• if you are looking for 'the' literary genre appropriate for the p2p/commons movement, look no further than Solarpunk

• The key S-F book that has inspired much of what we do at the P2P Foundation was 'The Diamond Age' by Neal Stephenson, which describes a fully networked society where the nation-states have largely withered away. The EdgeRyders recommend 'Walkaway' by Cory Doctorow, as an update. Tim Morgan recommends 'Stealing Worlds' by Karl Schroeder. Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry of the Future also comes highly recommended by many.

• The EdgeRyder, with Econ SF, coordinated by Alberto Cottica et al., are systematically reviewing contemporary S-F authors that focus on potentially new economic visions, that are in line with p2p dynamics and the commons vision: https://edgeryders.eu/t/econ-sf-a-selection-of-works-and-authors/8582?u=alberto

Contextual Quote

"Cyberpunk and Solarpunk are actually based on very similar tenets. Both contain the central idea that human nature doesn’t tend to change. The key difference is that Cyberpunk assumes that the worst human traits will dominate, leading greed and exploitation to win out. Consequently, Cyberpunk is full of grimdark dystopian visions and high levels of cynicism. Solarpunk in contrast assumes that the best human traits will dominate, giving more optimistic eutopian (not utopian) visions. Cyberpunk is in reaction to the shiny spacesuits and silver rockets of the 1960s. Solarpunk, in turn, is in reaction to Cyberpunk. Where Cyberpunk is about nihilism, Solarpunk is about anti-nihilism."

- A solarpunk statement [1]

Key Resources

1. 50 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Works Every Socialist Should Read, by China Mieville
2. Shareable Futures: Shareable magazine has a series of s-f fiction stories by Bruce Sterling and others, featuring futures based on sharing and sustainability
3. Cory Doctorow: Technology Can Be a Force for Liberation. Introduction to the Persian edition of the science fiction novel Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow, London, June 2008
4. Delicious tags for updates at http://diigo.com/users/mbauwens/P2P-Fiction

Reviews by P2P Foundation Collaborators

• Kevin Carson reviews

1. The Makers by Cory Doctorow, http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/review-cory-doctorow-the-makers/2010/02/24
2. The Caryatids. Bruce Sterling, http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/2065-p2p-vs-hollywood/2009/08/26

Key P2P Fiction

Science Fiction

* Bibliographies:

1. http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-essential-cyberpunk-reading-list-1714180001

* Individual Books:

1. Makers. Cory Doctorow. The second industrial revolution -- at the micro scale.
2. Daemon and FreedomTM. Daniel Suarez. A second American revolution enabled by software. Resilient communities.
3. Islands in the Net. Bruce Sterling. City state warfare (Singapore vs. Grenada).
4. Snow Crash. Neal Stephenson. Post nation-state thinking. "Burbclave" city states vs. "Fedland" (a bureaucratic nightmare of what's left of the gov't) vs. Criminal corporate franchises.
5. The Diamond Age. Neal Stephenson. Nanotech warfare. Nanotech future dissolves global social systems. People respond by recreating historical cultures to give meaning to their lives.

(http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2010/12/books-science-fiction.html)

Table: Kojin Karatani's 'Mode D' in fiction and science fiction: 500 years of Utopian narratives

Produced from the research work of Mark Whitaker, for a fuller list that includes nonfiction works, see:

• Futurist Social, Environmental, and Technical Utopias, 1627‐2026

Ecological Utopias & Eco-Literary Fiction: A Selected Overview

Year	Title	Genre	Historical Context	Detailed Summary
1627	New Atlantis	Early Scientific Utopia	A precursor to modern technocratic and scientific utopianism.	An early modern text envisioning society organized around inquiry, experimentation and managed resource stewardship.
1872	Erewhon SF	Satire on Victorian society and industrialization / Eco-Utopia	Concern of the eventual advance toward artificial intelligence in thinking machines that would take over humanity and devalue it, and how to avoid it.	An isolated society with pastoral farming, unusual ecological ethics, and suspicion of machines.
1883	The Millennium: A Comedy of the Year 2000 SF	Socialist Utopia / Reform Fiction	Early radical critique of industrial capitalism.	Sinclair's satirical vision anticipates cooperative settlements and municipal reforms that reduce industrial harm.
1888/1897	Looking Backward / Equality SF	Proto-Socialist Utopia / Eco-Urbanism	Response to Gilded Age inequality and urban squalor. Motivation: Industrial reform, social justice.	Bellamy's work imagines nationalized utilities, planned urban design, and socialized infrastructure that prefigure eco-urban planning. Planned economy and green infrastructure; Equality introduces eco-urbanism.
1890	News from Nowhere	Pastoral Socialist Utopia / Social Critique	Written as a response to late-19th-century industrial capitalism and the social disruptions of the Industrial Revolution; influenced by Morris's socialism and Arts & Crafts aesthetics.	Narrated as a dream-vision, the protagonist wakes in a future England transformed by nonviolent revolution into a decentralized, pastoral society. Money and wage labor have been abolished; craft, cooperative workshops, and smallholdings replace factories. The novel emphasizes the restoration of landscapes, celebration of artisanal labor, and rhythms of voluntary work integrated with creative life. Technology is not wholly rejected—useful machinery exists—but large-scale industrial production and alienating factory labor are dismantled in favor of human-scale design and ecological stewardship.
1905	A Modern Utopia SF	Global Eco-Socialist Technocratic Utopia	Destructive economic and ecological development paths; Motivation for more rational planning plus an early environmental vision.	Global order emphasizing resource conservation and rational land use.
1915	Herland	Feminist Utopia / Social Reform Fiction	Late Progressive-era social reform and early feminist social theory.	Gilman imagines an all-female society that organizes cooperative agriculture, education and social care to produce a stable, low-impact social order.
1915	Pilgrim’s Farm	Agrarian Utopia	Motivation: Agrarian reform and Social Gospel influences.	Idealized rural cooperative community using ecological agriculture.
1920	The People of the Ruins SF	Post-Collapse Agrarian Utopia	Post-WWI disillusionment with industrial modernity.	A speculative novel where survivors organize land-based communities prioritizing local knowledge and subsistence.
1923	Men Like Gods SF	Global Eco-Socialist Technocratic Utopia	Motivation: Progressive optimism, scientific social reform.	Parallel-world utopia with advanced ecology, sanitation, and environmental control.
1935	The Green Child	Allegorical Pastoral Utopia	Interwar period reflections on civilization's spiritual crises; aesthetics as remedy for modern alienation.	A poetic allegory about discovering a subterranean, pastoral people whose life is woven with ritual, craft, and reverence for landscape. The book offers symbolic prescriptions—art, ritual, and ecological integration—as a cure for modern industrial malaise, blending mythic tone with social imagination.
1942	Islandia	Agrarian Utopia	Motivation: Academic critique of industrial modernity.	A remote nation practicing simple living, land stewardship, organic agriculture.
1948	Walden Two SF	Behaviorist Utopia / Social Engineering Fiction	Post-WWII interest in social engineering, alternative communal living, and psychological reform. Motivation: Behaviorist utopia as alternative to industrial chaos.	Engineered cooperative society with sustainable routines. Describes a planned community that uses behaviorist principles to structure education, work, and social reward systems, aiming to reduce conflict and create sustainable, cooperative living. While methodologically controversial, the book influenced intentional communities and debates about planned versus organic social design.
1955	The Chrysalids SF	Post-Apocalyptic Resilience Fiction	Post-war anxieties channelled into pastoral resilience narratives. Motivation: fear of genetic mutations by radiation (previous nuclear war) plus social collapse.	Focuses on small communities preserving knowledge and practicing low-impact life after societal rupture, highlighting adaptive social structures. More dystopian, but features sustainable, egalitarian enclaves.
1962	Island	Spiritual-Ecological Utopia / Philosophical Fiction	Written in the 1950s/60s cultural moment when Eastern philosophies and critiques of Western materialism were gaining traction. Motivation: Eastern philosophy, ecology, holistic health.	Presents Pala, an island society integrating modern health care and planned agriculture with contemplative practices, education reforms, and ecological land use. Pala cultivates soil conservation, mixed cropping, community control of resources, and psychological training designed to produce balanced citizens. The novel foregrounds the interdependence of ecological health and spiritual well-being, advocating small-scale, humane institutions rather than technological gigantism. In short, Pala integrates ecology, mindfulness, and cooperative agriculture.
1972	The Word for World Is Forest SF	Ecological Novella / Anti-colonial Allegory	Responds to wars and extractive colonial practices in the mid-20th century, with ecological and anti-imperial themes.	On a forested planet, indigenous peoples live sustainably until colonists arrive to harvest resources. The novel juxtaposes indigenous ecological wisdom and rites with destructive extractive logics, culminating in violent confrontation. It is a moral parable advocating respect for forested cultures and warning of environmental and cultural costs of colonization.
1972	The Sunlight Dialogues	Philosophical Environmental Fiction	Reflects early 1970s philosophical environmentalism.	Explores civic responsibility and moral obligations of communities toward the land and each other.
1972	The Sheep Look Up SF	Environmental Dystopia with Ecological Activism	Classic of 1970s environmental fiction prompting policy discourse. Motivation: pollution anxiety.	A noisy portrait of pollution and corporate power that simultaneously showcases activist and local ecological movements seeking repair; eco-resistance and green enclaves.
1972	The Earthkeepers	Spiritual-Ecological Utopia; Indigenous Land Management	Written in the early 1970s in a cultural moment when indigenous beliefs and philosophies began being used to critique Western materialism.	Indigenous land ethics; essays/myths imagining the restoration of ecological sacredness.
1974	The Dispossessed SF	Anarchist-Utopia / Political-Ecological Fiction	Written during the 1970s, when political radicalism, communal experiments, and ecological critiques of industrial society were prominent.	Anarres, the 'dispossessed' moon, is an anarchist, cooperative society practicing low-consumption living, mutual aid, and communal labor shared among citizens. Contrasted with Urras, a capitalist planet, the novel interrogates both the strengths and limitations of an anarchic ecology—how scarcity, social norms, and bureaucracy shape ecological behavior. Le Guin's treatment is complex: Anarres demonstrates ecological restraint but also social constraints, making the book an 'ambiguous utopia' that probes institutional design, freedom, and ecological health.
1975	Ecotopia SF	Eco-Political Fiction / Green Separatist Utopia	Published amid 1970s environmentalism (first Earth Day 1970), energy crises, and growing interest in regionalism and alternative technologies.	Green separatist republic with renewable energy, recycling, forest restoration. Presented as the travel journal of an outside reporter, Ecotopia details a secessionist nation formed from northern California, Oregon, and Washington. Ecotopia reorganizes transport (prioritizing transit and bicycles), localizes industry with closed-loop systems, restores forests and wetlands, and embeds sustainability in policy and everyday life. The culture emphasizes reduced consumption, community governance, and ecological education; the novel balances technical description with cultural analysis to show how policy, technology, and social norms combine to produce an enduring ecological society.
1976	Woman on the Edge of Time SF	Feminist Eco-Utopia / Speculative Fiction	Published into second-wave feminism and back-to-the-land movements; reflects debates over gender, family, and ecological living. Motivation: Ecofeminism plus social justice.	Future agrarian eco-commune with gender equality and bioregional living. A protagonist communicates with two possible futures—one dystopian, one utopian. The utopian strand depicts an agrarian, egalitarian society where parenting is communal, medicine is low-tech and holistic, and gender roles are fluid. The novel explores a vision of how changed social institutions and ecological practices can foster human flourishing and gender justice.
1978	Genesis SF	Philosophical Speculative Fiction	Explores bioethics and planned ecological governance.	An island society structures itself around environmental constraints, inviting reflection on limits, governance and moral choices.
1981	Ecotopia Emerging SF	Green Separatist Utopia	Explore prequel pathways to sustainability.	Social movements shift US West Coast toward ecological secession.
1984	The Integral Trees SF	Hard-SF Arboreal Ecology	Appreciated for rigorous ecological worldbuilding.	Imagines societies adapted to living in an entirely arboreal, freefall environment; social forms are deeply shaped by ecological constraints.
1985	Always Coming Home	Anthropological / Eco-Literary Fiction	A mid-1980s exploration of post-industrial, place-based culture influenced by ethnography and the countercultural interest in returning to the land. Motivation: Anthropology, Taoism, ecological ethics.	Future Kesh culture with ritualized ecological lifeways. A hybrid of fiction, poetry, songs, and ethnographic fragments portraying the Kesh people in a future, post-collapse California. Rather than a single plot, the book constructs cultural materials—myths, recipes, crafts, and social rules—that together show a society organized around reciprocity with land, seasonal cycles, gender-fluid roles, communal crafts, and oral tradition. It rejects blueprint thinking in favor of a living cultural mosaic that models resilience through memory, place-based knowledge, and everyday practices.
1987	The Smoke Ring SF	Sequel / Arboreal Worldbuilding	Further exploration of ecological adaptation.	Continues building out social-ecological adaptations to an unusual arborial biosphere.
1984-1990	The Three Californias Trilogy (esp. Pacific Edge (1990)) SF	Regional Utopian Fiction / Eco-Realism	Pacific Edge is part of Robinson's 'Three Californias' project, published as environmental debates over urban sprawl and water policy were intensifying in California. Motivation: Explore possible ecological futures.	Local democracy builds a living, realistic eco-utopia. The book proposes and imagines better resilient, sustainable regional systems. Set in a near-future Orange County transformed by grassroots activism, municipal reforms, and ecological law, Pacific Edge follows civic efforts to prevent destructive development and implement water-sensitive land use. The novel is a practical utopia: it foregrounds specific policy tools (zoning, water management, renewable energy, etc.) and civic negotiation. Robinson's approach is procedural—utopia is not perfect but is created by continual regional deliberative and democratic labor, local institutions, and policy design attentive to ecological limits.
1992	The Millennial Project SF	"Green Outer Space" Habitation / Long-Term Ecological Planning	Brings ecosystem thinking to long-term human expansion. Motivation: 'Space ecology,' technological optimism.	Large-scale space habitats designed with ecological cycles. An ambitious roadmap for multi-stage space habitation with ecological closed-loop principles.
1993	The Fifth Sacred Thing	Ecofeminist / Spiritual Utopia	Published in the early 1990s as permaculture and ecofeminist praxis gained visibility; reflects post-1980s social movements linking spirituality and ecological activism. Motivation: Ecofeminist activism, permaculture.	San Francisco remade as eco-democracy resisting authoritarianism. Set in a dystopia-split California, the novel centers on a multicultural community that practices permaculture, communal decision-making, and ritual as foundations of ecological and social health. The community's nonviolent resistance to an authoritarian, extractive regime emphasizes food sovereignty, inclusive governance, and spiritual healing. Starhawk mixes practical ecology with ritual praxis, offering a vision of sustainable society rooted in mutual care and ecological spirituality.
1993	Parable of the Sower SF	Climate Dystopia / Seed-Communitarian Utopia	1990s anxieties about inequality and environmental collapse.	Founding of Earthseed models mutual aid, ecological gardening and adaptive ethics amid social collapse.
2001	Ecological Utopia Supplement 1	Various Eco-Utopian Genres	—	Plausible eco-utopian design and community practices.
2002	Ecological Utopia Supplement 2	Various Eco-Utopian Genres	—	Plausible eco-utopian design and community practices.
2008	The Millennium Tides	Coastal Adaptation Fiction	Reflects practical coastal resilience strategy debates.	Blend of essays and stories about living with tides, flood-resistant design, and community-managed water systems.
2011	Biosphere Tales (Anthology)	Eco-Short Fiction	Contemporary short fiction drawing on ecological myth.	Short stories focusing on subterranean and closed ecologies and human relationships to place.
2012	Memory of Water SF	Climate-literary Fiction	Nordic literary response to scarcity narratives; Motivation: Climate, scarcity, cultural memory.	Water-guarding society with echoes of ecological spirituality. Centers a lineage guarding water knowledge within a ritualized cultural practice as a model of resource stewardship.
2012	Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories — Anthology 2012 SF	Eco-Short Fiction	Motivation: Build positive ecological futures.	Diverse short stories imagining renewable energy, cooperative living.
2014	The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet SF	Soft SF / Multispecies Ecological Fiction	Emerging interest in pluralistic, cooperative futures; Motivation: Post-scarcity ethics plus ecological cohabitation.	A multi-species society living lightly on ecosystems. A character-driven story emphasizing interspecies cooperation and low-impact living.
2015	Aurora SF	Space-ecology Fiction	Space colonization debates and ecological engineering; Motivation: Closed-ecology thought experiment.	Generation ship ecology imagines fragile sustainable systems. A generation ship narrative that ponders closed-system ecology and the limits of sustaining human life off Earth.
2015	The Water Knife SF	Climate Dystopia with Adaptive Communities	Engages U.S. water politics and climate migration concerns.	A harsh depiction of water conflict that includes pockets of innovative desert adaptation and water-conserving practices.
2017	The Marrow Thieves SF	Indigenous Futurism / Climate Dystopia with Utopian Ethics	Contemporary Indigenous resilience narratives; Motivation: Indigenous futurism plus ecological healing.	Dystopia of climate-ravaged world where Indigenous communities preserve ecological ethics with social practices that sustain community survival and cultural transmission.
2017	New York 2140 SF	Climate Adaptation Fiction	Climate adaptation and urban resilience literature.	A partially flooded New York adapts through cooperative finance, retrofitted buildings and community governance.
2017	Walkaway SF	Post-capitalist / Solarpunk fiction	21st-century maker/open-source movements and critique of corporate power.	Walkaway communities build distributed manufacturing, open-source culture, and gift economies to support low-impact living.
2017	Borne SF	Weird Ecological Fiction	New Weird tradition and ecological mutation themes; Motivation: Weird ecology and posthuman nature.	Ecologically mutated city where bioengineered species model new interdependence. A biotech-altered city foregrounds emergent ecologies and human adaptation to novel biota.
2017	Solarpunk Anthology SF	Solarpunk Fiction Collection	Part of an optimistic literary movement toward renewable futures.	Short fiction compendium imagining cooperative, solar-powered communities with strong local ecologies.
2017	Future Home of the Living God SF	Indigenous Post-Apocalyptic Fiction	Motivation: Indigenous identity plus ecological crisis.	Societal breakdown contrasted with Indigenous eco-resilience.
2018	Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers SF	Solarpunk Fiction Collection	Motivation: Community solar utopian storytelling.	Anthology of optimistic, ecological, cooperative futures.
2018	The Overstory	Arboricultural Literary Fiction	Late-2010s literary environmentalism; Motivation: Deep ecology, biocentric ethics.	Interlinked narratives imagining tree-centered ecological consciousness with a deep-time forest ethics and radical conservation activism.
2018	The Moon of the Crusted Snow SF	Indigenous Post-Apocalyptic Fiction	Reflects Indigenous knowledge and resurgence.	An Anishinaabe community's social structures and food systems provide resilience in a wider collapsed world.
2020	The Ministry for the Future SF	Climate Policy Fiction / Post-Apocalyptic Fiction / Near-Future Ecological Realism	Reflects current international climate governance debates; Motivation: Globalist technocratic climate policy hysteria plus plausible futures.	Global responses build a post-carbon semi utopia/dystopia. Follows a UN agency shaping policies to avert catastrophic warming through finance, law, and technological interventions.
2020	Love After the End SF	Indigenous Futurism Anthology	Expands Indigenous futurism into queer and kinship themes.	Eco-futures rooted in relationality and stewardship. Stories imagining Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer futures with strong relational and land-centered ethics.
2020	The Long Winter (Anthology)	Climate Short Fiction Collection	Contemporary climate fiction sampling approaches to resilience.	Assembles short stories exploring local innovations and small-scale adaptive measures for climate-stressed communities.
2015-2020	The History of Bees / Climate Quartet — 2015–2020	Fiction	Motivation: Species loss.	Multi-timeline reflections on ecological resilience and post-collapse renewal.
2021	Bewilderment SF	Polyfuturist Climate Fiction	Motivation: Parenting plus environmental grief.	Envisions ethical future societies and emotional solace through ecological imagination.
2021	The Actual Star SF	Polyfuturist Climate Fiction	Addresses cultural continuity as ecological infrastructure.	Future society adopts planetary pilgrimage and ecological non-ownership. A novel spanning eras to show how ritual, pilgrimage, and shared cultural projects can produce ecological resilience across centuries.
2021	Light From Uncommon Stars SF	Speculative Magical Realism	Intersects cultural care with urban ecological praxis.	Utopian enclaves practicing mutual care and ecological harmony. Combines music, cosmopolitan immigrant narratives and community repair; advocates mutual aid and hospitality as ecological practices.
2022	How High We Go in the Dark SF	Pandemic-Ecological Fiction	'Pandemic-era' speculative response linking grief with ecological renewal.	Interlinked narratives imagine new funerary and land-care practices that regenerate ecological meaning after mass death.
2023	The Terraformers SF	Planetary-Ecology SF	Terraforming ethics; Motivation: Environmental history plus multispecies ethics.	Future terraforming guilds build sustainable planetary ecologies. Follows multi-generational ecological engineering projects that regenerate planetary ecosystems with multi-species cooperation.