Cozy/Hope-Punk: Heartwarming Tales for Dark Times

Discussing comforting books by Becky Chambers, Katherine Addison, Martha Wells and more

Needing an Escape

Can anything compare to the feeling of curling up with a good book? Escaping to The Dresden Files' Chicago and Broken Earth's distant Stillness certainly played a huge role in helping me get through the early pandemic, and countless more stories have played similar roles since.

But a lot of these books are pretty far from pleasant – a lot of speculative fiction, including Jemisin's Broken Earth, reflects on real-world issues by placing them front and center for the reader and protagonist(s) alike to confront. Another portion, including Butcher's Dresden Files, embraces the thriller/action tendency to make life as difficult as possible for their protagonists, hoping that the payoff will be that much sweeter as a result. Many do a little of both: Kaladin's 5-book mental health journey in The Stormlight Archive gives him no break from slavery, war and grief.

Sometimes, after two weeks like we've just been through, these stories can begin to feel less like escape and more like exacerbation of our tension and fear. Enter the world of cozy- and hopepunk speculative fiction, which promises that things will get better.

My Pick of the Month for February 2025, with quotes from The Goblin Emperor

Cozypunk

While I was reading up on this topic, Wikipedia directed me to the Danish/Norwegian word Hygge, which "describes a cozy, contented mood evoked by comfort and conviviality." It's quite a fitting idea, especially for 'cozypunk' stories that prioritize welcoming atmospheres, new friendships, companionship and general comfort.

Perhaps the definitive cozypunk book is Becky Chambers' A Psalm for the Wild-Built, which follows tea monk Dex on their journey of self-discovery and explores their relationship with Mosscap, a member of an intelligent robot people who diverged from humanity centuries beforehand. It is a touching story set in a hopeful world, yet doesn't shy away from Dex's very human journey through fear, questioning and self-doubt on the way to greater self-realization.

This duology was pitched as (and is labelled as) solarpunk, which explores hopeful futures focused on sustainable energy and interconnection with community and nature alike. If you're interested in a more in-depth, slightly grittier solarpunk tale consider checking out A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys – I discussed it a bit here previously!

Textless Cover of Psalm for the Wild-Built, art by Feifei Ruan

The other most prominent example of cozypunk, also by Becky Chambers, is The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. This is a beautiful tale of a found family, the crew of the starship Wayfarer, growing as characters and as a community on their moseying way toward your typical science fiction plot.

There is real plot and character conflict here, certainly more than in Psalm, but the overall atmosphere rarely strays beyond warm and comfortable. I'd highly, highly recommend either of these novels as smooth entry points into the science fiction genre!

The Crew of the Wayfarer, by Elsa Varland

Hopepunk

To my mind cozypunk feels like the most straightforwardly hopeful and positive portion of hopepunk, defined and quickly rising to popularity around 2017-18. It's no mystery as to why; speculative fiction always serves as a reflection of our societal fears and Trump's first election in 2016 sent powerful waves through humanity's psyche (I'm greatly looking forward to the SFF stories written in January-February 2025, if we survive long enough to see them published).

Hopepunk stories are about people working together to improve their environment, communities and lives; dealing with injustices where they're found and applying the brand of human decency to burn out complex corruption. These stories can be deeply cathartic in moments like today, when hope seems so distant and obscured.

There's a broad range of stories I'd classify as hopepunk, with Psalm on the coziest end and perhaps N.K. Jemisin's The City We Became on the grittiest: still about cooperation and improving the world, but faced with the real horrors of racism and alt-right trolls.

And just because the subgenre wasn't defined until 2017-18 doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of great examples from before then. I recently wrote about Ancillary Justice, the sequels to which see Breq take on a greater role in uprooting injustice and somewhat incidentally building community – more on that in a future post.

Spanish cover for The Goblin Emperor, art by Libertad Delgado

Katherine Addison's 2014 The Goblin Emperor follows the young half-goblin Maia as he ascends to the throne of an elven empire following the 'accidental' death of his estranged emperor father and his elven heirs.

Maia feels alone against the world, surrounded by potentially untrustworthy sycophants and corrupt officials; yet his innate sense of decency and morality finds its likeness in a few characters around him, and it is absolutely lovely to see him find his footing and begin setting wrongs to right.

Although The Goblin Emperor is Addison's only book so far about Maia, she has continued to write in this world and genre by following the character of Thara Celehar (fair warning, she embraces complex elven names) in The Witness for the Dead, The Grief of Stones and The Tomb of Dragons (coming out March 11, 2025!). Celehar is a lovable, quiet, queer priest able to commune with souls of the dead, and it is an absolute treat to read as he finds what small justices and decencies he can for both them and their families.

Thara Celehar, by ace-artemis-fanartist

I would be remiss not to mention Alexandra Rowland's A Conspiracy of Truths and A Choir of Lies – in part because Rowland is credited as coining the term hopepunk, but also because their novels are absolutely brilliant in their own right – I actually discussed the second book over a year ago in my post about footnotes in fiction. These are lovely tales about the power of stories to change the world around us, and can't recommend them highly enough either.

Pleasant and Healing

Ultimately, these are all stories about people making the best of bad situations, finding community and/or inner peace and trying to improve the world around them. Part of what sets these tales apart is the implied promise that their characters will succeed to some extent, where grimdark stories (hopepunk's opposite, as defined by Rowland) often relish extinguishing the flame of hope to evoke dread and nihilism.

Another series that I've seen labelled hopepunk, but which might sound a little strange at first if you're unfamiliar, is The Murderbot Diaries. I've written about this series before if you want to learn more, but suffice to say that it absolutely fits: Murderbot may be equipped for and capable of tremendous violence, but it cherishes its human companions and its beloved serials [TV shows] above all else. It prizes its self-won freedom from slavery and works to protect its companions from the predations of the Corporation Rim.

I love it to bits, and you will too – as with every other story here.

Unarmored Murderbot watching 'The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon', art by Kate Coulas

Are there any important books (or other media) that I missed? (I have yet to read Travis Baldree's Legends & Lattes series but I'm fairly confident they'd fit the bill.)

Thanks for reading and until next time <3