Fiction fills me with wonder, possibilities, truth, wisdom, beauty, hope. Following are books I commend to you. One of my all-time favorites is at the top of the list. See the full Great Reads for all the books, many solarpunk or diverse speculative fiction:

• A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys is one of the best solarpunk books I’ve read. Keeping at top of list!
• What a Fish Looks Like by Syr Hayati Beker. Via a surreal, atypical format, we follow some who will leave on a spaceship and some who’ll stay when Earth will no longer support life as we know it.
• Proud Pink Sky by Redfern Jon Barrett. Engaging alternate history where Berlin is the first gay state. With solarpunk aspects, the author describes the novel as ambitopian.
• Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei is a chilling post-apocalyptic story where one corporation controls the world’s food supply. When one sister is missing, the other two undertake a harrowing journey.
• Ice’s End by P. Finian Reilly. Climate fiction with solarpunk tilt interwines historic and futuristic plots set in Antarctica. A future when Earth’s fresh water is scarce and one corporation is the de facto global government as the only supplier.
• How to Surf a Hurricane by Todd Medema. A high seas heist for noble but misguided purposes. Cast includes a professional hurricane surfer and a corporate inventor. Solarpunk leaning climate fiction.
• Neon Riders by AE Marling. Cyberpunk slips towards solarpunk in this engaging ride where right-wing religious extremists want the resources of the sustainable, mutually governed, solarpunk city that San Francisco has become.
• Different Kinds of Defiance by Renan Bernardo. Amidst climate-changed Brazil, Renan drills deep into characters as he offers #solarpunk tech for the future. Touching and amazing stories that I highly recommend!
• Be the Sea by Clara Ward. I highly recommend this eco-lit, climate fiction with diverse (including neurodiverse) characters. The author weaves in marine biology and offers sea creature points of view in a very immersive way.
• The Madonna Secret by Sophie Strand is a potent historical retelling: Jesus turns away from Mary Magdalene’s affinity with Nature and the Earth to step into patriarchal culture. And we know how that ended up.
• Troubled Waters by Mary Annaïse Heglar is based on her family’s history of Black resistance and desegregation in the 1950s, told within a story of modern-day climate crisis.
• Private Rites by Julia Armfield is intense psychological family drama in a drowning city. Chilling & dystopian.
• All City by Alex DiFrancesco is solarpunk reminiscent of Doctorow’s Lost Cause. Community created by those left behind after Brooklyn floods.
• Sordidez by E.G. Condé is a wonderful Taino/Indigenous Futurist read where Indigenous folx survive and ultimately reclaim their lands from settler-colonists. Shows what’s truly important in the world.
• Weird Fishes by Rae Mariz is eco- and climate fiction at its best from nonhuman views including cephalopods, sea mammals, and coral. Incorporates science and Indigenous lore
• Another Life by Sarena Ulibarri is an excellent solarpunk novella by an author-anthologist who has helped shape solarpunk
• The Lost Cause by Cory Doctorow offers some actionable solarpunk for our current world. A lot of dialogue and philosophizing amidst a feasible storyline to in-fill urban areas to accommodate climate refugees and build resilient communities.
• The Fifth Sacred Thing and sequel City of Refuge by Starhawk are classic solarpunk from before we called it that

Find the full list with book annotations: HERE