2022 Best of Utopian Speculative Fiction

Norton-Kertson (Fighting for the Future) brings together 22 hopeful stories depicting societies healing from climate change and apocalypse wherein every character aspires to save the world, or at least, themselves. Romance proves complicated in Renan Bernardo’s “Look to the Sky, My Love,” in which a mourner follows a riddle to find a secret admirer after their lover’s death, and Shelly Jones’s “A Mycologist’s Guide to Falling in Love Discovering a New Species,” about a researcher watching her companion’s body be overtaken by fungi. Jetse de Vries’s “Zen and the Art of Gaia Maintenance” and Phoebe Wagner’s “University, Speaking” highlight the importance of individual and community action when facing seemingly impossible odds. The collection’s standouts include H. Pueyo’s “Worker’s Song,” in which an insectoid kingdom’s workers decide to live for themselves after their hive’s queen is murdered, and Wen-yi Lee’s “Icariana,” featuring a loner stumbling across a weak but winged girl in a barren landscape. Though there are no weak links here, the shared focus of these stories causes many of them to blur together. Still, the inspiration and resilience in these pages is undeniable. (Dec.)