MFA, and I can't say unequivocally yes or no. As a fantasy and science fiction writer, I think it's probably far more useful to go to the genre-focused workshops like Clarion, Taos Toolbox, Odyssey, or CSSF, or even just to spend a bunch of time in genre-focused critique groups such as Critters or Codex. Even at CU Boulder, which was a genre-friendly program, a lot of the teachers and other students valued very different things about writing than genre folks do, and that's not always going to help your writing move in the direction it needs to go. It's good to read outside of your comfort zone and seek diverse opinions, but my experience of workshopping fantasy and science fiction stories with non-genre readers is that they are often impressed with aspects that are cliché to genre readers, and overlook aspects that genre readers would want clarified or expanded. "Plot" and "Worldbuilding" were basically dirty words in an MFA workshop.

The summer after I finished the MFA, I went to the Clarion Workshop in San Diego. In the first class, instructor Gregory Frost said he would go over some basic writing craft concepts, so I just sat back and thought "I don't need to take notes, I've been teaching basic writing craft for the last three years." About five minutes into his lecture I was scrambling for my notebook. The next summer, I took the novel workshop with Kij Johnson at the University of Kansas's Center for the Study of Science Fiction. I was workshopping a new novel, but three days into the class, I realized all the structural problems in the novel I'd written as my MFA thesis—all the reasons it kept getting agent requests that turned into rejections once they read halfway through. I ditched the project I had brought and did major revisions on my thesis novel instead.

But I'd probably never have been accepted to Clarion if I hadn't done the MFA, because I wrote my admission stories there. Same with CSSF. Most of my classmates got in without that experience, but I, personally, needed it, to figure out what kind of a writer I wanted to be. And I'm lucky to have done any of them at all—these things are not cheap, and they're not easy. I also wouldn't have my publishing job without my MFA, not because of the credential, necessarily, but because of the experience, especially the Publishing Workshop I did with Subito Press. Interestingly enough, the experience of formatting my thesis, which I thought was utterly obnoxious and useless at the time, gave me skills I use on almost a daily basis now when formatting paperbacks for World Weaver Press.

I published quite a few stories while I was in the MFA program, and I had a great fear that I'd stop publishing once I was out. That's a strangely common phenomenon in writing programs. Some people stop writing entirely, whether because they no longer have deadlines and grades for motivation, or because they're burnt out, or because life gets in the way and they no longer have time.

My publishing output has definitely decreased since I graduated, and there are several reasons for that. First, I've spent a lot more time working on novels than on short stories (as-yet and probably-always unpublished novels). Second, a lot of the stories I published during the MFA were flash fiction—really short pieces under 1000 words. Nowadays, my short fiction tends toward 5,000 to 8,000 words, and there's more competition in that range. Third, I've tried to level up the type of markets I'm submitting to. Many of my MFA publications were unpaid or token payments. I broke into a pro-market once, and I've been trying to get back there ever since. The pro-payment genre magazines are often slow and don't allow simultaneous submissions, so I may be shopping around the same story for a couple of years before I exhaust all the pro- possibilities and either decide to trunk the story or start sending it to semi-pro markets. And fourth, yeah, time and real life have been an issue. For most of 2016, I was both working a day job and running World Weaver Press, and finding the time and energy to write and/or submit was difficult.

All of these reasons are why I only have three stories on deck for 2017, rather than eight or ten like the years I was in the MFA. But, ya know, that's still three. Nope, I still don't have those pro- sales, and I still don't have that book deal. But I'm still writing, I'm still publishing, and I'm working with books and with creative people every day.

I think the most important thing I've learned in the three years since I finished my MFA is that the learning's not over. Not by a long shot.

My contributor copies of Biketopia have arrived! Or, more accurately, I have managed to track down my contributor copies of Biketopia. See, my story "Riding in Place" was accepted for this anthology at the tail end of 2015, and I moved in the spring of 2016, and apparently forgot to update my address with the publisher. I realized this after it had been shipped. I considered using an expensive interception service, but figured the package would just be returned to sender and then resent to my new address.

Nope.

Fortunately, for the first time in my life, I've only moved across town, and not across the country, so when I discovered the package had been delivered a week ago, I decided to go knock on the door of my old apartment. The new occupant was there, and quite nice. They'd tried to return the package, but it only got re-delivered to them, so it had just been sitting around in the P.O. Box for a week. They said they'd also gotten a shipment of "weird alien books" last December, and I had to tell them, yep, sorry, those were mine—a shipment of Campaign 2100's returned from a bookseller that I had to go pick up from the UPS warehouse after a UPS worker tracked me down through the World Weaver Press Facebook page.

Update your addresses, kids.

But the books! I have them, and they're beautiful. My solarpunk story "Riding in Place" is the first story in it. In this collection that alternates between utopian and dystopian visions of the future, my story takes on the utopian path. A sentient robot on an asteroid mine just wants to see the utopian world her labor has helped create, and a human miner who has a troubled relationship with her daughter doesn't believe it's a utopia at all.

I look forward to reading the rest of the stories in this anthology, especially to see if there are others that might be considered solarpunk—it's a bit rare to find in the wild.

There are a couple of different release dates listed, so I'm not entirely sure when you'll be able to get your copy, but if you're interested, there are a few ways. You can get it in ebook or paperback from Amazon by clicking the links below, or you can order a paperback directly from the publisher (which I highly recommend), Microcosm Publishing. And if you use the code BIKETOPIANS at checkout, you'll get 10% off.