Talk:Biopunk

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[edit] Contributing to the Science fiction genre section

Please do not add further examples of biopunk science fiction unless they are noted as being biopunk by a reliable source (author stated, review, article - no blogs). They will just be removed, wikipedia cannot designate something as biopunk if reliable sources haven't already done so. --Loremaster (talk) 18:43, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What is and isn't Biopunk?

  1. Do stories that contain within them a form of genetics or gene alteration count as biopunk?
  2. Or do they all have to be set in the future tense?
  3. TMNT has genetic alteration. Though it is more mainstream. Would it not be considered because it is mainstream or not in the future?
  4. Or does the Biopunk genre require an in depth analysis of some kind of genetic code?
  5. Could you have a list on the page of stories that have elements of biopunk? (That way novelists could maybe further elaborate on the genre to refine it.)
  6. I am sure that the first biopunk novel wasn't completely biopunk or was it?

I think a move like this would be a good way to help "round up" all that is biopunk. Kuzjrinx 11:22, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Good questions. Here are my answers:
  1. Not necessarily. The stories must focus on biotech *and* subversives or "low-life".
  2. No. A biopunk story can be set in the present but near-future is usually the norm.
  3. No. Whether or not a work of biopunk fiction is mainstream is irrevelant. The issue is whether or not the work "explores the struggles of individuals or groups, often the product of human experimentation, against a backdrop of totalitarian governments or megacorporations which misuse biotechnologies as means of social control or profiteering."
  4. Yes but the details of the "in-depth analysis of some kind of genetic code" can be taken for granted.
  5. Possibly but we would have to determine whether not they these elements are truly biopunk or simply focus on biotech without focusing on subversives.
  6. There are many elements of biopunk in many works that are not entirely biopunk. However, for a work to be called the "first biopunk novel" it would logically have to be completely biopunk.
--Loremaster (talk) 14:42, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Ok, so this has some elements of biopunk, but not necessarily classified as such. If perhaps they focused more on the lowlifes, and if they had a character who was say abducting the homeless and mutating them in some way, controlling them some sort of bio-processor. And he used some process that he stumbled across, or hacked from some sort of crooked pharmaceutical company, that he insists was no trouble at all. The government recruits his help to mutate all of the homeless in the country on a large scale as a form of a secret weapon. Meanwhile there are a few private investors who are benefitting greatly from this venture. All the while, similar little startups are popping up everwhere (ease of use of technology) and people are downloading mutating programs from pirate based servers. Aw shoot maybe I should start writing a book.... but do you think it would get the "Bio-punk stamp of approval"? --kuzjrinx (talk) 9:09, 13 April 2008
Yes. --Loremaster (talk) 16:05, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Just a thought on two - it should be possible to have a biopunk story set in the past although it'd need to be fantastical or alternate history. Someone could in theory push eugenics (20th Century) or vivisection (19th Century) or something else (magic? alchemy? for early stories). The Island of Doctor Moreau/Frankenstein could be updated, spun, etc., possibly with elements of body horror thrown in. I say this partly because I have written the script for a period biopunk comic (and done some world building and plotted out the larger story arc) and it works - even if I say so myself ;) . I suppose we shouldn't really worry too much about a "biopunk stamp of approval" ;) after all, Anubis Gates might be one of the early books to be called Steampunk but it isn't that steamy and the worry would be later writers try and make their books fit rather than just having fun telling a great story without carrying which genre they fall in (like the Bas-Lag books for example). (Emperor (talk) 16:44, 13 April 2008 (UTC))
I agree. :) --Loremaster (talk) 16:05, 19 May 2008 (UTC)