Have you ever imagined a future where the world is altered by climate change and how humanity would adapt in that scenario? And Lately, The Sun by Calyx Press is a collection of short stories by different authors depicting worlds that respond to or are affected by climate change in various ways: tree-dwelling and sentient trees that grow to meet humanity's needs, governments measuring carbon footprints, rebuilding the world with colored multilingual eggs, a 12-year-old girl surviving alone in a world plagued by extreme heat, and more. Many stories are science fiction while others have elements of fantasy, realism, mystery, literary fiction, and other genres. The writers are award and prize winners from different countries and continents who add their unique styles of writing and their different backgrounds to this comprehensive collection.

A collection of stories about climate change. Yes! I loved the first story a lot, which is centered on tree-dwelling, as I have also fantasized about living in trees. Readers should mostly expect stories that portray how various types of characters behave and interact with their surroundings and acquaintances in different scenarios and environmental realities. The stories are quite immersive and descriptive. Prepare to be yanked away from your seats and spirited into a world of new possibilities in And Lately, The Sun. I found myself drifting through different emotions, like excitement, wonder, awe, fear, and anxiety. As I have a musical project about climate change myself, I am pleased to see that more people are creating awareness about it in different ways. Kudos to Calyx Press and the various writers that contributed to creating this masterpiece!

And Lately, the Sun: Speculative Fictions for a Climate-thrashed World by Calyx Press is a collection of twenty stories that are gripping and very entertaining, stories that cover a variety of themes and combine elements from different genres. They have a unique appeal to fans of science fiction and speculative fantasy. The authors reimagine the world in these twenty stories and take readers on adventures across different experiences of the characters and communities. With the effects of global warming being felt, with uncontrollable fires and ice forming along the Arctic, the authors offer stories that invite readers to dream of a future that is possible. It is hard to take the reader through each of these stories, but they are diverse, told from different perspectives, and with voices that are original and compelling. Themes of family, grit, climate change, community, politics, love, religion, manhood, socialism, and many more are featured in the stories.

Calyx Press has assembled a collection of short stories that are skillfully written; some are observant in style; others are highly descriptive, and in each story, there is something beautiful that will delight the reader — the strong writing, the originality in the narrative voice, the setting, or the exciting plot elements. This book is filled with gems for fans of short stories and I relished the opening story, “Roots” by Vrinda Baliga. Some of my favorite ones are “Inviting Disaster” by Sarena Ulibarri, “Light from the Darkness” by Derek Des Anges, and “From the Rooftops” by Jacob Ashton. Depending on the reader’s taste, there is a good story for everyone in this book. The settings will take readers across the world, from India to Australia, to Botswana, and to many other places. Then there are those elements of setting such as sunbaked cities and farmlands that are beautifully written. And Lately, the Sun: Speculative Fictions for a Climate-thrashed World is a gorgeous collection and an irresistible gift for anyone looking for an engaging and thoughtfully written science fiction collection.

Global Voices, New Realities:

What happens when the way we talk about the present - the reporting of news, the flow of politics, the hardheaded plans of sensible people of business - is detached from geophysical reality? When the language of everyday hard-headed ordinary truths is really delusional fiction? Perhaps you need to deliberately write fiction, to rediscover reality.

These stories discover many things. There are sunstroke cities and insect savants. There are struggling farming families and escapes into virtuality. There’s religion, ecosocialism, and ecofash. There’s death - though it avoids indulgent grimdarkness. There’s a thread of solarcozy - underground pod houses and chatty fungi - but it stops short of the technosaccharine.

Oh, and one of the stories is flat out hilarious.

I received a review copy of “And Lately, The Sun”. It’s a diverse selection. It’s mostly SF, with some fantasy in the speculative fiction mix. The stories are great, even if not every one is really for me. I’m personally skeptical that ecowitches will solve much on the climate change front, for example. But I don’t begrudge the book its diversity of settings and visions.

The global mix of voices and ideas, in an unapologetically global English, is one of the strengths of this collection, indeed. Thematically, that does seen kind of important for a book on a global and epochal change. It’s also part of a welcome broadening trend in recent speculative fiction, so long dominated by the gravity well of North American pop culture.

All in all this is a good read, which uncovers some great writers, and thinks through new realities.