Bio-punk refers to a genre of science fiction with plots and settings that focus on conceptual biotechnology. The genre often includes human, plant or animal genetic engineering, cloning, corporate warfare, human biological enhancements, and viral outbreaks. If you enjoy the thought of manipulating nature and engineered lifeforms, you'll love Biopunk. Below are a few amazing examples within the genre.
It's the dawn of the 22nd century, and the world has fallen apart. Decades of war and resource depletion have toppled governments. The ecosystem has collapsed. A new dust bowl sweeps the American West. The United States has become a nation of migrants -starving masses of nomads who seek out a living in desert wastelands and encampments outside government seed-distribution warehouses.
Physically modified convicts are used in the Pacific for the exploitation of ocean-floor resources without diving equipment. But in the process they have become carriers of a microorganism that could wipe out humanity if they return to the surface.
What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits? And what happens when this forces humanity to the cusp of post-human evolution? This is a tale of Bangkok struggling for survival in a post-oil era of rising sea levels and out-of-control mutation.
As the story opens, the narrator, who calls himself Snowman, is sleeping in a tree, wearing a dirty old bedsheet, mourning the loss of his beautiful and beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake. In a world in which science-based corporations have recently taken mankind on an uncontrolled genetic-engineering ride, he now searches for supplies in a wasteland.
Experimenting with biochips, Vergil Ulam creates instead a microscopic intelligence that mutates. Vergil injects himself with the disease culture to smuggle it out of the country. That is how the end of the world begins.
Are there any Biopunk stories that you really enjoy? Let us know below.
