You are my sunshine is an anthology set in a completely recognisable world of ecological and environmental collapse, brought about by corporate greed and general apathy. But as brutal as the descriptions are, it is a hopeful collection, even if that hope springs from pragmatic necessity. Many of the stories take place during the wilding of cities, overground and underground, using the ‘coral’ of their broken infrastructure to create reefs of life. “The reef was a metaphor, when the future came, it was the only metaphor that mattered.”

María Pía Lara writes of using old stories in new ways, to shock readers out of their hopeless numbness caused by atrocities – to enable action to resist. Octavia Cade is using stories the same way regarding anthropogenic environmental disasters. For example, the trope of human sacrifice to appease and balance: “We feed the bears of fire and ice, we feed them lies, we feed them twice.” And a retelling of Kafka’s Metamorphosis: “I wonder at the selfishness that made us think houses should be homes for nothing but people.”

The rhythm through all the stories is that of shame and then action, “Look at what we woke. Look at what we woke in us.” The items uncovered by melting ice, the horrors witnessed by those researching ecosystems. Readers of Cade’s previous works will recognise those who succumb to the Grief, and those who form underground activist networks to protect shameful truths. In this anthology there is a re-envisioning of relationships – there are those who sacrifice themselves, or parts of themselves, for other species, rather than have their sanity turn “to salt water and suicide”.

“When fish stocks collapsed the sea birds went with them” – in the stories the ghosts of the lost remain, haunting people to despair or to action – either on Earth or elsewhere. One story highlights the impossibility of the latter, humans are Earthlings, with deep connections to the land and ecosystems, on a sterile planet, “the sheer towering emptiness of the place was something to shrink from, not fill up”. However, there is also a story, my favourite I think, about ‘bioforming’ planets. Again, it is a story of individual sacrifice, and of coming to terms with your opportunities, “… her lips and the corners of her eyes, tickling under tears” … “it’s been marvellous”.

There are also tales of heartbreaking sacrifice, but even then there is the solace of continuity, a woman grieves for her child, and the grief is not less when others benefit, but the mother knows her daughter “had been able to make her own contribution”. Throughout the stories is the yearning for connection. AI is mentioned, the caring programme who “lacks imagination, fails to appreciate quirk”, and is stuck dumb with the realisation of its own isolation. And the bereaved: “I find myself explaining pollen to the goose” – later walking forwards then backwards on a mudflat to look at the footprints and imagine there are two people walking. Grief arising from the spread of disease vectors and illness, and the loss of loved ones, “You are missed”.

And there is connection not only to other individuals but to the environment. The granting of legal personhood to rivers was a different move entirely from its precedent: personhood given to corporations. “The rivers aren’t a ducking stool, but they’ll do for all that. There are always people in need of drowning”. It is a book about growth and change: “Littoral environments are not what they were. Then again, none of us are.”

Although You are my sunshine is about catastrophic collapse, it also a comforting read, “boundaries are based on accidents of biology, based on shades and degradations of greed”, boundaries can be re-drawn or erased. Two children are growing up in a wilded city: “There were kākāriki in the woodland that had been the town square, and a woman gave them pieces of honeycomb from the library hives.” I loved reading You are my sunshine.