This episode is a cross-posting from the podcast IF THIS GOES ON (DON’T PANIC) with a few bonus notes about hopepunk, Murderbot, and a kickstarter for a hopepunk zine called Habitats.
Text Transcript:
Susan Kaye Quinn
Hello friends! Welcome to Bright Green Futures, Episode 35: Hopepunk and Horror
I'm your host, Susan Kaye Quinn, and we're here to lift up stories about a more sustainable and just world and talk about the struggle to get there.
Today I’m cross-posting an episode from If This Goes On (Don’t Panic), a podcast about hope and resistance in Science Fiction and Fantasy, where I was a guest along with Maurice Broaddus, and we had the most amazing discussion about about how horror and hopepunk are twin reactions to living through The Horrors of these times. I’m grateful to Maurice for that enlightening discussion and to Alan Bailey and Paul Jessup for hosting.
I’m sorry I don’t have transcripts for this episode, but see the links at the bottom for everything.
Before we get to the episode, which itself feels like a soothing bit of hopepunk comfort each time I listen to it, I want to cover a couple quick things.
First, Bright Green Futures is focused on solarpunk, or hopeful climate fiction, which I consider to be a subset of the broader hopepunk movement, and in fact, when I started down this journey a decade ago of examining what was wrong with the stories we were telling and how to do them differently, I stumbled on hopepunk first. That term was released into the wilds in 2017 by a tumblr post from Alexandra Rowland, but it’s been in the zeitgeist for even longer.
I’ve been writing what I’d call hopepunk since at least that time period, but in 2023, I wrote an article about hopepunk for DreamForge Magazine titled Rewriting the Future. In that article, I broke down the 10 element of hopepunk that I felt defined the genre, even though I talked about how it’s more of a vibe than genre, and that I was starting to see mainstream stories that weren’t what you would call hopepunk, but that had hopepunk elements.
In the article, I said:
“Mainstream storytellers across mediums (short stories, books, TV, film, games) are rummaging around in the hopepunk bin and coming up with fresh twists. Hopepunk elements like “cooperative plot line” or “character who chooses radical compassion” enliven these stories and endear the audience. In other words, hope is popular. Just don’t call it hopepunk.”
For a while, the hopepunk term seemed to fade in popularity, but I think it’s making a comeback as we enter newly chaotic times under the rise of fascism in America.
My own journey into hopepunk started when I got three books in to my four-book-series about artificial intelligence, both the human and bot versions, and stalled out because the kind of story I wanted to tell didn’t fit with how stories were “supposed” to work. I needed something structurally different and had to literally deconstruct everything I’d learned about storytelling to figure it out… and along the way, I discovered the term hopepunk. After doing a whole study on what that term meant to me, I returned to finish the Singularity series. From there, I moved into writing hopeful climate fiction, again discovering the term solarpunk after actually writing it. Somewhere in the middle, I mentioned to Alan (one of the co-hosts of the If This Goes On (Don’t Panic) podcast) that I felt hopepunk and horror were twin reactions to our times, and the delightful discussion I have to share with you today is the fruit of that years-ago comment.
Which brings me to two quick recommendations before we finally get to the Hopepunk and Horror cross-posting:
First, go watch Murderbot.
I resisted reading this series by Martha Wells for a long time because I was angry about generative AI and didn’t want to feed any more hype about sentient robots. But now that it’s on AppleTV, I finally broke down and watched it… and now I see that it’s actually an example of that mainstream storytelling that has hopepunk smeared all over it. I have a spoiler-free blog post about Murderbot, if you want to know the details, or you can just go check it out.
Secondly, I encourage you to support a kickstarter for a hopepunk magazine called Habitats. It’s a delightful and gorgeous magazine, and the kickstarter is for their second volume of optimistic science fiction and fantasy stories, but you can also get copies of the first! The editor, Samuel Weeks, has a background as a graphic designer and art director and the craft of the paper version shows it. The kickstarter goes through August 13th, so hop on that now. These stories only manifest in the world if we kick in a few bucks to make them happen.
Hopepunk is radical compassion. It’s communalism and teamwork. It’s understanding that gentleness is healing and we need more healing in a broken world.
But people are not a monolith and how we each get to hope is different.
This wonderful discussion with Maurice and Alan and Paul gets into that… I hope you enjoy it.
[Sorry again that I do not have transcripts for the episode on IF THIS GOES ON (DON’T PANIC). You can listen to the episode here in substack or on your favorite podcast distributor, either on Bright Green Futures (Ep 35) or on IF THIS GOES ON (DON’T PANIC).]
More to Come on Bright Green Futures
I’m still getting life sorted back to normal after my two-month Sue Walks the Earth roadtrip across the US and Canada. I’m sure I’ll be talking more about that in future episodes.
Check out Bright Green Future’s Hopeful Climate Fiction list of recommended novels, short stories, games and films.
LINKS Ep. 35: Hopepunk and Horror [IF THIS GOES ON (DON’T PANIC)]
Original posting on IF THIS GOES ON (DON’T PANIC): Horror and Solarpunk: How different are they? with Susan Kaye Quinn and Maurice Broaddus, and Paul Jessup
Maurice Broaddus (bluesky)
Rewriting the Future (Susan Kaye Quinn, DreamForge Magazine, 2023)
Habitats 2: Kickstarter for a hopepunk magazine
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These hopeful climate-fiction stories include clicky space centipedes, sentient trees, a flooded future Rio de Janeiro and characters trying to find their place in a climate-impacted world. Each story imagines a way for us to survive the future, together.
