The Blossoming of the Big Tree

Adita is struggling to fit in because her village has a very tight sense of community, and she is a seventy year old woman who is anxious around people. So to avoid coming off as anti-social, she accepts to chair the committee for national defense for it is easier for her to interact with other people over work. The job is simple as she only has to coordinate responses to the climate crisis, but then, a superpower attacks. The invader wants to steal the technology that makes her nation a solarpunk utopia. This country is a loose union of hundreds of thousands of self-sufficient villages, and they have no army, no weapons, so how will Adita coordinate their defense? Will the invasion lead to a disintegration of their utopia, or will Adita's people find a way to defeat the colonizer?

Dilman Dila is a writer and filmmaker. His books include Where Rivers Go To Die, which was shortlisted for the Philip K Dick Awards (2024), and The Future God of Love. He was shortlisted for the BSFA Awards (2021), the Nommo Awards for Best Novella (2021), and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (2013), among many accolades. His short fiction appeared in The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Six, and in The Best of World SF V.2, among many anthologies. His first novel, Dreams of a Yellow Balloon, is coming in 2028. His films have won multiple awards. For more of his life and works, visit www.dilmandila