So I loved this. Not only do the goals of the anthology completely align with what I'm looking for in regards to new contributions to the genre, but they're just really, really GOOD contributions too. The following quotes from the book made me super excited to read it:

"Cyberpunk isn’t cool anymore because it doesn’t have to be. It’s gone beyond cool. It’s life itself, the good and bad of it."

"One of the things I like about Cyber World is that it shows cyberpunk has left its heteronormative boy’s club roots behind in the dust."

"Today we no longer fear technology. It’s no longer a question of assimilation. What remains to be seen is what we are about to become."

"As each story for Cyber World popped up in my inbox, my confusion about how I defined cyberpunk grew. And I loved that feeling. Left to define the term “Cyber World” as they saw fit (or gloriously unfit), the authors formed a vast unconscious collective that redefined cyber-something-or-other for the current millennium. A network, you might even say. I don’t say that flippantly. Cyberpunk—or should we just start saying “cyberfiction”?—must continually plug back into itself, challenge itself, consume itself, and reinvent itself if it hopes to survive and remain relevant."

YES, right?

I can't explain how awesome it is to see short fiction that had an emphasis on diversity, yes. But also clearly inclusivity. Almost all the stories make specific points in regards to how this genre can be relevant today. It totally works. There were, I think, two stories that didn't really resonate with me but I saw why they were there and what they contributed. I just couldn't get all that into them. The other stories though, it's very difficult for me to select some favorites, that's how much I liked this collection. There's pansexual relationships, queer content, feminist content. Stories where people continually change their gender as their life progresses and the nice thing about these stories is that this progress is assumed, as it should be. There's tons of representation in these stories and it's very clear after reading just how good these stories are that representation like this makes a big difference in the quality of fiction produced because of it.

From a story about what faith might look like, from a Muslim perspective no less, in the future. To an entire sentient city's thoughts. I just could not have enjoyed myself more. The authors that weave in action always do so in such a way that always makes it secondary to a more overall and purposeful exploration of a question. This is what has always pulled me towards the genre. It's what makes it so riveting and exciting. You get philosophy, action and sometimes, you also get smart commentary on relevant subject matter during all of it.

The exciting thing about solarpunk is, as the forward talks about in Glass and Gardens, uncharted territory. Rather than proclaim what it is with a tightly curated collection of fiction focused on a specific notion, the anthology instead chooses to give a voice to a wide range of people; asking what solarpunk is to them and encouraging the reader to consume and talk about the genre themselves. Through critical thought, as well as a wide range of public opinions informing the discourse via reviews, their hope seems to be to arrive at a definition not solely derived from academics.

Some of these stories may be better classified as eco-fiction or climate fiction. But this idea of handing it over to everyone to define is a romantic notion that has a lot of traction with me, personally. I often wonder what cyberpunk would have been like if the Internet was a little bit more accessible then. Would more people of color and marginalized people contribute to the first wave of cyberpunk and drastically alter the landscape of those formative years? I think so. After all. They did arrive; just after it was proclaimed dead.

This anthology seemed very diverse with a wide range of stories. Some of which I liked, others I didn't; kind of to be expected in any short fiction anthology. Often I'm attracted to cyberpunk because of the frenetic pacing inherent in much of the fiction. There is some meandering in these stories and sometimes I struggled to ask myself where the "punk" was.

In keeping with the objective of the forward, however, I think this anthology successfully probes science fiction stories that might be solarpunk in order to find the core of solarpunk. Even with stories that weren't for me, I still appreciated the larger framework of questions being posed to the reader. In the end, this probably hinders the book as an overall text but it is admirable that they stick to their guns, so to speak.

For me, just as with cyberpunk, the punk aspect is important. I want some form of resistance, some kind of dissent or critical thought against authority and systems in place; stratification of class, that kind of stuff.

The solar part, in my mind, is up for grabs, though. What does that really even mean? I don't think the general consciousness is aware of renewable energy and specialized technologies coming out of that sector. And in that respect this book is great. Because it's short fiction and not hard sci-fi a lot of isn't explained as much as I would have liked, but neither is it New York 2140, a novel that I could not get through because it is pedantic in its attempts to educate you about what felt like literally everything.

New technologies, new thinkers, new ways to imagine our interactions with others and the planet are all here. These stories coupled with a bit more focus on dissent, which I think we need right now more than ever, is exactly what I'd like to be reading right now. I feel like this sub-genre and its formative years are some of the most exciting things to sprout from cyberpunk and science fiction. Does it have to be hopeful? I'm not sure I care, to be honest; stories that do either would be fun to consume, I think? Plenty of Solarpunk in other anthologies have short fiction that isn't very hopeful but situates itself into the sub-genre by way of these extrapolated renewable technologies and punk aspects.

I hope that solarpunk is as eclectic as cyberpunk can be, should you go looking. This approach is a great way to define the sub-genre and I'm excited for more anthologies like this.

Much improved over the first novel. This suffers a bit from a very slow start that is not as useful to show the arc of Gurgeh as I expected. It’s a stark contrast for his visit to the Empire, no doubt. But the first half grew very tiresome.

If you can stick it through that things get a lot more interesting. I have always been fascinated by the way language modifies and dictates behaviour, altering the way people think. And in this way, along with the stakes the book presents, this was a much more satisfying way to show this than a celebrates post-cyberpunk book, Snow Crash—which features a language virus.

I liked how Banks makes his case for systemic problems and oppression of the Empire, linking fairly well this alien culture with three sexes arranged in a similar way to the US and capitalism.

Overall it was fairly predictable but the character work from the first book to this is 100% improved. While this character also served as a lens and viewpoint for the Culture as in the last, this one was far more believable and, as I said before, much more interesting.

“You don’t belong in a world that sees you as useless.”

While Squid’s Grief begins like many cyberpunk novels, it diverges fairly quickly and ends aligned with a more solarpunk ideological standpoint than a traditional cyberpunk one.

Squid is relatable and likable. Probably the only way she is synonymous with the traditional cyberpunk anti-heroes is that she’s poor. Her poverty is ingrained and felt in the narrative in a way that is often not in traditional CP, though. In fact, for most of the book, we see the car thief attempting to get out of the life, touching on the one-last-job trope, but actually spends substantial time on it; making it the main focus of the story. This cleverly reinforces the systemic oppression those in poverty within the fictitious Baltus City feel on a daily basis. It’s more relatable passages of ones concerning job searches and the parallel to service work. Demeaning. Dehumanizing, unsatisfying. Only making a living via tips in establishments that have a prized rule: “do not retaliate”. Which certainly telegraphs what your treatment is going to be like in such places.

“Baltus City was a nation unto itself, a city-state where extremes were crammed into uncomfortable proximity. The obscenely wealthy, the devastatingly poor, towering skyscrapers and sleepy suburbia, all pressed together beneath the massive orbital highways that laced the city like Celtic knots of steel and concrete. And within the borders of the teeming state, all were equally ruled by the enigmatic crime lords of Baltus City.”

To flog this normal life along, a hyper altruistic cop named Casey gives Squid until her 18th birthday to get out of the life. After that, her “free passes”, so to speak, are up, and she’s considered to be another person who enters the system. Casey is incorruptible and naïve. Some people just aren’t prosecuted in the city, she knows this. It’s an insurmountable fact. Those connected to an omnipresence named Pearce, simply walk. But while the system is not perfect, it’s also all they’ve got. Giving up would mean letting go of any sense of accountability for criminals. And she just can’t abide it at a fundamental level.

People mess up. They’re not infallible. But given enough time and care, people can change and do “the right thing”. And that is her hope for young Squid.

“History isn’t destiny if you learn from your mistakes.”

In the last few days Squid has before she’s absorbed completely into the criminal underworld, Grief comes into her life. A man with a mysterious past (even to himself!). He’s an amnesiac who is found in the trunk of a car with a head injury. He’s also the thing that unwittingly keeps pulling her back to the underworld, as his past continually seems to come back and haunt him. Squid being caught in the crossfire.

Now, to my knowledge, aside from perhaps Almost Human, the “buddy cop” genre hasn’t largely been introduced to cyberpunk literature. That is, until now.

Squid and Grief’s relationship dynamic is very much reminiscent of this. It’s often funny and easy, and a lot of the fiction is dedicated to building their characterization through small, quiet moments as they navigate a new, awkward, and strange life. It is very effective in having the reader invest in these characters.

“Memories were funny like that. Squid could remember her old life, but she remembered it like someone else’s dream. It played through her mind like a silent film, so distant she could almost believe it had never happened. But once in a while, a half-remembered emotion would hit her, so visceral it stole her breath away.”

The most compelling part for me was that the thing keeping the people like Squid down was the system itself, which by itself, is not abnormal for cyberpunk, but the way in which it is conveyed is entirely so. It’s essentially a slice of life for the entire middle half of the book.

There aren’t any jobs for Squid that don’t commodify the qualities she finds intrinsic in herself and refuses to trade, despite her pretty dire situation. Living without heat and power, relying on the kindness of people within the system, like Casey, to squeak by with some modicum of freedom. Both outside of jail, but also simply existing as she is, unchanged by the demands of working the way up in the underworld, or a more legitimate job; both strips away aspects of her identity. In a sense, it’s a coming of age story, of sorts. There is no safety to be found in any space she navigates.

“There were no quick fixes, no magic pills, no waking up and becoming someone else. But there was hope, and determination, and sometimes, a little faith from someone who could see the person you were trying to become.”

Paralleling this is Grief’s story. A loss of innocence tale unspooling and foreshadowing what the demands of the criminal underworld are as it becomes clear Grief belongs to it in ways Squid hasn’t. Where she dabbles for the thrill and to pay rent, Grief embodies the darker elements of it and wishes to expel them from him. But cannot do so without first acknowledging that they are a part of him, which he refuses to do. This darkness reveals Casey’s “free pass” is an almost immeasurable kindness toward Squid, who may otherwise be consumed by the underworld if she can’t figure out how to truly get out.

“Possessions, places, people—they came and went, grew old, fell apart, and changed. But experiences formed the fabric of your life, woven into memories that helped you understand who you were, and why you were. Memories were a gift you could hold on to when everything else had been taken away. They were a scrapbook of emotions, triumphs and setbacks, that line of ink that told your story, stopping at the point where you stood right now.”

The law serves a purpose in this fiction and there is morality assigned to it. There are tonal shifts very often, which for me undermined some of the systemic issues it explores. There is a sense of hope despite the cyberpunk underpinnings of the setting.

In a time when cyberpunk should be diverging from the original motifs and explorations, there is this fun and well written, strange book which does so in the most surprising ways. Ordinarily, I can’t stand jokes and fiction that is to self-aware. But while it is funny, it is also sad. Life is a joke when there’s no real verticality in social structures to be had by the majority of the people in it. Living without joy is just another thing taken away from you. And so, sometimes, it really can be thematically on point to laugh at it.

“All those things he’d done were still inside him. All that violence and inhumanity, soaking through him like cheap rum in a Christmas cake. It wasn’t enough to change. You had to make amends.”

“Expect to feel pleasure. Knowledge is sexy. Expect to feel pain. Knowledge is torture. ”

C/W Incest, domestic and sexual abuse, and spoilers for Vurt.

It seems undeniable that Vurt was influenced heavily by cyberpunk. Published in 1993, it makes sense that an iteration of cyberpunk would arrive at that time… but I doubt anyone saw Vurt coming. One year before, Snow Crash was published. Later it would be deemed the progenitor of post-cyberpunk, at least in so far as most academic circles. Vurt, though, is referred to as something I hadn’t heard before: Dreampunk.

Scribble has lost the one thing that means anything to him: his sister, Desdemona. She’s lost to the Vurt— “a drug, a dimension, a dream state, a virtual reality”. There are many kinds of feathers, some legal, some not. When you put these feathers down your throat you go into this consensual hallucination reminiscent of cyberspace but more mysterious as no one truly can define what the Vurt actually is. There are many theories, it appears, but it seems like an urban legend.

“The Haunting was the feeling you got sometimes, in the Vurt, the real world calling you home. There's more to life than this. This is just a game.”

In this instance, they both took a yellow feather named English Voodoo. Within that “program” they then find a meta feather within—the Curious Yellow. His sister decides to take it and he doesn’t. She’s trapped in this deeper, meta Vurt, from which there is no known escape. Scribble, with the help of his crew of misfits, attempt to figure out a way of extracting her but they have to also discern a way of even finding her. English Voodoo isn’t something you just happen upon and that is, ostensibly, step 1.

What follows is a sort of “down the rabbit hole” story as Scribble desperately careens from one point in the narrative to the other in desperation and hope of getting his sister back.

“...I pulled the feather out, jerking him away from the dream. Just like he used to do with me, when I went in alone. The play was shifting, and I knew how bad it felt, to have your dream dragged from your mouth.”

The fiction is frenetic, just like most first wave cyberpunk. The writing style and prose make this story more interesting than it otherwise would be; coupled with a world that pulls you in with questions that only lead to more questions. It ends up being a compelling page-turner. But it also features some of the shortcomings of first wave works. I’ll get to that.

In this world there are people with Vurt in them, allowing them certain connections to this microworld. There are implications that their worth is higher, at least to people within the Vurt. There are also robo people, with cybernetics and plastic; splices, humans mixed with animal genes; a subset of people with shadow in them, able to read and speak directly to someone’s mind. Then there are the corrupt cops shining inpho beams that sweep the grit and grime for people between the cracks using non-legal feathers. People like Scribble.

“He got one finger cut off when he was young... The cafe paid for a replacement put some nano-plastic in there. The kid got hooked. It happens. You get some plastic in you, you just want some more...Some more of that strength. Because that's what it is. Strength. The Strength to persist.”

As an unreliable narrator, it’s hard to figure out how representative Scribble’s lens is of the rest of this sub-culture. But that’s all the information the reader gets, so if you want to be critical of it, you have to take it, along with the implications of the narrative, at face value.

Embedded in the fiction are some things that maddeningly do not serve it well and detract from any themes it may have been trying to explore. For instance, Scribble and Desdemona are lovers and domestic abuse victims; Desdemona herself also a victim of sexual abuse—all of which stem from their father, which they share.

This incest angle does next to nothing for the plot and is treated in the same way every marginalized individual is in the book: to build a gritty, sexualized aesthetic that, while serving the prose and speaks to Scribble’s state of mind and lens, doesn’t actually cogently or coherently establish an interesting theme.

There are a lot of references to purity, generally as a bad thing in this underworld. The uniqueness of an individual being prized. Yet, the only value any individual finds is in regard to their sexuality, which distills down to pure escapism from things we are actually never shown. There is no real kinship found in the community beyond hatred for cops. People use each other and throw each other away continually. Those that don’t, die. Most often completely abandoning their principles and morals.

There is no clear throughline and there should be when the characters are victims; either of circumstance or of, presumably, society. But that’s never put “onscreen”. It is very difficult to care about anybody’s story, including Scribble. He throws away his objective probably a half dozen times but will also throw away his friends in service to it. It’s hard to feel how much he actually cares yet it’s mostly what we are reading to find out.

Every decision each character makes seems frivolous and impulsive like this, feeding into the depictions that they live like animals. While there’s a sense of freedom in this lifestyle, what does it actually matter when there is no real sense of kinship or community, despite gestures that they are one? Incest and fetishization with various forms of pornography all help to merely frame this sub-culture as degenerates. It fails to humanize the people of the story you spend most of your time with, making it hard to care about a single person in the narrative.

The priority is always the psychedelic imagery and prose, without seemingly any thought given to how the people ended up here. What is this society like? We have no contrast. We don’t even know why the cops are bad because we have no context of the larger world. It seems they want to live this way but there are gestures at oppression that is never seen or felt or heard.

The cops that Scribble’s crew runs into are jerks, sure; busting them in a sort of sting operation with a monitored feather they all take which is traced by the cops to their physical location. Their actions perhaps make the most sense! They go to arrest the crew using feathers that aren’t legal and get killed or messed up by them for doing so. We’ve actually seen the result of these feathers, right? His sister is LOST in the Vurt due to these things. It makes sense that society tries to curtail the use of them with enforcement. The surviving police pursue the crew throughout the story with a vindictive streak. But that also makes sense; they murdered one of them. There is a gesture at the cops being “bad” when one goes after Scribble and he says that impure people make the best cops. But there is a missed opportunity for describing the world in better detail. People with compromised morals make good police. Meanwhile, the people in the sub-culture also have no moral principles guiding them. At least, none that are important enough to adhere to.

“Murdoch's gun was the only thing in my life, the only thing worth living for. It gets like that sometimes, with instruments of death.”

All of it is maddening because it adds up to these small series of gestures that are never substantive. When morality is a grey line that applies to no one, what is the value of being punk?

We see this crew of people living on the edges of society, but we don’t know what stratification of class actually looks like in this society. We know that the Vurt is policed because there are some feathers that people can’t handle and get lost in. Some, like pink ones, are pornoverts. Are those legal? Porn is used to further drive home depravity. There’s a sex worker in an open relationship that isn’t de-humanized…yet she’s also used by her friends to make him feel bad. It seems like only “legal blues” might be the only legal feathers… but we don’t get context for why that is. There are bad trips like bad drugs. But is society bad because they enforce laws around them? We get the impression that these people are oppressed… but the only thing we learn about is the ways in which these marginalized people use each other up like a commodity. They live in grime and dirt and sleep with each other in it.

It’s a fun ride that I think is well written. But ultimately, I was hoping for an exploration that validated these characters defined as victims. Something that tells me what this life on the edge is beyond the fugue state of hallucinogenics and drug culture that adds up to a selection of different kinds of drugs curated by connoisseurs and the more privileged in this sub-culture.

In the end, a person like Scribble feels like they literally belong nowhere.

There is a vulgarity and ruthlessness depicting the sub-culture that would have played better with a larger context. It feels like it depends on the shorthand and assumptions of cyberpunk notions without ever actually displaying the world. I liked reading it and I enjoyed it. But that enjoyment was dampened by the ending. There is only a kind of limbo for people like Scribble. It feels like the ending was made to put in a sort of jail for his actions because of his actions. Incest is gross, got it. Just like the lives of all the people on the edge and their proclivities, reveling in the profane. The end result is a vilification or indictment of everybody in the story, even the victims.

“In Bottletown, even our tears flicker like jewels.”