Celina's Reviews > Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers

I’ve made more than one comment before about my dislike for speculative fiction, but I’ve never ruled out enjoying it in theory. Now it seems I’ve found my spec fic: this book and two others I have going (The Time Machine by HG Wells and the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch), all of which I like or love. I bought this on a whim after seeing it on a friend’s shelf and it’s a big departure from my usual, but it’s good to expand my horizons.

The best thing about these stories is the worldbuilding: an old mine providing shelter from an arid world covered in solar panels; a family business raising insects for food; a crew maintaining a dome of pressurized water that protects Los Angeles; raising chickens alongside their plant-based analogues in Wisconsin; a chaotic city built on the carcasses of old skyscrapers. Dramatic tension, story arc, and writing quality are hit-or-miss. My two favorite stories are set on farms: “A Field of Sapphires and Sunshine” by Jaymee Goh, about a woman coming home with her degree to Malaysia and her family’s crocodile ranch, and “Amber Waves,” by Sam S. Kepfield, about a tornado that closes one era and opens another in the life of a couple’s wheat farm in Kansas. “The Spider and the Stars,” “A Midsummer Night’s Heist,” “Camping with City Boy,” and the murder mystery at a weather manipulation station are fun too. One story was so obnoxiously written, so cringe, that all I could do was skim it, but only that one. I not only enjoyed this book but I expect I will come back to reread some of these stories.