Great review, Claudia. 'Biopunk' is a place on my bookshelves I should fill more. I'm intrigued by the Thai setting and the intricate characters.
Seeds, like pollinators, sit too low on our radar. Corporate controlled sterile monocultures do the world no favours. People need to understand the difference between GM and GE. I hope the Arctic seed banks will still be accessible and viable when we become desperate for them.
And thank you for hatching my Space Cuckoo from an appreciative nest. 🤗
Thanks Jonathan and you're welcome. I enjoyed your short story very much and wanted to spread the word.
I only learned about biopunk after I read The Windup Girl. And it makes sense. I have one biopunk novel that I developed during my screenwriting studies because I believe that bioengineering especially in humans will be huge. I'm still surprised that there's so little fiction about it.
Bio, particularly neuro-engineering, play a part in my (still unpublished) novels. You have to be careful how far you take it. It takes a good author to retain enough humanity in their creations for readers to remain emotionally engaged. Spiders and murderbots and troubled dogs, oh my! 😊
If you're looking for unusual sci-fi settings, I would also recommend The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard. Probably not biopunk but it has interstellar pirates & (in my opinion) quite convincingly sentient starships.
Great write-up, Claudia. I'm intrigued by the book and will certainly consider reading it. Sounds like it aligns well with your own writing interests, too. I like this term, "otherness".
Thank you for the shoutout, that's very kind hug.🤗
Also, maybe typo at the start? 2023 and 2024, not 2013/2014 ;) Or maybe the reading list does go back that far!
Aww can’t thank you enough for your endorsement and appreciation of the “Maya” story. It made my month!!!! Lots of Firsts - first venture into this serialized fiction, first sci-fi, etc. Hasn’t blown up the world but I’m loving the journey. Plus meeting wonderful people like you is a big part of it.
The Windup Girl was pretty good. The spring-based tech is ridiculous, of course, but well within the bounds of steampunk SF. There's always a "gimme" to make the story work. Warp drive, transporters, energy weapons, whatever. So, yeah, not the point of the tale.
I honestly never take the 'science' in science fiction seriously. A couple of years ago I watched the first Star Trek series with Captain Kirk from the '60s. The technology made me laugh at times.
Beyond that, the 'The Windup Girl' as a novel just did it for me. I fell in love with it.
I do have a special preference for “diamond-hard” SF that tries to get the science as accurate as possible, except for whatever “gimme” makes it SF. A lot of the older SF was pretty hard — I got some of my earliest science education from some of them. It seems less common now, although writers like Greg Egan, David Brin, Cory Doctorw, or Liu Cixin write pretty hard SF.
I watched Star Trek when it first aired (I was already an SF fan), and certain aspects of it were laughable even back then. But the stories! Ah, the stories. Very unusual for that era on many counts.
Yes, despite some of the outdated technology, Star Trek was as futuristic as it gets even in its first seasons. I started watching Star Trek when I was 9 years old but in its Enterprise era. I'm still a Star Trek fan after all these years.
Talking about hard sci-fi, I remember reading 'Neuromancer' and I'm not sure if you would consider this novel 'diamond hard' sci-fi but he completely lost me whenever the character entered the cyberspace 😅!
I'll have to add the writers you mentioned on my list because I haven't read any of them. 😳
I’ve been reading SF for 60 years! Covered a lot of ground. I plan to write some posts about interesting and/or favorite authors over the years. The ones I mentioned are particular favorites.
I read Neuromancer many years ago and found the writing style made things too opaque. I reread it last year and got a lot more out of it. It’s pretty hard SF, but maybe not diamond-hard. I think Gibson focuses more on character, story, and style, than on tech details. Gibson isn’t always the easiest read. He assumes readers have a certain background and doesn’t explain much. More accessible maybe is Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash.
I enjoyed Enterprise. And TNG. I’m not really onboard with the J.J. Abrams version of Star Trek and haven’t seen much to commend the new TV shows (Below Decks is kinda cute). I’m still a fan, as such, but I kinda got off the bus around the 50-year mark. 50 years of Star Trek. Time to move on.
50 years of Start Trek, amazing! The idea alone that a fiction franchise can keep people enthusiastic or interested for half a century is mind-blowing.
I'm adding 'Snow Crash' to next year's reading list. Thanks 👍!
Agree on Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash! Great read.
Glad I'm not the only one who doesn't celebrate Gibson. I felt like Neuromancer was trying a little hard to sound cool & edgy with little actual impact. Definitely prefer Stephenson as a whole although I haven't read anything else by Gibson.
Would love to read those posts about SF authors over the years! I only got into the genre a few years ago so there's probably a lot of interesting detail I'm not aware of.
I’ve liked everything Stephenson has written, although some more than others. It’s not so much I don’t celebrate Gibson — he and Bruce Sterling are co-founders of cyberpunk — but they do assume a certain background in readers.
There is a strong style to their writing that can be challenging, even off-putting. I think it’s because they were experimenting. It took experience to find what worked, so later stuff has a better feel.
I don’t know when I’ll get to writing posts here about SF authors. I do plan to, though. I’ve written about SF books a lot on my other blog. If you’re curious, you can check out:
Love this new format for Story Voyager! Even the way you structured this post is really refreshing & easy to read. I'm trying to change up some things about my newsletter too so this is inspiring to see.
And I always appreciate more books & stories for my (always growing) TBR.
That's the plan, fiction and book reviews for the foreseeable future. Good to know that there's an interest for book reviews, I wasn't sure if I should go down this path.
I actually decided to give up non-fiction in favour of fiction on Story Voyager. I want to focus. But I will still send some non-fiction from time to time.
Do you feel like non-fiction bring more growth? I feel like my growth came mainly from fiction.
I haven't read anything by Bacigalupi. I read David Brin's Piecework (Biopunk if you will) back in the 90s, though and it haunts me ever since.
Looked up the book, it sounds absolutely wild. No wonder it still haunts you. Adding it to my list.
It's very short but packs a punch.
Like Fahrenheit 451?
well, it's a short story, Fahrenheit is a novel.
If you want you can pick up The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories. Actually, anything ed. by Tom Shippey, gets my recommendation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oxford_Book_of_Science_Fiction_Stories
It's a short story? On Goodreads it looks like it's a novel! 🤣
I'll check out Tom Shippey, thanks!
David Brin! That’s a name from the past. Read The Postman back in the late 80’s. That was a good book 👍🏼
I'm adding it to my list! Thanks, Daniel!
Yeah and then Kevin had to ruin it in 1997! 😅
Yeah, that was a bad movie 🙄😁
Not heard of this! Also looking it up!
the Tom Shippey Anthology of SF Short Stories (linked above) is a must-have for an SF fan. ;)
Great review, Claudia. 'Biopunk' is a place on my bookshelves I should fill more. I'm intrigued by the Thai setting and the intricate characters.
Seeds, like pollinators, sit too low on our radar. Corporate controlled sterile monocultures do the world no favours. People need to understand the difference between GM and GE. I hope the Arctic seed banks will still be accessible and viable when we become desperate for them.
And thank you for hatching my Space Cuckoo from an appreciative nest. 🤗
Thanks Jonathan and you're welcome. I enjoyed your short story very much and wanted to spread the word.
I only learned about biopunk after I read The Windup Girl. And it makes sense. I have one biopunk novel that I developed during my screenwriting studies because I believe that bioengineering especially in humans will be huge. I'm still surprised that there's so little fiction about it.
Bio, particularly neuro-engineering, play a part in my (still unpublished) novels. You have to be careful how far you take it. It takes a good author to retain enough humanity in their creations for readers to remain emotionally engaged. Spiders and murderbots and troubled dogs, oh my! 😊
If you're looking for unusual sci-fi settings, I would also recommend The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard. Probably not biopunk but it has interstellar pirates & (in my opinion) quite convincingly sentient starships.
Great write-up, Claudia. I'm intrigued by the book and will certainly consider reading it. Sounds like it aligns well with your own writing interests, too. I like this term, "otherness".
Thank you for the shoutout, that's very kind hug.🤗
Also, maybe typo at the start? 2023 and 2024, not 2013/2014 ;) Or maybe the reading list does go back that far!
😅 2013, looks like I was on Substack long before the platform even existed!
Aww can’t thank you enough for your endorsement and appreciation of the “Maya” story. It made my month!!!! Lots of Firsts - first venture into this serialized fiction, first sci-fi, etc. Hasn’t blown up the world but I’m loving the journey. Plus meeting wonderful people like you is a big part of it.
You're welcome, Renee, good writing and storytelling need to be celebrated 🌟!
And likewise, I'm happy that we connected here and looking forward to reading more of your fiction.
The Windup Girl was pretty good. The spring-based tech is ridiculous, of course, but well within the bounds of steampunk SF. There's always a "gimme" to make the story work. Warp drive, transporters, energy weapons, whatever. So, yeah, not the point of the tale.
I honestly never take the 'science' in science fiction seriously. A couple of years ago I watched the first Star Trek series with Captain Kirk from the '60s. The technology made me laugh at times.
Beyond that, the 'The Windup Girl' as a novel just did it for me. I fell in love with it.
I do have a special preference for “diamond-hard” SF that tries to get the science as accurate as possible, except for whatever “gimme” makes it SF. A lot of the older SF was pretty hard — I got some of my earliest science education from some of them. It seems less common now, although writers like Greg Egan, David Brin, Cory Doctorw, or Liu Cixin write pretty hard SF.
I watched Star Trek when it first aired (I was already an SF fan), and certain aspects of it were laughable even back then. But the stories! Ah, the stories. Very unusual for that era on many counts.
Yes, despite some of the outdated technology, Star Trek was as futuristic as it gets even in its first seasons. I started watching Star Trek when I was 9 years old but in its Enterprise era. I'm still a Star Trek fan after all these years.
Talking about hard sci-fi, I remember reading 'Neuromancer' and I'm not sure if you would consider this novel 'diamond hard' sci-fi but he completely lost me whenever the character entered the cyberspace 😅!
I'll have to add the writers you mentioned on my list because I haven't read any of them. 😳
I’ve been reading SF for 60 years! Covered a lot of ground. I plan to write some posts about interesting and/or favorite authors over the years. The ones I mentioned are particular favorites.
I read Neuromancer many years ago and found the writing style made things too opaque. I reread it last year and got a lot more out of it. It’s pretty hard SF, but maybe not diamond-hard. I think Gibson focuses more on character, story, and style, than on tech details. Gibson isn’t always the easiest read. He assumes readers have a certain background and doesn’t explain much. More accessible maybe is Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash.
I enjoyed Enterprise. And TNG. I’m not really onboard with the J.J. Abrams version of Star Trek and haven’t seen much to commend the new TV shows (Below Decks is kinda cute). I’m still a fan, as such, but I kinda got off the bus around the 50-year mark. 50 years of Star Trek. Time to move on.
50 years of Start Trek, amazing! The idea alone that a fiction franchise can keep people enthusiastic or interested for half a century is mind-blowing.
I'm adding 'Snow Crash' to next year's reading list. Thanks 👍!
Agree on Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash! Great read.
Glad I'm not the only one who doesn't celebrate Gibson. I felt like Neuromancer was trying a little hard to sound cool & edgy with little actual impact. Definitely prefer Stephenson as a whole although I haven't read anything else by Gibson.
Would love to read those posts about SF authors over the years! I only got into the genre a few years ago so there's probably a lot of interesting detail I'm not aware of.
I’ve liked everything Stephenson has written, although some more than others. It’s not so much I don’t celebrate Gibson — he and Bruce Sterling are co-founders of cyberpunk — but they do assume a certain background in readers.
There is a strong style to their writing that can be challenging, even off-putting. I think it’s because they were experimenting. It took experience to find what worked, so later stuff has a better feel.
I don’t know when I’ll get to writing posts here about SF authors. I do plan to, though. I’ve written about SF books a lot on my other blog. If you’re curious, you can check out:
https://logosconcarne.com/tag/sf-books/
Love this new format for Story Voyager! Even the way you structured this post is really refreshing & easy to read. I'm trying to change up some things about my newsletter too so this is inspiring to see.
And I always appreciate more books & stories for my (always growing) TBR.
Thanks for reading, Keyon! My first book review 🤩.
I think the novel is something else, the writing style, the setup, the themes, it's fresh and unsettling and exciting and brutal. All at once.
That's the plan, fiction and book reviews for the foreseeable future. Good to know that there's an interest for book reviews, I wasn't sure if I should go down this path.
I actually decided to give up non-fiction in favour of fiction on Story Voyager. I want to focus. But I will still send some non-fiction from time to time.
Do you feel like non-fiction bring more growth? I feel like my growth came mainly from fiction.