Michael Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author known for his novels and short fiction and editorship of the Mirrorshades anthology. In particular, he is linked to the cyberpunk subgenre.
Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyberware, juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay. Much of cyberpunk is rooted in the New Wave science fiction movement of the 1960s and 1970s, when writers like Philip K. Dick, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, John Brunner, J. G. Ballard, Philip José Farmer and Harlan Ellison examined the impact of drug culture, technology, and the sexual revolution while avoiding the utopian tendencies of earlier science fiction.
A campaign setting is usually a fictional world which serves as a setting for a role-playing game or wargame campaign. A campaign is a series of individual adventures, and a campaign setting is the world in which such adventures and campaigns take place. Usually a campaign setting is designed for a specific game or a specific genre of game. There are numerous campaign settings available both in print and online. In addition to published campaign settings available for purchase, many game masters create their own settings, often referred to as "homebrew" settings or worlds.
Synthetic biology (SynBio) is a multidisciplinary field of science that focuses on living systems and organisms, and it applies engineering principles to develop new biological parts, devices, and systems or to redesign existing systems found in nature.
Since the advent of the cyberpunk genre, a number of cyberpunk derivatives have become recognized in their own right as distinct subgenres in speculative fiction, especially in science fiction. Rather than necessarily sharing the digitally and mechanically focused setting of cyberpunk, these derivatives can display other futuristic, or even retrofuturistic, qualities that are drawn from or analogous to cyberpunk: a world built on one particular technology that is extrapolated to a highly sophisticated level, a gritty transreal urban style, or a particular approach to social themes.
Many of the tropes of science fiction can be viewed as similar to the goals of transhumanism. Science fiction literature contains many positive depictions of technologically enhanced human life, occasionally set in utopian societies. However, science fiction's depictions of technologically enhanced humans or other posthuman beings frequently come with a cautionary twist. The more pessimistic scenarios include many dystopian tales of human bioengineering gone wrong.
Mundane science fiction (MSF) is a niche literary movement within science fiction that developed in the early 2000s, with principles codified by the "Mundane Manifesto" in 2004, signed by author Geoff Ryman and "The Clarion West 2004 Class". The movement proposes "mundane science fiction" as its own subgenre of science fiction, typically characterized by its setting on Earth or within the Solar System; a lack of interstellar travel, intergalactic travel or human contact with extraterrestrials; and a believable use of technology and science as it exists at the time the story is written or a plausible extension of existing technology. There is debate over the boundaries of MSF and over which works can be considered canonical. Rudy Rucker has noted MSF's similarities to hard science fiction and Ritch Calvin has pointed out MSF's similarities to cyberpunk. Some commentators have identified science fiction films and television series which embody the MSF ethos of near-future realism.
Body hacking is the application of the hacker ethic in pursuit of enhancement or change to the body's functions through technological means, such as do-it-yourself cybernetic devices or by introducing biochemicals.
DIYbio is an informal umbrella organization for individuals and local groups active in do-it-yourself biology, encompassing both a website and an email list. It serves as a network of individuals from around the globe that aims to help make biology a worthwhile pursuit for citizen scientists, biohackers, amateur biologists, and do-it-yourself biological engineers who value openness and safety. It was founded by Jason Bobe and Mackenzie Cowell in 2008.
Prehistoric fiction is a literary genre in which the story is set in the period of time prior to the existence of written record, known as prehistory. As a fictional genre, the realistic description of the subject varies, without necessarily a commitment to develop an objective anthropological account. Because of this, it is possible that the author of prehistoric fiction deals with their subject with much more freedom than the author of a historical fiction, and the genre also has connections with speculative fiction. In many narratives, humans and dinosaurs live together, despite the extinction of the dinosaurs and the evolution of humans being separated by millions of years. The paleontologist Björn Kurtén coined the term "paleofiction" to define his works.
Nanopunk refers to an emerging subgenre of science fiction that is still very much in its infancy in comparison to its ancestor-genre, cyberpunk, and some of its other derivatives.
Soft science fiction, or soft SF, is a category of science fiction with two different definitions, defined in contrast to hard science fiction. It can refer to science fiction that explores the "soft" sciences, as opposed to hard science fiction, which explores the "hard" sciences. It can also refer to science fiction which prioritizes human emotions over the scientific accuracy or plausibility of hard science fiction.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to science fiction:
Genspace is a non-profit organization and a community biology laboratory located in Brooklyn, New York. Stemming from the hacking, biohacking, and DIYbio movements, Genspace has focused on supporting citizen science and public access to biotechnology. Genspace opened the first community biology lab in 2010 and a Biosafety Level One laboratory in December of that year. Since its opening, Genspace has supported projects, events, courses, art, and general community resources concerning biology, biotechnology, synthetic biology, genetic engineering, citizen science, open source software, open source hardware, and more.
Abyss & Apex Magazine (A&A) is a long-running, semi-pro online speculative fiction magazine. The title of the zine comes from a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), "And if you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." The stories and poetry therefore follow the pattern of "how would humans react?" if a new technology or a type of magic or supernatural power affected them.
A list of the published work of Paul Di Filippo, American author.
Biology appears in fiction, especially but not only in science fiction, both in the shape of real aspects of the science, used as themes or plot devices, and in the form of fictional elements, whether fictional extensions or applications of biological theory, or through the invention of fictional organisms. Major aspects of biology found in fiction include evolution, disease, genetics, physiology, parasitism and symbiosis (mutualism), ethology, and ecology.
Solarpunk is a literary and artistic movement that envisions and works toward actualizing a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community. The "solar" represents solar energy as a renewable energy source and an optimistic vision of the future that rejects climate doomerism, while the "punk" refers to do it yourself and the countercultural, post-capitalist, and decolonial aspects of creating such a future.
