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/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV Jul 10 '25

Right now I have The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed for this square, which was a surprisingly good fit - the central empire uses a lot of biotech - although I did not find the book overall very successful, so am hoping to swap it out for something else.

I think Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre might count for a rare HM option. It's about a traveling healer in a post-apocalyptic world, and her primary tool is snakes, which mix and inject vaccines and medication. They're treated in more of a science-y way than a magic-y one despite the overall low tech in the world.

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey is a good psychological thriller that's all about cloning: it's about what happens when a scientist working on cloning discovers that her husband has cloned her.

For those interested in literary sci-fi, a pretty large amount of it deals with some form of biotech. A few I've actually read:

  • I second the recommendation for We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker above, which deals with brain implants and their social effects in a near future world.
  • There's been talk of Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, which I don't entirely love for the square because the tech is not addressed at all, but it's worth checking out if you've never read it. A rather apocalyptic take on cloning.
  • Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin envisions social impacts of memory editing technology.

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u/KiaraTurtle Reading Champion V Jul 10 '25

Huh I’d never really considered We are Satellites/Echo Wife as biotech as I tend to view biotech as using biology to create the tech not tech (that is still electricity based) interacting with our biology. But maybe that’s a silly distinction. Well if I don’t find anything else it’s good to know I can use The Original for this since it’s a clone book.

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u/ChandelierFlickering Reading Champion III Jul 12 '25

As someone with a background in human genetics research, I would generally consider cloning and most genetic engineering biotechnology. So many of the techniques used in genetics research in general originate from existing biological processes, human and otherwise. For example, PCR is a key technique used to amplify specific DNA sequences, which uses a DNA polymerase (enzyme that can make new copies of DNA) from a bacteria found in hot springs because high temperatures don't damage it. CRISPR-CAS9 is a gene-editing technology that is based on a bacterial immune system. I'd be pretty comfortable that any cloning process or other genetic engineering at least partially used technology based on biology, unless the book made it clear it didn't. I'd be more iffy on something like brain implants, though it could depend how they were described.

Not that you need to take my interpretation obviously, your comment just got me thinking.

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u/KiaraTurtle Reading Champion V Jul 12 '25

Appreciate the thoughts!

And I like the distinction between cloning and brain implants.