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Questions tagged [genetic-engineering]

For questions about the fictitious in-universe genetic engineering found in works of speculative fiction. Questions purely concerning real-world genetic engineering are off-topic.

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Science fiction novel on genetically engineered chimeric embryos in cows, with resulting escaped monsters

The novel is dystopian science fiction, published before 2013, in English. It is set in the US, Canada, etc. It starts with a Chinese (or Asian) woman researcher in a secret laboratory where ...
Fred Tibbals's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
82 views

Was Brave New World the first book that had shaping of human embryos?

I suspect that Brave New World was the first book to have humans develop in vitro, but I am asking if any prior story had the development shaped (especially, but not limited to, by stunting) before ...
releseabe's user avatar
  • 14.6k
9 votes
0 answers
98 views

Clones, hazardous environment, rebirth, human rights

A second-hand softback I read in the early 1980s - possibly written in the early to mid 1970s. Possibly the complete novel, or perhaps two or three stories in the one book, no more than that. Artwork: ...
Jiminy Cricket.'s user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
2k views

Old scifi book: detective, alien conspiracy, change appearance machine, huge brain in space ship, alien communicates by flashing lights from stomach

I am looking for an old book. People can use a machine to change appearance and genetically modify themselves. The main character is a detective or cop, he follows a suspect into the sewers and finds ...
D.s. reading's user avatar
6 votes
0 answers
69 views

Genetically altered seeds escape in Bay area; genetically altered children spontaneously suicide

Read a book in the 1980’s that warns of the dangers of genetic engineering. My memory is very vague as to details, but I seem to recall the book opening with modified grass or rice seeds that ...
Emme's user avatar
  • 61
9 votes
0 answers
119 views

People using genetic engineering to transform their offspring to live on a gaseous planet

I was hoping for some help. I remember parts of a science fiction plot point and I’m trying to locate the story. I’m not sure if it is a short story, a novel, or even an extremely short lived science ...
rg-sci-fi's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
197 views

Book series about human bioengineering with alien animal DNA [duplicate]

What i remember from the plot: Human scientists captured by alien empire, dumped on some planet with no way out alter their DNA with local animals to be on-par with alien captors regarding speed and ...
Christian's user avatar
  • 161
20 votes
1 answer
3k views

Book or story where humans are genetically engineered to act as AI?

I don't remember the title or too many specifics, but here goes: Genetic engineering is ubiquitous. The system for explaining how genetic engineering works has a fixed number of "points" ...
blueberryfields's user avatar
6 votes
0 answers
90 views

Has there been renewed interest in Cordwainer Smith's stories about chimeras?

Cordwainer Smith's stories about chimeras (see Definition 4 in this link), i.e., people who were part human and part animal seemed the farthest-out of far-out science fiction when they were first ...
ab2's user avatar
  • 5,049
9 votes
2 answers
390 views

Book about two humans who genetically engineer themselves to be able to exist in outer space

I am trying to find out the title of a book. I read the book sometime between 2004 and 2010 I believe. It was a science fiction book about genetic engineering. I know in the book they were mixing ...
Ben's user avatar
  • 99
6 votes
1 answer
182 views

Scifi book about superhuman engineered kids with progeria

This was an older sci-fi book, probably from the 80s. I read it as a child in the late 80s or early 90s. The protagonist was a fertility doctor or something similar. He found out there were these ...
Totentanz's user avatar
18 votes
2 answers
1k views

Far future SF novel with humans living in genetically engineered habitats in space

I'm looking for a novel I read in English around 1989 or 1990. I think it was written in the 80s. It was a rather thick (for the time) mass-market paperback and I think it had a picture of a guy ...
Gwyn's user avatar
  • 1,879
6 votes
2 answers
275 views

Building a house with mouth cement [duplicate]

So I have a series of vague impressions and a couple of details: Pretty sure this was a book, not a short story. I probably read it in the '90s... maybe earlier. I think the basic plot was that there ...
Vaughn Ohlman's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
170 views

90s biopunk novel about near future genetic engineering

The novel is set against the backdrop of an economic collapse in the near future US. At one point a demonstration for a bailout is used as cover for a terrorist attack. There's a character who's a ...
Dave's user avatar
  • 83
8 votes
1 answer
443 views

Book about genetic engineering to defeat disease that turns children into hermaphrodites

The initial plot was about genetic engineering being used to defeat disease, but something went awry that caused a massive social upheaval, where people in social settings would have a lapel pin or ...
Jack's user avatar
  • 83
7 votes
1 answer
551 views

Gene-modified man has a 2-week period heightened reflexes and constant wakefulness

There are just a few details I recall from a novel I read about 25 years ago. The setting is a fairly unmemorable future space-faring society. I don't recall any major character aliens, but that ...
DavidW's user avatar
  • 108k
5 votes
1 answer
215 views

Novel revolving around genetic engineering

About 20 years ago I read a book that revolved around a future where genetic engineering is so commonplace that people visit genetic engineering parlors much like they do tattoo shops IRL now. At ...
William's user avatar
  • 51
4 votes
1 answer
245 views

Sci-fi book about a genetically modified planet

I read only the beginning of this book, and it was decades ago, but I always wondered about it and wanted to read it. As I recall, the protagonist finds himself stranded on a strange world. I don't ...
ScioMind's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
168 views

YA novel: siblings from a walled city, whose DNA is spliced with animal DNA [duplicate]

I remember a scene where they fly over a wall and land in a forest. They find a huge home and realise that when the world was dying due to overpopulation, the poor were moved to the walled area while ...
sham's user avatar
  • 47
7 votes
0 answers
122 views

Series of short stories about an intelligent bear bred to fight an alien beast the size of a locomotive

I'm looking for a series of short stories about an intelligent bear (or species of such) bred to fight an alien beast the size of a locomotive. I recall only one story that featured a pack of bumbling,...
Michelle Rose's user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
334 views

What examples of genetic engineering and/or eugenics are there in Star Trek other than the Eugenics Wars?

Excluding Julian Bashir and the products of the human Eugenic Wars... do we ever encounter any species in Star Trek that have engaged in significant genetic self-modification or eugenics? Basically ...
Murphy's user avatar
  • 3,723
33 votes
0 answers
808 views

Futuristic world where reality is humanity's plaything and God is in a zoo

This is a novel I read in 2015. It was an older book. The cover was black and hardcover. Don't remember any specific details. The book was in English. I believe it was from the 1980s or ‘90s. It was ...
Neo Darwin's user avatar
  • 3,140
13 votes
1 answer
824 views

Web story about aliens who twist humans into various sub-humans

It was hosted on its own page and was written much like a documentary about the rise and fall of the human race from the perspective of an alien narrator. There were plenty of illustrations to show ...
ed fry's user avatar
  • 133
11 votes
1 answer
405 views

What's the name of that comic team with genetically engineered government agents?

The story starts with a family living in a cabin in the woods. There's a mom, a dad, and a boy, but the boy is about twenty years old or something. They're talking, I think the boy is bringing up an ...
Norman Haggett's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
215 views

Book with lasers on pyramids for electricity generation, sun flare ending the civilization, genetic engineering of pets and rebirth of civilization

An ancient civilization uses lasers mounted on pyramids to generate electricity. When a sun flare causes an uncontrollable cascade which ends their civilization, some escape to space. One group, which ...
Cee A Robison's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
409 views

Science fiction novel involving a genetically engineered servant race uplifted from non-human primates

I belive I read this while I was living in Ohio between 2002 and 2006. It was a hardback novel with a dark cover. The basic story is set somewhere a few years into the future, with society not very ...
FuzzyBoots's user avatar
  • 212k
10 votes
1 answer
702 views

Short story about the drawbacks of human telepathy on an alien planet

There will be heavy spoilers in my question. The plot is that a band of humans have been genetically engineered to be telepathic. Unfortunately, the engineered humans made the rest of humanity nervous,...
Nathan K McVaugh's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
335 views

Short story - engineered human terraforming civilized planet

Story is told from viewpoint of planet inhabitants whose planet is attacked by implacable terraforming ship. Turns out spaceship's only crew is giant engineered human whose only mission is to ...
Gail 's user avatar
  • 111
7 votes
1 answer
303 views

90s Novel About Sentient Rocks

The novel had rocks discovered on some planet that were sentient. Humans used them for cell phones. They wanted to be free and enlisted some sort of geneticist sometimes called "a bodybuilder" to ...
Scotsman's user avatar
  • 1,242
6 votes
1 answer
183 views

Late 80s or early 90s book includes genetically engineered executioner with gills

A male main character was genetically engineered, had gills in his throat, and was an executioner in a post-apocalyptic world. He was able to move long distances instantly through something called the ...
David Myers's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
257 views

Identify SciFi story where Genetic Engineering created Fantasy monster like dragons [duplicate]

Once again I am trying to find about a story I read decades ago in translation (I do not remember the title in Italian, either). The main topic was a world where genetic engineering had starter ...
p.marino's user avatar
  • 271
5 votes
2 answers
313 views

Looking for a science fiction omnibus where one of the stories had mock combat games for political purposes

I read this story over twelve years ago. It was published with a lot of other stories (by the same author IIRC). The main story that I remember had to do with some kind of war games using pilots and ...
user76853's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
725 views

In Asimov's The Naked Sun why didn't the Solarians use artificial insemination?

In Isaac Asimov's 1957 novel The Naked Sun it is a plot point that the inhabitants of the planet Solaria are raised to be repelled by physical contact, a fairly common theme in Asimov's work. It is ...
Lostinfrance's user avatar
  • 2,308
10 votes
2 answers
515 views

SF short story where animals are genetically engineered to have hands and hunt hunters with guns

I'm trying to find the title and author of a short story I read about 15 years ago. Some genius genetically modifies animals to have hands and they are given guns. Humans are invited on a hunting trip ...
Tanya's user avatar
  • 117
5 votes
1 answer
9k views

What was abnormal in Hanna's DNA?

In the movie Hanna (2011), DNA was manipulated by the CIA to create super-soldiers. In the this clip, we see at 00:55 a lab report marked "Abnormal". In the lower left-hand corner can be seen the ...
Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_'s user avatar
-9 votes
1 answer
603 views

What evidence supports the idea that Voldemort (or others) could use magic to develop witches/wizards with genetically engineered/enhanced abilities? [closed]

I am seeking additional supporting canon evidence for the idea that within the Potterverse, it would be potentially possible to use magic to genetically engineer/enhance witches/wizards to have ...
beichst's user avatar
  • 24.6k
5 votes
2 answers
693 views

Short story with Genetically Modified pegasus made to order

I had this story in an anthology collection many years ago - the basic premise was that a company - Genetics Inc. (or something along those lines, which may be the title of the tale) were able to ...
SeanR's user avatar
  • 240
9 votes
1 answer
351 views

Help Finding a Cool SciFi Story I Read As a High Schooler

I read quite a bit at my high school library when I was younger. I used to read various monthly anthologies of Science Fiction for the years I was at school. I read a cool space driven story about a ...
user66385's user avatar
15 votes
1 answer
808 views

Distant aliens receive signal with instructions on how to construct humans, long after Earth is extinct

I'm looking for a specific scifi book that I read years ago, I only partially remember the story, and I don't remember the author or the title. What I remember of the story is: An alien race picks ...
Brill Pappin's user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
755 views

Scifi book about small genetically engineered humans

The story was about the human beings becoming too "static" in evolutionary terms. A scientist engineers much smaller human beings, that in their infancy are "about an inch high" (IIRC). This is, he ...
ChatterOne's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
520 views

Why did the Daleks use pigs to make pig-slaves?

In "Daleks in Manhattan" and "Evolution of the Daleks", Daleks from the Cult of Skaro use a genetic laboratory in 1930 Manhattan to turn residents of the slum of Hooverville into pig-slaves, which ...
HDE 226868's user avatar
  • 1,944
2 votes
0 answers
199 views

Book where everyone but one man had genetic modification

I remember, at some point, reading a book that I believe was a part of a short series. It was about a time when nearly everyone had some level of genetic modification, and one man for some reason or ...
Joshua Naterman's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
380 views

Book about a boy (man?) who was genetically modified by his father

I believe this book was published in the 1970s or 1980s. What I remember is that it was about a boy whose DNA was modified (using insect DNA?) before birth by his father, who was a genetic researcher. ...
Kzintar's user avatar
  • 51
6 votes
1 answer
383 views

Natural-born woman gets revenge on gene-enhanced people

I lost track of this short story, probably from the mid-to-late 1980's or early 1990's. The main character is an old "normal" woman, a scientist, who's always had to compete with genetically-enhanced ...
Joe L.'s user avatar
  • 27.9k
4 votes
0 answers
202 views

Book title of a girl with hidden powers when genetic engineering is a staple

Sorry but I only remember two main events that got stuck in my head. 1- Someone tries to rape her and she manages to get away but she doesn't know how she did it. (Some capability she wasn't aware of) ...
Yuta73's user avatar
  • 315
6 votes
1 answer
1k views

1980s movie involving a genetically engineered human multiple ribs

I used to work in a video store back in 1988 and remember a VHS (a magical old format) of a movie that was pretty cool from my perspective. It had a genetically engineered human that was fully grown ...
Scanton's user avatar
  • 161
9 votes
1 answer
663 views

Do the Jem'hadar contain a tinge of compassion, empathy, and fairness which goes against their genetic encoding?

DS9: "By Inferno's Light": [Internment centre] (Ikat'ika stops Worf as he crawls to a post.) IKAT'IKA: Enough, Klingon. You have proven your worth. MARTOK: Worf, you heard him. ...
JMFB's user avatar
  • 14.9k
15 votes
1 answer
2k views

Humans genetically altered to live underwater after crashing on a planet

Trying to find a book where humans were genetically altered to live in water after a crash landing on a planet. Generations later, they have forgotten they are human. I think the main character is ...
ercie's user avatar
  • 151
3 votes
0 answers
129 views

Genetic engineering of a enhanced new human to help deal with Earth problems (environment etc.)

The story is partly from the point of view of one child not as smart as his enhanced peers. They are only built to last till their teens then they die. The slow child is helped to survive by one of ...
Loutet's user avatar
  • 31
5 votes
4 answers
882 views

book identification scifi/fantasy with talking human intelligence cat

id needed for a Sci-fi/Fantasy novel....mid to late 1980's. The only thing I can remember was the book was set in the future. There was a guy (main character) who was on a quest. He had several ...
sheila's user avatar
  • 125