Through the Portal anthology continues to garner attention and accolades by reviewers, booksellers, and readers throughout Canada. Released December 31, 2024 and launched in several locations in Canada, Portal is celebrated for its hopeful lens on an otherwise bleak future with thirty-five unique short stories, flash fiction, and poetry and an afterward.
There are many faces for hope; this anthology has thirty-six of them. Each story in the anthology features a unique hopeful lens that draws from a diversity of authors from around the world and throughout Canada. Stories that touch on nostalgia to respect, enlightenment to endurance. In these tales that range from compassion and healing to cautionary warnings of dark insight, hope may wear a human face or the face of a tree, black crow, or leaf.
Hopeful dystopias are so much more than an apparent oxymoron: they are in some fundamental way the spearhead of the future – and ironically often a celebration of human spirit by shining a light through the darkness of disaster. In Through the Portal: Tales from a Hopeful Dystopia, award-winning authors of speculative fiction Lynn Hutchinson Lee and Nina Munteanu present a collection that explores strange new terrains and startling social constructs, quiet morphing landscapes, dark and terrifying warnings, lush newly-told folk and fairy tales.—Exile Editions
“A stunning collection of short stories and poetry that address our most existential concerns.”
Dragonfly.eco
“Will ingenuity, love, and respect for the earth help us work through whatever changes might lie ahead? Through the Portal offers hope that these qualities, if not enough in and of themselves, will help us find our way.”
The Seaboard Review
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Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Mermaids, arborists, and pollinators are among the characters to be found in Through the Portal: Tales from a Hopeful Dystopia. Edited by Lynn Hutchinson Lee and Nina Munteanu, this eco-fiction collection gathers over thirty stories that fall under the general umbrella of hopeful dystopias…
Through the Portal offers intriguing and imaginative glimpses into the future. As [one of its short stories] “A Fence Made of Names” suggests, we often don’t appreciate what we have until we lose it. By showing us what we stand to lose, these stories offer a reason to increase our actions to preserve the planet…
While many of the tales hint at dark times ahead, it was refreshing to find so many that offered a ray of hope despite that. Whether it’s finding the will to live another day, returning to a better relationship with the land and the Earth, or taking steps to improve the world in even a small way, these stories affirm humanity’s potential for resilience in challenging times.
Will ingenuity, love, and respect for the earth help us work through whatever changes might lie ahead? Through the Portal offers hope that these qualities, if not enough in and of themselves, will help us find our way.
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
My upcoming book Gaia’s Revolution (Book 1 of The Icaria Trilogy by Dragon Moon Press) explores a collapsing capitalist society in Canada through ravages of climate change and a failing technology. The story is told through the lives of ambitious twin brothers Eric and Damien Vogel, and the woman who plays them like chess pieces in her gambit to ‘rule the world.’
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It is 2032 and Eric Vogel sits in the Canadian prime minister’s office, ruminating on the changes coming. He imagines what a post-capitalist world will look like and how his twin brother Damien—left behind in Germany—would disagree with his vision:
Over a hundred years ago, Spartacist Rosa Luxemburg—who was shot by the right-wing Freikorps—argued that the “Bourgeois stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regress into barbarism.” Both he and Damien agree with sociologist Wolfgang Streeck who argues that the end of capitalism—of a reigning bourgeois, in love with the objects that define them—is already underway. The signs are neon loud: a ruthless downward trend in economic growth, social equality, and financial stability. All reinforced by climate change and the ongoing collapse of the planet’s sustaining environment. Any system and dialectic based on a concept of infinite resources in a finite world is bound to fail eventually. That collapse has already begun and its catastrophic end is imminent. Already, climate refugees and refugees of resource war (which amounts to the same thing) have flooded northern nations, like Canada, and caused tension and strife. Germany is just one example where left and right have torn the country apart as an influx of foreigners challenged the already tenuous German identity. When Canada granted asylum to over two million climate-refugees in ‘28, with no viable plan for the new residents during a time when unemployment was higher than it had been in decades and housing prices were skyrocketing due to environmental uncertainty, this sparked renewed tensions between ultra-right and ultra-left and opened the gap for a new party based on science and reason. The party now in power: the Technocratic Party of Canada.
But what will life after capitalism look like?
It’s no surprise that he and his brother disagree on what a post-capitalist world should look like and how to best achieve that world. Damien too easily prescribes to the old leftist shibboleth of Nature being the answer to everything and Market being evil. His deep ecology utopia would spring from an atavistic rejection of modern life, a return to ‘the ancient farm.’ But how that fantasy could be achieved without a drastic population reduction is beyond his brother’s imagination. Damien fetishizes the natural world. Just like he does their mother. The naïve fool is a blind romantic, refusing to see reality right in front of him: that Nature is ultimately cruel, cold, and preoccupied with its own survival. Just like their mother.
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Brother Damien recalls an earlier argument the two brothers had in Berlin that ultimately motivated him to follow his twin to Canada. They’d been debating about the effect of climate change on the human population:
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Pulled down by a truculent mood, Damien responds to Eric’s usual glib solutions by painting a dark vision of a humanity descending into some pre-technological ‘dark age’ apocalypse.
Eric just laughs. He pokes his fork into the sauerkraut as if to make a point in his argument and scoops up a pile that he shoves into his mouth. He leans forward and argues with a full mouth, “The real question is not whether humanity will survive an ecological collapse, but what part of humanity will survive. You can be sure that the stinking boujee plutocrats will find a way to survive at the expense of everyone else.” He chews down the sauerkraut followed by a gulp of beer and a loud burp. “The stinking rich are already doing it, Dame. They’re already creating their Elysium right here, right now.” Fork now swings like a conductor’s baton. “The future is already here; it’s just unevenly distributed.”
Using his fingers, Damien pulls apart some crisp skin off the pork knuckle—his favourite part—and feeds his mouth. Arguing with Eric always makes him hungry despite his surly temper. He crunches down, enjoying the tasty juices of brazed salty pork skin, and retorts, “You politicize everything and resort to cheap references in pop culture. You always do that: over-simplify the crisis and Nature’s existential power to sustain life. Trophic cascades caused by ecosystem simplification would irreparably devastate the planet and all adapted life. With the Sixth Extinction Event there won’t be any boujee plutocrats because there won’t be anything left to monetize—”
“You’re such a doom-gloom lefty, Dame!” Eric grabs the last of the pork skin—also his favourite— and shoves it into his mouth. He smacks his lips and counters, “The stinking rich will always have technology at their disposal. I’m talking about genetic engineering, nano-technology, gene modification, cybernetics, and even environmental control. For instance, look at Harvard’s RoboBee: tiny robots that mimic flying insects that can fill in as pollinators for the crashing bee populations.”
“You over-estimate technology’s ability to save the planet—and us by extension.”
Eric finishes the pork skin and wipes his mouth on his sleeve with a sniff. “I’m not talking about saving the entire planet—just enough of it. You underestimate what we’re willing to do to survive.”
That is when he brings up E.P. Thompson’s paper on stages of a neoliberal capitalist civilization and the ‘extermination endgame.’ “You’re the population ecologist, Dame, but it’s obvious that when a neoliberal capitalist society exceeds its carrying capacity— when technology makes the masses surplus—there’s no alternative in the scramble for resources and ecological support. Get rid of the surplus. That simple. Thompson tells us that under military capitalism—and you have to accept that all countries are militarizing—the ‘outcome must be the extermination of multitudes.’”
“For God’s sake, Eric!”
“Technology will save humanity, Dame,” Eric insists. He leans back and stretches his legs under the laminate table in self-pleased satisfaction. “One way or another.”
Damien shakes his head and gulps down the last of his beer. “Whatever is left of humanity, you mean. And you accuse me of giving up on humanity. So, the greedy capitalist wins?”
“That’s why the world needs us, Dame. To keep humanity from going down the wrong road.”
And what is that for Eric, Damien wonders. Increasingly, he feels discomfort at what that might be. Eric leans forward, eyes bright with inspiration. He resembles a great bird of prey, long hawk-like nose—the iconic Vogel nose—and copious dark hair cresting back from a high forehead. It’s like looking at a more confident version of himself in the mirror, thinks Damien. And sometimes disconcerting, particularly when it reminds him of what he is not.
“You and I know that humanity won’t stop climate change,” Eric goes on animatedly. “Too many tipping points are already upon us and the direction we’re all going in now…” He swings his fork around the room to indicate this place, Germany, the world. “… isn’t promising to check that. Change is inevitable.” He points the fork at Damien. “But, if we can direct how humanity adapts to our changing environment, we can still win…” Before Damien can charge in with a rebuttal, Eric pushes his face forward, raptor eyes scintillating like sapphires on fire. “So, how do we de-thrown the ultra-rich elite—who are mostly a rabble of materialist self-serving hedonists with no vision or care for the future—and ensure a meritocracy of responsible citizens who can take humanity through the changes to come? … Like establishing a universal basic income toward an egalitarian society. Putting a full stop to fossil fuel mining and adopting clean energy. Re-wilding key ecosystems. Engaging reforestation and dedicating large areas to Nature.”
Damien shakes his head, lost for words. Where is his brother going with this? Will he suggest violent revolution to establish a dictatorship? How else would the rich give up their riches? And how is that any different from the Bolsheviks of 1917 or the Nazis of 1933 or the Stasi-run DDR? Those fascist Reichsbürgers would happily reinstate a society of surveillance, repression, and incarceration that would threaten to slide into the final solution of genocide of an unwanted ‘surplus’. A society of disposable bodies, a biopolitical world of exterminism. Damien thinks of Nietzsche’s aphorism: Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster … for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. Violent revolution is not the answer, he decides.
Eric pulls out the worn copy of Walden Two from his jacket pocket. He slaps it on the table and pushes it toward Damien. “That’s the answer, Dame.”
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Models of a Post-Capitalist Future Society
In his book Four Futures: Life After Capitalism , sociologist Peter Frase considers effects of climate change and automation in possible outcomes of a post-Trump election America. Frase envisions four scenarios based on abundance and scarcity and whether a society operates by equality (e.g., communism under abundance / socialism under scarcity) or hierarchy (rentism under abundance /exterminism under scarcity).
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With scarce resources, the following scenarios are possible:
Socialism (aka Ecotopia) may arise within an egalitarian society if driven by altruistic notions of self-limitation. Ecologists describe such a self-limiting system as K-selected (see my discussion of K-selection and r-selection in “Water Is…”). A K-selected population is at or near the carrying capacity of the environment, which is usually stable and favors individuals that creatively compete, through cooperation, for resources and produce few young. The K-selected strategy runs on a successive gradient of maturity, from initially competitive to ultimately cooperative. Competition is a natural adaptive remnant of uncertainty and insecurity and forms the basis of a capitalist economy that encourages monopolization and hostile takeovers. Competition results from an initial antagonistic reaction to a perception of limited resources. It is a natural reaction based on distrust—of both the environment and of the “other”—both aspects of “self” separated from “self.” The greed for more than is sustainable reflects a fear of failure and a sense of being separate, which ultimately perpetuates actions dominated by self-interest in a phenomenon known as “the Tragedy of the Commons.” Competition naturally gives way to creative cooperation as trust in both “self” and the “other” develops and is encouraged through continued interaction.
Exterminism (aka Mad Max) may arise under a hierarchical model, driven by greed and exacerbated by uncertainty in the environment—not unlike what we are currently experiencing with the planet’s system and cyclical changes. In this scenario, in which resources are both limited and uncertain, those with access to them would guard or hide them away with desperate fervor.
“When mass labor has been rendered superfluous [through automation], a final solution* lurks: the genocidal war of the rich against the poor.”—Peter Frase
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References:
Frase, Peter. 2016. “Four Futures: Life After Capitalism.” Verso Press, London. 150pp.
Luxemberg, Rosa. 1915. “The Junius Pamphlet: The Crisis in the German Democracy.” Marxists.org.
Munteanu, Nina “Gaia’s Revolution.” Book 1 of the Icaria Trilogy, Dragon Moon Press, upcoming.
Munteanu, Nina. 2016. “Water Is…The Meaning of Water.” Pixl Press, Vancouver. 586pp.
Streeck, Wolfgang. 2014. “How Will Capitalism End?” New Left Review 2 (87): 47p.
Thompson, E.P. 1980. “Notes on Exterminism: the Last Stage of Civilisation, Exterminism, and the Cold War.” New Left Review 1(121).
*the Final Solution was originally used by Nazi Germany as “the Final Solution to the Jewish Question”: the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews during World War II, formulated in 1942 by Nazi leadership at the Wannsee Conference near Berlin, culminated in the Holocaust, which murdered 90 percent of Polish Jews.
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Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
I recently gave my lecture / workshop on the Hero’s Journey plot approach to a group of writers for Culture Days in Newmarket, Ontario.
The event, organized by the WCYR (Writing Community of York Region), took place in the art gallery of the Old Town Hall, located in the old downtown part of the city—an attractive section of streets and lanes with eclectic shops, cafés, bistros and bookstores for curious amblers.
Bustling Main Street near the Old Town Hall, Newmarket, ON
Three guidebooks of the Alien Guidebook series for writers
Cathy Miles, the program coordinator, encouraged me to brings books for sale, so I certainly included the three books of my Alien Guidebook Series on writing: The Fiction Writer, The Journal Writer, and The Ecology of Story, all also available at Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble and other quality bookstores, which I sold for a workshop price. Cathy gave me a wonderful introduction to a room full of eager writers and I also had the pleasure of meeting Janice Luttrell, the Recreation Programmer with the City of Newmarket, who was hosting the event as part of Newmarket’s Culture Days.
Drawing from several chapters in The Fiction Writer, I introduced the Hero’s Journey map structure, based on Ingrid Sundberg’s plot structure, and discussed the 12-step hero’s journey according to mythologist Joseph Campbell.
We also discussed the seven chief archetypes associated with the journey steps: hero, mentor, herald, threshold guardian, trickster, shapeshifter, and shadow.
Nina teaching “The Hero’s Journey” plot approach over the years in Nova Scotia, BC and Ontario
I’ve given this workshop many times and always enjoyed the lights that came on in participants; this time was no different. My session was fun and very well received. I saw lots of interest and received many good questions—a sure sign. One participant was quoted as saying:
“What a great event! Your presentation was insightful. I really appreciated being able to follow along in the book while listening to your explanations. That is going to help me remember the concepts as I read the book and then apply them to my writing.”
The WCYR book table at the event (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Elliott sells my books at the WCYR book table (photo by Nina Munteanu)
All in all, it was a good day…
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
In the passage below of my eco-fiction dystopian novel A Diary in the Age of Water, the year is 2065 and the diarist Lynna (a limnologist at the University of Toronto) reflects on the steeply growing infertility in humans and our tenuous future. Lynna draws on the factual study published close to fifty years earlier (in 2017) by Hagai Levine and others at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who found that sperm counts among western men had reduced close to 60% in four decades:
Back in ’49, Daniel and I had several discussions about the environmental triggers and epigenetic mechanisms of infertility in humans. Daniel went on about how it was all about the men. While women showed signs of increased infertility, men’s rate of infertility was more than double that of the women, he said. Taking an inappropriately gleeful tone, Daniel cited the classic 2017 paper by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the one that started it all. Their findings were startling: men’s sperm count in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand had diminished by sixty percent in forty years, between 1973 and 2011. The scientists predicted that by 2060, virtually all men in these parts of the world would have little to no reproductive capacity.
It’s 2065 and they’re right. Only it’s worse. Before the twenties, only the developed countries seemed to be affected, but then sperm counts started to plummet in South American countries, like Argentina and Brazil, where GMO, pesticides, and solvent manufacturing were exploding.
You get out what you put into the ground. India and Asia—where endocrine-disruptive chemicals are finding their way into the water—are reporting very low sperm counts in their men as well as higher incidents of intersex humans.
You get out what you put into the water. We are over two thirds water, after all. I find it a little ironic that we’ve inadvertently produced a non-discriminatory way to control the problem of humanity’s overpopulation. Infertility. And that infertility results from defiling the environment we live in.
But now climate change is shouldering its way in. Climate change is shutting us down.
Is this the first sign of our impending extinction?
–excerpt from “A Diary in the Age of Water”
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That environmental perturbations impact our ability to reproduce has been proven. In their 2017 article, Levine et al. write that:
“Sperm count and other semen parameters have been plausibly associated with multiple environmental influences, including endocrine disrupting chemicals (Bloom et al., 2015; Gore et al., 2015), pesticides (Chiu et al., 2016), heat (Zhang et al., 2015) and lifestyle factors, including diet (Afeiche et al., 2013; Jensen et al., 2013), stress (Gollenberg et al., 2010; Nordkap et al., 2016), smoking (Sharma et al., 2016) and BMI (Sermondade et al., 2013; Eisenberg et al., 2014a). Therefore, sperm count may sensitively reflect the impacts of the modern environment on male health throughout the life course (Nordkap et al., 2012).”
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This rain falling on an Ontario marsh most certainly contains forever chemicals (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Thanks to chemical companies such as DuPont and others, forever chemicalsare currently in rain water globally, and in many places in unhealthy concentrations. These endocrine-disrupting and cancer-causing chemicals often end up in drinking water and include PCBs, phthalates, PFAS, BPAs (used in pesticides, children’s products, industrial solvents and lubricants, food storage, electronics, personal care products and cookware).
Heavy rain in Mississauga, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
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Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
The Vancouver Central Library (photo by Nina Munteanu)
I was recently at Vancouver’s Central Library on Georgia Street to listen to my colleague Craig Bowlsby give a reading from his much anticipated novel Requiem for a Lotus. He was joined by four other crime writers who gave readings that evening, including Daniel Kalla who read from his 2024 book High Society.
Book reading at VPL Central Library
My Books
Feeling whimsical on my way out, I asked the librarian if the library carried any of Nina Munteanu’s books. They did, and plenty of them! Most of my science fiction books were on their shelves as well as my historical fantasy The Last Summoner, my writing guide The Fiction Writer, and my nonfiction book on water Water Is…The Meaning of Water.
I returned the next day to check out my books and to enjoy the wonderful setting of this large and iconic Coliseum-inspired library in downtown Vancouver. It was a typical Vancouver drizzly day; a good day to spend in a library, I thought.
My book “Water Is…” at the Vancouver Central Library; note how my book answers the question posed by the book next to it (photo by Nina Munteanu)
I found Water Is… on the ground floor among other books on water. My science fiction books were up on the fourth floor, clustered with my historical fantasy The Last Summoner. Books included Darwin’s Paradox and two books of my Splintered Universe Trilogy, Inner Diverse and Metaverse; Outer Diverse was out with a customer. They also had my short story collection Natural Selection.
My science fiction and fantasy books at the Vancouver Central Library (photo by Nina Munteanu)
“Water Is…” sits at a desk overlooking the atrium, Vancouver Central Library (photo by Nina Munteanu)
The Library
Nina Munteanu and Vancouver poet Lucia Gorea share a Blenz coffee in the atrium of the library complex, Vancouver (photo by
The Vancouver Central Library is an iconic feature of downtown Vancouver. Its Coliseum-style architecture lends a note of gravitas and traditional beauty to the nouveau chic revitalized downtown. Occupying an entire city block in the eastward expansion of Vancouver’s downtown core, the library complex along with federal office building tower is made of sandstone-coloured precast concrete. The building exterior is covered in granite quarried in Horsefly, BC and built to the highest seismic standards. In the words of Safdie Architects: “the heart of the Vancouver Public Library is a spiraling grand urban room that draws the public into Library Square as both a quiet place for study and contemplation and a vital community meeting place.”
Vancouver Central Library complex (photo by Nina Munteanu)
The library opened in May of 1995; then expansion of the upper floors began in June 2017. As the lease came due on the upper two floors (levels 8 and 9), the library undertook planning to transform the area and offer much needed community spaces. Rather than featuring traditional collections, the expansion now provides meeting rooms, a glass enclosed reading room, an 80-seat theatre (where I listened to Craig read his book), an exhibition space, as well as a long awaited public rooftop garden and outdoor terraces. Original architects (Moshe Safdie & Associates with local partners DA Architects) were retained to design the new expansion. Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, the landscape architect responsible for the green roof, designed the long-awaited rooftop gardens.
Rooftop gardens of the Vancouver Central Library in the fall
The Environs
I spent a drizzly morning and afternoon in the library with its spacious atrium along with bookstore and Blenz coffee bar, and other interesting places on Georgia Street nearby.
Glowbal, outside and inside (photos by Nina Munteanu)
Close by, at Glowbal, I treated myself to a wonderful lunch on their heated patio undercover. I then dashed through the rain to Telus Gardens next door that I found attractive, fresh and welcoming with its succulent jungle of plants, fragrant orchids and swimming koi ponds. I sipped my London Fog and ate a wonderful apple custard caramel croissant (from Café Bisou), while sitting in a flower-petal chair and enjoying the blissful serenade of a piano player.
Telus Gardens, Vancouver (photos by Nina Munteanu)
The day of sensual pleasures and intellectual satisfaction was complete!
Next time you find yourself in Vancouver’s downtown, check out my books at the Central Library and enjoy the vibrant downtown core.
Looking up at various floors of the Central Library from the atrium (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Water Is… sits on the shelf at Banyen Books (photo by Nina Munteanu)
My books “Water Is… The Meaning of Water” and “A Diary in the Age of Water” are selling at Banyen Books in Kitsilano, Vancouver. While “A Diary in the Age of Water” is on Banyen’s virtual shelf for order, “Water Is…” sits on a shelf in the Water: Life-force & Resource / Ecology section.
“Water Is…” sits on the ‘water as life-force & resource’ shelf at Banyen Books, Vancouver (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Banyen Books is located in Kitsilano on the south side of W 4th Avenue on the corner of Dunbar under a grove of healthy oak trees. Across the store is Aphrodite’s Organic Pies, itself a destination for awesome pies. Banyen Books is a beautiful store. It is spacious and surrounded with the warmth of wood and plants. Its wonderful atmosphere invites you to browse the shelves and sit on the comfortable chairs to read. Banyen Books has become a destination for me whenever I’m in Vancouver.
Banyen Books on the corner of W 4th and Dunbar, Vancouver, BC (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Since opening in 1970 Banyen Books has become Canada’s most comprehensive metaphysical bookstore, offering a broad spectrum of resources from humanity’s spiritual, healing, and earth wisdom traditions. Here is how they put it:
Banyen is an oasis, a crossroads, a meeting place… for East and West, the “old ways” and current discoveries and syntheses. Our beat is the “Perennial Philosophy” as well as our evolving learning edges and best practices in a wide variety of fields, from acupuncture to Zen, from childbirth and business to the Hermetic Mysteries, from the compost pile to the celestial spheres. We’re “in the philosophy business,” on “a street in the philosophy district” (as an old cartoon wagged). We welcome and celebrate the love of wisdom, be it in art, science, lifecraft, healing, visioning, religion, psychology, eco-design, gardening… Our service is to offer life-giving nourishment for the body (resilient, vital), the mind (trained, open), and the soul (resonant, connected, in-formed). Think of us as your open source bookstore for the “University of Life”.
Whenever I’m in Vancouver to visit family and friends, I make at least one stop at Banyen Books and often come out with an armful of books. On my most recent stop, I purchased a book on plant intelligence and several beautiful journals (I use a journal for each book project I work on).
My latest purchase at Banyen Books (photo by Nina Munteanu)
19th Avenue in Vancouver, BC (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Fence and post at marsh during a rain, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
The Universe is made of stories, not atoms—Muriel Rukeyser
Canadian writer Mary Woodbury tells us that: “Fiction exploring humanity’s impacts on nature is becoming more popular [and] has the distinct ability to creatively engage and appeal to readers’ emotions. In fact, it can stir environmental action.” A survey she took in 2020 showed that “88% of its participants were inspired to act after reading ecological fiction.”
Eco-Fiction (short for ecological fiction) is a kind of fiction in which the environment—or one aspect of the environment—plays a major role, either as premise or as character. “Principled by real science and exalting our planet’s beauty, these stories are works of art. They live within classic modes of fiction exploring the human condition, but also integrate the wild,” writes Woodbury. At the heart of eco-fiction are strong relationships forged between the major character on a journey and an aspect of their environment and place. Environment and place can illuminate through the sub-text of metaphor a core aspect of the main character and their journey.
Green architecture design by Vincent Callebaut
All great literature distills its art form through the exploration of relationship: our relationship with technology, with science, Nature, God, our children, each other, our history. Science fiction illuminates our history and our very humanity by examining our interaction with “the other”—the unfamiliar, the feared, the often downtrodden, the invisible, the ignored. This is the hero’s journey. And it is through this journey relating to the “other” (whether it’s Earth or an alien planet, its water, environment and issues, and its varied peoples and cultures) that our hero discovers herself and her gift to the world. When will we stop portraying Nature as “other”?…
Green neighbourhood design by Vincent Callebaut
We currently live in a world in which climate change and associated water crisis pose a very real existential threat to most life currently on the planet. The new normal is change. And it is within this changing climate that eco-fiction is realizing itself as a literary pursuit worth engaging in. The emergence of the term eco-fiction as a brand of literature suggests that we are all awakening—novelists and readers of novels—to our changing environment. We are finally ready to see and portray environment as an interesting character with agency and to read this important and impactful literature.
Lavender farm and house design by Vincent Callebaut
Many readers are currently seeking fiction that describes environmental issues but also explores a successful paradigm shift: fiction that accurately addresses our current issues with intelligence and hope. This is reflected in the growing popularity of several emerging sub-genres of fiction such as solar punk, optimistic climate fiction, clifi, eco-lit, hope punk, and others. The power of envisioning a certain future is that the vision enables one to see it as possible. Eco-fiction—and all good science fiction—uses metaphor to study the world and the consequences of humanity’s actions through microcosmic dramatization. What makes this literature particularly exciting is: 1) its relevance to our current existential situation; and 2) that it often provides a way forward.
Solarpunk world imagined (image by Imperial Boy)
The Way Forward with Solarpunk
In his 2014 article “Solarpunk: Notes toward a manifesto” in Hieroglyph Adam Flynn writes of under-30 futurists: “Many of us feel it’s unethical to bring children into a world like ours. We have grown up under a shadow, and if we sometimes resemble fungus it should be taken as a credit to our adaptability.”
“We’re solarpunks because the only other options are denial or despair.”
ADAM FLYNN
Solarpunk, says Flynn, “is about finding ways to make life more wonderful for us now, and more importantly for the generations that follow us—i.e., extending human life at the species level, rather than individually.” Our future, asserts Flynn, “must involve repurposing and creating new things from what we already have (instead of 20thcentury “destroy it all and build something completely different” modernism).” Solarpunk futurism “is not nihilistic like cyberpunk and it avoids steampunk’s potentially quasi-reactionary tendencies: it is about ingenuity, generativity, independence, and community.”
“Hydrogenase” algae-powered airships by Vincent Callebaut
The ‘punk’ suffix comes from the oppositional quality of solarpunk; opposition that begins with infrastructure as a form of resistance. Flynn tells us that solarpunk draws on the ideal of Jefferson’s yeoman farmer, Ghandi’s ideal of swadeshi, and countless other traditions of innovative dissent.
“Hyperion” eco-neighbourhood design by Vincent Callebaut
“Solarpunk is a future with a human face and dirt behind its ears.”
ADAM FLYNN
In response to Flynn’s article, Bob Vanderbob writes, “going solar is a deep mental shift: it will be the central metaphor of our future civilization.”
Green Paris design by Vincent Callebaut
Musician photographer Jay Springett calls solarpunk, “a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion, and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question ‘what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?’… At once a vision of the future, a thoughtful provocation, and an achievable lifestyle.” Jennifer Hamilton observes in The Conversation that “as a category of fiction, solarpunk remains a fringe dweller…Nevertheless, the aesthetic sensibilities of the subculture are starting to emerge.” Hamilton asserts that “the focus on the cultural change that will necessarily accompany the full transition to renewable energy is the defining feature of solarpunk.” She adds, “we usually ask ‘can renewables replace fossil fuels?’ … solarpunks ask ‘what kind of world will emerge when we finally transition to renewables?’ and their [works] are generating an intriguing answer.”
Beach house design by Vincent Callebaut
How Eco-Fiction Inspires and Galvanizes
Readers responded to Mary Woodbury’s survey question “Do you think that environmental themes in fiction can impact society and if so, how?” with these observations:
Environmental fiction encourages empathy and imagination. Stories can affect us more than dry facts. Fiction reaches us more deeply than academic understanding, moving us to action.
Environmental fiction triggers a sense of wonder about the natural world, and even a sense of loss and mourning. Stories can immerse readers into imagined worlds with environmental issues similar to ours.
Environmental fiction raises awareness, encourages conversations and idea-sharing. Fiction is one way that helps to create a vision of our future. Cautionary tales can nudge people to action and encourage alternative futures. Novels can shift viewpoints without direct confrontation, avoid cognitive dissonance, and invite reframed human-nature relationships through enjoyment and voluntary participation.
Environmental themes can reorient our perspective from egocentrism to the greater-than-human world.
Dirt road in Kawarthas during a misting rain, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Why Our Stories Are Important
We are all storytellers. We share our curiosity with great expression; our capacity and need to tell stories is as old as our ancient beginnings. From the Palaeolithic cave paintings of Lascaux to our blogs on the Internet, humanity has left a grand legacy of “story” sharing. Evolutionary biologist and futurist Elisabet Sahtouris tells us that, “whether we create our stories from the revelations of religions or the researches of science, or the inspirations of great artists and writers or the experiences of our own lives, we live by the stories we believe and tell to ourselves and others.”
Compelling stories resonate with the universal truths of metaphor that reside within the consciousness of humanity. According to Joseph Campbell, this involves an open mind and a certain amount of humility; and giving oneself to the story … not unlike the hero who gives her life to something larger than herself. Fiction becomes memorable by providing a depth of meaning. Stories move with direction, compel with intrigue and fulfil with awareness and, sometimes, with understanding. The stories that stir our hearts come from deep inside, where the personal meets the universal, through symbols or archetypes and metaphor.
Ultimately, we live by the narratives we share. “What you think, you become,” said Buddha.
In my writing guidebook The Ecology of Story: World as Character, I write: “When a writer is mindful of place in story and not only accurately portrays environment but treats it as a character, then her story will resonate with multilayers of meaning.”
Poplar stand in the Kawarthas, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Changing the Narrative…
I was recently interviewed by Forrest Brown on Stories for Earth Podcast in which we discussed the need to change our narrative (particularly our colonial neoliberal capitalist narrative) and various ways to do this, taking into account the challenges posed by belief and language. Lessons from our indigenous wise elders will play a key role in our change toward genuine partnership with the Earth.
“We need to have a whole cultural shift, where it becomes our culture to take care of the Earth, and in order to make this shift, we need storytelling about how the Earth takes care of us and how we can take care of her.” ― Ayana Elizabeth Johnson,All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis
“This world, in which we are born and taken our being, is alive. It is not our supply house and sewer; it is our larger body. The intelligence that evolved us from stardust and interconnects us with all beings is sufficient for the healing of our Earth community, if we but align with that purpose. Our true nature is far more ancient and encompassing than the separate self defined by habit and society. We are as intrinsic to our living world as the rivers and trees, woven of the same intricate flows of matter/energy and mind. Having evolved us into self-reflexive consciousness, the world can now know itself through us, behold its own majesty, tell its own stories–and also respond to its own suffering.”
JOANNA MACY and CHRIS JOHNSTONE, “Active Hope”
Swamp forest in Kawartha region, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
References:
Campbell, Joseph, Bill Moyers. 1991. “The Power of Myth.” Anchor. 293pp.
Sahtouris, Elisabet. 2014. “Ecosophy: Nature’s Guide to a Better World.” Kosmos, Spring/Summer 2014: 4-9pp.
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”—George Bernard Shaw
At Calgary’s When Words Collide some years ago, I moderated a panel on Eco-Fiction with publisher/writer Hayden Trenholm, and writers Michael J. Martineck, Sarah Kades, and Susan Forest. The panel was well attended; panelists and audience discussed and argued what eco-fiction was, its role in literature and storytelling generally, and even some of the risks of identifying a work as eco-fiction.
Someone in the audience brought up the notion that “awareness-guided perception” may suggest an increase of ecological awareness in literature when it is more that readers are just noticing what was always there. Authors agreed and pointed out that environmental fiction has been written for years and it is only now—partly with the genesis of the term eco-fiction—that the “character” and significance of environment is being acknowledged beyond its metaphor; for its actual value. It may also be that the metaphoric symbols of environment in certain classics are being “retooled” through our current awareness much in the same way that Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World or George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four are being re-interpreted—and newly appreciated— in today’s world of pervasive surveillance and bio-engineering.
I would submit that if we are noticing it more, we are also writing it more. Artists are cultural leaders and reporters, after all. I shared my own experience in the science fiction classes I was teaching at UofT and George Brown College, in which I noted a trend of increasing “eco-fiction” in the works in progress that students were bringing in to workshop in class. Students were not aware that they were writing eco-fiction, but they were indeed writing it.
I started branding my writing as eco-fiction a few years ago. Prior to that—even though my stories were strongly driven by an ecological premise and strong environmental setting—I described them as science fiction and many as technological thrillers. Environment’s role remained subtle and—at times—insidious. Climate change. Water shortage. Environmental disease. A city’s collapse. War. I’ve used these as backdrops to explore relationships, values (such as honour and loyalty), philosophies, moralities, ethics, and agencies of action. The stuff of storytelling.
Environment, and ecological characteristics were less “theme” than “character,” with which the protagonist and major characters related in important ways.
Just as Bong Joon-Ho’s 2014 science fiction movie Snowpiercer wasn’t so much about climate change as it was about exploring class struggle, the capitalist decadence of entitlement, disrespect and prejudice through the premise of climate catastrophe. Though, one could argue that these form a closed loop of cause and effect (and responsibility).
The self-contained closed ecosystem of the Snowpiercer train is maintained by an ordered social system, imposed by a stony militia. Those at the front of the train enjoy privileges and luxurious living conditions, though most drown in a debauched drug stupor; those at the back live on next to nothing and must resort to savage means to survive. Revolution brews from the back, lead by Curtis Everett (Chris Evans), a man whose two intact arms suggest he hasn’t done his part to serve the community yet.
Minister Mason (Tilda Swinton), an imperious yet simpering figure who serves the ruling class without quite being part of it, reminds the lower class that:
“We must all of us on this train of life remain in our allotted station. We must each of us occupy our preordained particular position. Would you wear a shoe on your head? Of course you wouldn’t wear a shoe on your head. A shoe doesn’t belong on your head. A shoe belongs on your foot. A hat belongs on your head. I am a hat. You are a shoe. I belong on the head. You belong on the foot. Yes? So it is. In the beginning, order was prescribed by your ticket: First Class, Economy, and freeloaders like you…Now, as in the beginning, I belong to the front. You belong to the tail. When the foot seeks the place of the head, the sacred line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.”
Ecotones are places where “lines are crossed,” where barriers are breached, where “words collide” and new opportunities arise. Sometimes from calamity. Sometimes from tragedy. Sometimes from serendipity.
When environment shapes a story as archetype—hero, victim, trickster, shadow or shape shifter—we get strong eco-fiction. Good eco-fiction, like any good story, explores the choices we make and the consequences of those choices. Good eco-fiction ventures into the ecotone of overlap, collision, exchange and ultimate change.
In my non-fiction book Water Is… I define an ecotone as the transition zone between two overlapping systems. It is essentially where two communities exchange information and integrate. Ecotones typically support varied and rich communities, representing a boiling pot of two colliding worlds. An estuary—where fresh water meets salt water. The edge of a forest with a meadow. The shoreline of a lake or pond.
For me, this is a fitting metaphor for life, given that the big choices we must face usually involve a collision of ideas, beliefs, lifestyles or worldviews: these often prove to enrich our lives the most for having gone through them. Evolution (any significant change) doesn’t happen within a stable system; adaptation and growth occur only when stable systems come together, disturb the equilibrium, and create opportunity. Good social examples include a close friendship or a marriage in which the process of “I” and “you” becomes a dynamic “we” (the ecotone) through exchange and reciprocation. Another version of Bernard Shaw’s quote, above, by the Missouri Pacific Agriculture Development Bulletin reads: “You have an idea. I have an idea. We swap. Now, you have two ideas and so do I. Both are richer. What you gave you have. What you got I did not lose. This is cooperation.” This is ecotone.
I think we are seeing more eco-fiction out there because ecosystems, ecology and environment are becoming more integral to story: as characters in their own right. I think we are seeing more eco-fiction out there because we are ready to see it. Just as quantum physics emerged when it did and not sooner, an idea—a thought—crystalizes when we are ready for it.
Don’t stay a shoe … go find an ecotone. Then write about it.
Thirty-Six Eco-Fiction Books Worth Reading…
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
I recently came across this beautiful Instagram post by TinasAlwaysReading, and was reminded of a wonderfully in-depth review of my eco-fiction novel A Diary in the Age of Water that Tina did on Sound & Fury Book Reviews.
You can watch the review below:
Sound & Fury reviews “A Diary in the Age of Water” by Nina Munteanu
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Nina Munteanu Writing Coach 