"Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom — poets, visionaries — realists of a larger reality."
Does sci-fi shape the future? Tech billionaires from Bill Gates to Elon Musk have often talked about the impact of novels they read as teens, from Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" to Iain M. Banks' "Culture" series. Big Think's Namir Khaliq spoke to authors including Andy Weir, Lois McMaster Bujold, @cstross and @pluralistic about how much impact they think science fiction has had, or can have.
HAPPY EARTH DAY! 🌎🌍🌏
It's Release Day for my solarpunk short story collection! These hopeful climate-fiction stories take you from the bottom of the sea to the towers of a bot-filled city, all imagining futures halfway to a better world.
BONUS: we made a music video of my REWILDING INDIANA: Sky Shanty! (like #seashanty but in the sky).
Spending Earth Day weekend (Monday is the Official Day) publishing #solarpunk stories, and that feels extra appropriate this year. And I have a surprise project for you on Earth Day!
But I also hope to pry away some time to watch A Brief History of the Future while crossing my fingers extra hard that it's good.
For #FollowFriday I warmly recommend @susankayequinn AND her #books.
I appreciate the author's posts very much. And she writes #HopePunk, #CliFi, and #SolarPunk. I had not really an idea what is hidden behind these labels. I've been tiptoeing around the genres for months, worried that it might be too pedagogical, not literary enough.
Then I discovered her #shortStories. Now I'm hooked. Try it, you won't regret it! I want more now. 😊 @reading
I'm looking into cargo bikes for urban areas so I can reduce my footprint.
Any suggestions?
Priority is ability to transport a few groceries, ease of lockup, and lack of ridiculous cost. I don't need electric or anything, but I do need it to be there when I get out of the store...
My two latest (very short) #solarpunk stories are FREE!
THE DAY WE STOPPED BURNING
A sister in the far future, when we no longer burn things for fuel, finds a forbidden thing that would make the perfect gift.
I CAME HOME FROM SAVING THE RAINFOREST
A very short story about the cost of cutting down a tree.
Don't forget to preorder the collection — it releases this Monday, April 22nd, Earth Day!
My audacious plan to release a free #solarpunk story every week has run into a snag... but these four stories are STILL FREE! So grab them while they are! Or preorder the collection which releases next week on Earth Day!
WHAT? The artist who made the art for my #solarpunk Halfway to Better collection has made the covers into GREETING CARDS!
One of my fav things to do is to support artists, and I usually do that through commissioning cover art, but often through buying cards of various artists, even when I can't afford to buy their work.
This is the first time one of my commissions has been made into CARDS!
New FREE #solarpunk story on this #solareclipse day! This one a little darker, as befits the Day of End Times.
TOMBS WITHOUT BODIES (Halfway to Better 4)
Humanity has left the cities to live in the "greenbelt," but a young woman’s curiosity brings her back to the bot-patrolled streets where human beings used to live... until she gets caught.
Tombs Without Bodies is one of six solarpunk #shortstories in the Halfway to Better collection (avail for preorder). #hopepunk
America's first sustainable urban agrihood in Detroit.
"The three-acre development has vacant land, along with occupied and abandoned homes centered around a two-acre urban garden, with more than 300 organic vegetable varieties, like lettuce, kale, and carrots, as well as a 200-tree fruit orchard, with apples, pears, plums, and cherries, a children’s sensory garden, and more."
"She still thought her future looked bleak," Murdoch said. "And I couldn't understand that. And she said, well, look at all the young adult books [that] are about dystopias. Look at the television shows. Look at the films. Everything about the future is dystopian."
No shit. We live in a dystopia under the heel of people who want to make it worse.
We have to imagine a better future so that we can fight for a better future.
Woke up to this: Number 11! No specials or ads, no idea why, but yay.🎉
Book sales is one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. 😂
If you’re interested in my future ice age series, here’s the link: