Book Review: No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save the Planet, edited by D.A. Baden
Short Story Collection: No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save the Planet, edited by D.A. Baden
Blog Tour February 17, 2023
I love short stories, but I don’t always love anthologies. Sometimes the anthologies feel a bit forced, “Tales by Red-Headed Left-Handers Born in August.” You don’t get the best stories. You get the best stories by those who met the criteria, which may or may not actually be great stories.
Delightfully, No More Fairy Tales is as far from that characterization as it could be. D.A. Baden has recruited a stellar group of writers, some of whom I had read before. Most of them were new to me. These authors have written short stories that bring to life some ideas suggested for combating climate change. Some of the ideas are current and are already being implemented: Others are much more experimental and theoretical and will require years and resources to bring to fulfillment. Still, all of these stories have a similar tone: we must combat climate change and we will.
When I grow up I am hoping to be Greta Thunberg. Since this is unlikely to happen for any number of reasons, I have settled for being a distant fan of her and her activism. She is often very angry about climate change, and for very good reason. Her generation is forced to deal with the consequences that previous generations created and then ignored. We may already have passed the tipping point. Will my grandchildren inherit a world that is barely livable? That seems like a strong possibility. That thought worries me.
However, anger and worry can only take us so far. Human psyches wear down under the weight of negative emotions. Over time, we just become too tired to care. A few activists are able to maintain their stamina and press on in the fight. Most of us, though, can’t deal with it very long.
That is the brilliance of this collection. Prepared for the climate summit COP27, these stories are not angry or fearful. They are hopeful. There are things that can be done. There is work that can be accomplished. There are people who do care. There are options to slowing down climate change, perhaps even reversing it at least a little bit. These options may be presented as fictional scenarios, but they are based on real science. Each story contains a QR code opening a web page that delves into the subject. You can check them out at Anthology for COP27 – Green Stories Project.
Fear and guilt and anger and desperation are indeed motivators. I believe the best motivator, though, is quite different. Hope leads us to believe that we can make a difference, that we matter, that our actions can change the world one little bit at a time. These stories all have hope. Dystopian fiction is fascinating. It might even be fun. Sometimes, though, it’s nice to read stories that are full of hope. We may not succeed in turning the climate back to the 1800s pre-industrial relative purity. But if we aim for that and miss, we have still made a better planet for our children and our grandchildren.
Our thanks to Rachel Gilbey of Rachel’s Random Resources for our copy of No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save the Planet, provided so we could review it for this blog tour. The opinions here are solely those of Scintilla. For other perspectives on this book, check out the other bloggers on this tour.
Book Review: No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save the Planet, edited by D.A. Baden