You don’t often see genre endorsements like this.
That’s… why I’m here.
Solarpunk is not just in its art form! If we are going towards cyberpunk dystopian, we can make solarpunk happen too.
Tired of dystopian sci-fi?
Absolutely not and I never will be.
Dude we are currently living in one, minus the neon & cybernetics
Living in it is kinda tiring tho
Alright, take a break from the internet, Emily Dickinson.
didn’t ask, also, you’re not cool enough to be your namesake.
May I also strongly suggest The Culture Series.
It answers the “what if the (real) AI singularity happens” but instead of the typical “and then we all die” its just that the Minds are actually just cool with us. And I realised after about 4 of the books that the humans are like pets for this curious hyper-intelligences that kinda enable the humans to become better people, if at the loss of some cultural identity.
The Culture is The Borg, but you want to join them because their shit is dope. The luxuries and comforts of The Culture leading to the demise of other societies as they absorb in.
It also explores a lot of interventionism (or when not to) in some of the stories. One is a short story set at the time of the cold war. Which is interesting since earth barely ever is relevant in The Culture novels. Its just another backwater that has pre-spacefaring humanoids on it.
It explores a lot of quite dope concepts, and the visual imagery of the destruction of Vavatch Orbital, and down in the tunnels on Schar’s World happening in Consider Phlebas.
The realisation I had a few days later that it went past me that the god that inhabits Schar’s world wasn’t even the one to create it, this god-like-being is like a hermit crab and just wants to be left alone.
The way that seeing space from a starships perspective was described in Excession when one of the humans is basically given Meat Fucker/Grey Area’s perception was dope.
Its some damn strong good scifi with hopium undercurrents even while entire societies perish (willingly, intentionally). As VR simulations of sentient life is created to give societies a real hell to send people to. As people live and die whole lives inside the VR hell to break in and then break out to prove its existence to bring about its destruction. The unsettling creeping sensation of realising you’re in a simulation, but not because the simulation is imperfect, but because at the bottom of your vision, in big block red letters, it reads “SIMULATION”. Or in a moment where we’re looking through a soldiers eyes as we slowly realise he’s a human mind re-bodied into a turret during a simulated battle. Or later, when the same soldier is squeezing through the cracks in between grains of sand and rock as an amoeba.
I was also high as fuck while reading a lot of this series.
I could espouse its praises for hours, but it would be quicker to read the novels.
All I can say is that I read the stories, enjoyed them, and gave them away in a freeshop for others to read. :)
Literary sci-fi at its best. Look to Windward is my absolute favorite. Player of Games is also amazing.
The Culture is the absolute best case scenario for humanity. It is my comfort reading for this reason.
thanks for the recommendation
