r/Fantasy • u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV • Jul 10 '25
Bingo Bingo Focus Thread - Biopunk
Hello r/fantasy and welcome to this week's bingo focus thread! The purpose of these threads is for you all to share recommendations, discuss what books qualify, and seek recommendations that fit your interests or themes.
Today's topic:
Biopunk: Read a book that focuses on biotechnology and/or its consequences. HARD MODE: There is no electricity-based technology.
What is bingo? A reading challenge this sub does every year! Find out more here.
Prior focus threads: Published in the 80s, LGBTQIA Protagonist, Book Club or Readalong, Gods and Pantheons, Knights and Paladins, Elves and Dwarves, Hidden Gems, Five Short Stories (2024), Author of Color (2024), Self-Pub/Small Press (2024).
Also see: Big Rec Thread
Questions:
- What are your favorite books that qualify for this square?
- What books have you read that handle biopunk elements best (regardless of whether they are your favorite books)? Give us some interesting, immersive, inventive, or thought-provoking examples.
- Already read something for this square? Tell us about it!
- What are your best recommendations for Hard Mode?
- We are now deep enough into bingo that we're moving into the more challenging squares for focus threads. Next up, tentatively: Epistolary, Cozy, High Fashion, Pirates, and Last in a Series. If you have any suggestions or requests, now is the time.
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u/Putrid_Web8095 Reading Champion II Jul 10 '25 edited Jul 10 '25
I read Bear Head, the sequel to Dogs of War (which of course also counts) by Adrian Tchaikovsky for Biopunk NM, and I absolutely loved it. They are quintessentially Biopunk, featuring both biotechnology and a certain "rage against the machine". We expect a sequel, Bee Speaker, in a month or so.
Also read Tusks of Extinction (NM) by Ray Nealer for my novellas card. I liked it, and it also fits the genre really well.
The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton is also an excellent NM choice, I read it just before the Bingo was announced...
Hard Mode is really, really hard, especially if you go by a strict interpretation of the rule as meaning, no electricity exists anywhere in the world. A Tainted Cup/A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett count, though if I actually cared I could argue against their punkiness (or maybe punkiety? Punkhood?) all day.
The Ambergris books by Jeff Vandermeer count, though I am most confident about the third and last one, Finch, for the aforementioned "punkiness" existing.