Another post about this cool book I'm currently reading: "The Sol Majestic" by Ferrett Steinmetz. Gotta love that name.
Have you ever wondered how a top-rated restaurant might function on a space station? Light years from any planet? Well, Ferrett Steinmetz thought about it and came up with:
-artificial gravity used to cook things using the heat generated by enormous planetary-scale pressures instead of direct heat
-stasis fields instead of fridges (duh) but also speeded-up time field used to sneak a week's worth of work into an hour
-an alien sourdough culture that MIGHT be sentient
All of this is an excellent backdrop for a story of a young boy finding (gay) love, seeking independence from his parents, and exploring questions of philosophy, truth, capitalism, and marketing. It's not #SolarPunk, but it has that homey vibe.
The Solarpunk short story collection I'm part of has been released yesterday at the biggest bookfair of Luxembourg. It has been a surprising success and I think the first edition will be sold out by the end of today. It's only 100 copies, but it was very hard to gage how big interest would be.
I'm very proud to be part of that first issue and hope I make it into the second one as well...
If you want to check out what the Science-Fiction and Fantasy writers of this small country can produce, go to https://anerwelten.lu
It's completely free and a lot of stories are in English.
I made a pledge on Kickstarter for "Solarpunk Magazine" 2024 with only a few hours to go - I've loved reading the magazine this year and am really happy to support them!
Got waylaid by all the great perks but
ended up going with the #Lunarpunk collection because I loved the short story "Midnight Serenade" by @jendiagammon (@jendiagammon) and I wanted to read their novel "The Inn at the Amethyst Lantern" - very excited!
“The only cars left in the Ward were wheelless hulks in backyards ... Only suburban people or rich folks had cars anymore—and those were all shiny, hyperway-compatible electrical vehicles.”
Asking #DigitalHumanities scholars or social scientists working w/ the internet...
I've been a #solarpunk for a while now, but how would I do research on the community itself? I want a "vibe check" on what people are talking about, the sorts of arguments we tend to have, what texts/theories/people we canonize. I follow a lot of folks, but that's a mix of my interests+auto recommendations. Any way to get a view driven by my research questions, not The Algorithm?
A first question: what do you want your research to produce? Tentatively, I would look into ethnographic methods. But much more openly: start with documenting specific observations, documents, toots, etc. That material should support you in making distinctions between your hunches vs what you can observe in others' interactions. Allow surprise about what you find.
Yes, you're right, #STS#ScienceAndTechnologyStudies is a great field to ask too. Especially because in this case, I'm specifically looking for attitudes towards/discussions of technology.
Questions like: how do we (solarpunks) theorize the relationship between tech and society? What sorts of tech do we think count as "solarpunk" and why? What sort of responses do we have against those who say tech itself is the problem? What is redeemable & even radical about tech?
@CodexArcanum@arndell@skiffyandfanty@bookstodon love those (Becky Chambers is awesome). If only one, i'd pick A Half-Built Garden @r_emrys , which checks all the boxes for me: regenerative community and land with supporting tech.
But also (hey, I lean anarchist) The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk where San Francisco is a solarpunk city in all (actionable) ways.
Finally #reading Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy. Consistently startled that it was published in 1976. Feels extremely relevant. So many things things touted as new ideas in contemporary #SFF--queer communities, #LandBack ideals, and centering marginalized perspectives--are all here and have existed woven into story form for nearly 50 years.
@raemariz@bookstodon I think those contrasts are what makes it so powerful. Like the contrast between the two possible futures, it makes the utopia feel so much more precious and fragile
I totally agree with your comments about relevance today, it feels so fresh and prescient
Mam poczucie, że nie pisałam tu całe wieki... Ale dziś przychodzę to nadrobić! Wróciłam na bloga, by opowiedzieć trochę o pierwszych dwóch miesiącach doktoratu – miałam potrzebę wygadania się, okej? – i podzielić się prezentacją z konferencji VICFA 2023 o serii 🌱Monk and Robot🌱 autorstwa Becky Chambers. Bardzo polecam tę część wpisu, a na zachętę wrzucam przykładowe slajdy z prezentacji 😊"
Aaa, jak dobrze jest znowu pisać tak dla siebie! Nawet nie wiecie.
In my latest article for Unsustainable Magazine, I unapologetically brought my #academic research on #affect to bear on our current #ClimateEmergency. I hope it contributes to the discussion of how we react to the #climate#apocalypse in a good way.
Recently updated the #solarpunk page on my #website which has a rundown of my involvement with it and where I'm coming from. Not sure if I shared it here before, but it's taking shape into a #narrative I like.
Recently updated the #solarpunk page on my #website which has a rundown of my involvement with it and where I'm coming from. Not sure if I shared it here before, but it's taking shape into a #narrative I like.