Halfway to Better is a collection of short solarpunk stories, each exploring a near-future where were struggling to survive the climate crisis and build a better world. These hopeful climate-fiction stories take you from the bottom of the sea to the towers of a bot-filled city, from sparkling labs to flooded lighthouses, all imagining futures halfway to a better world. The Halfway to Better collection contains six short stories plus a bonus prose-poem, Rewilding Indiana, and its accompanying sky shanty.

SHORT STORY: At the bottom of the sea, a trawler crawls across an abyssal plain, carefully cleaning microplastics off the ancient mineral-rich nodules, when the crew finds something that shouldn't be possible. Slimy Things Did Crawl is one of six short solarpunk stories in the Halfway to Better collection.

In a distant future where advancements in cybernetics and gene-splicing have resulted in a dozen different variants of humanity, three individuals find themselves entangled in a conspiracy that could doom everyone in the colonized worlds. Paige Angstrom, a fierce and loyal Peacekeeper, yearns to shield her sister Volara from a life of corporate-indentured servitude. Hemlocke Shaw, a gene-spliced engineer, tirelessly searches for his missing eco-activist wife.

No one at Meetpoint Station had ever seen a creature like the Outsider. Naked-hided, blunt toothed and blunt-fingered, Tully was the sole surviving member of his company -- a communicative, spacefaring species hitherto unknown -- and he was a prisoner of his discoverer/captors the sadistic, treacherous kif, until his escape onto the hani ship The Pride of Chanur.

In the shadow of the cosmos, an unstoppable alien fleet advances, leaving a trail of conquered worlds in its wake. The Xortaag armada, an epitome of galactic might, now sets its sights on Earth. Yet hope flickers in the most unlikely of heroes: a maverick starfighter pilot with a penchant for movie quotes, a daredevil stuntwoman, a lethal super-assassin, and a cosmic spymaster. Their mission: to shield not just humanity, but billions of other intelligent lifeforms spanning the multiverse.

For better, for worse. In sickness and in health. It’s a legal vow of care for families in 2050, a world beset by waves of climate-driven plagues. Power engineer Lucía Ramirez long ago lost her family to one - she’d give anything to take that vow. The Power Islands give humanity a fighting chance, but tending kelp farms and solar lilies is a lonely job.

Sixteen-year-old Aurora wishes she were anyone else. Mistreated by her adopted family and bullied at school, she believes things can’t get any worse. But when she’s kidnapped and dragged through an ancient tapestry into the magical world of Avalonia, she soon discovers that some dreams can easily turn into nightmares.

A few years from now, an inventor named Pax creates the "Univiz", a combination of augmented and virtual reality glasses that revolutionize how people communicate and interact with the world around them. The Univiz renders all other personal computing devices obsolete, and Pax goes on to become the head of Omnitech, the most powerful tech company in history.

When Noah sees an advertisement offering him a chance to rent a starship, he’s convinced it has to be a trick. Already having the worst day of his life, he’s willing to do anything for a distraction, including following a random stranger’s directions to the middle of nowhere to see a ship he doubts exists. Except there is no trick. The starship is real. And Noah’s life will never be the same.

Born to a family of elegant yet shallow Beige Witches, 17-year-old Hazel loves brightly colored cupcakes. Her Beige game is so weak, she can't even pull off a proper messy bun spell, a level one hair glamour. Hazel 's resigned to never being good enough...till she discovers she was never meant to be a Beige Witch at all. But when her magical abilities take off, not everyone in Hazel's orbit is thrilled to see the forgotten middle sister finally owning her power.

In 2108, Colony Ship Voyager departed Earth for the planet of Promissa with 18,000 of the world’s best and brightest on board. 250 years and 27 light years later, an arrival is imminent. But all is not well. The probes that they’ve sent ahead to gather the data needed to establish any kind of settlement aren’t responding, and the information they have received has presented more questions than answers. It’s a time when the entire crew should be coming together to solve the problem, but science officer Sheila Jackson can’t get people to listen.

The day that changed Melody's life was like any other over the previous two years. She'd found she had a gift for writing, and her career as an author had almost healed the pain of losing her job. When the Secret Service rang her bell, everything changed. Something was nearing Saturn…and it was slowing down. Had she been right about the object?

Making a much-anticipated return to the world of Hild, Nicola Griffith’s Menewood transports listeners back to seventh-century Britain, a land of rival kings and religions poised for epochal change. Hild is no longer the bright child who made a place in Edwin Overking’s court with her seemingly supernatural insight. She is eighteen, honed and tested, the formidable lady of Elmet, now building her personal stronghold in the valley of Menewood.

In this extraordinary new life, Astrid will forge friendships and confront ancient creatures. Through perilous trials and breathtaking adventures, she will have to decide what promises are worth keeping and which must be broken. Immerse yourself in this spellbinding retelling of the classic fairy tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon—where romance and adventure collide in an unforgettable tale of love and magic.

There was rarely a time when Phoenix Yuan-Whyller’s mother, Rain, didn’t live with her. Even when Phoenix got married, Rain, who followed her from China to Toronto, came to share Phoenix’s life. Now at the age of eighty-three, Rain’s unexpected death ushers in a heartrending separation.