For those of us tiring of steampunk and utterly burnt-out on cyberpunk, there is a new punk in the science-fantasy section: Biopunk. Growing Dread (C. Dombrowski, editor) is a dark anthology of tales in which our hubris invariably gets the better of humanity. We come to our complicated – and often messy – end knowing that we brought this catastrophe upon ourselves. But all is not lost; in our pride, we always weave a little of ourselves into whatever future remains of life on Earth. Our genetically engineered creations may surprise and conquer us, but in a way that reflects our nature more than anything else. Humanity proves indelible, particularly in the consequences for our failures.

Muffin Everlasting by Minerva Zimmerman is more charming than first impressions predict. The main character has an ego the size of a hot air balloon, but the writer follows through on that by letting him make the kind of jumbo-sized mistakes that people with jumbo-sized egos tend to make. This story’s sense of humor levitates the reader over the lumps of disbelief brought up by a few logical flaws, and as implied apocalypses go, we could do much worse than a plague of pocket-sized unicorns.

Boosting the Signal by Lillian Cohen-Moore made me sad in an insubstantial way. It had more of a cyberpunk theme than I expected to find in this anthology, and more backstory than plot. It’s an interesting sort of character story with a lot of potential; an expanded version of this would probably make a very good read.

God Bloom by Angel Leigh McCoy made me give a damn about the main character. His situation was complicated to begin with, but he bore it with such dignity that his change of fortune at the end was almost painfully bittersweet. I was thrown out of my suspension of disbelief by a few problematic details at first, but by the end it didn’t matter. I reread it immediately, just savor the main character’s experiences.

Unchained Melody by Jeremy Zimmerman is an uncomfortable read for survivors of sexual abuse. It’s a character study; a bit light on plot, but still gratifying in the end. In spite of the personal discomfort I experienced reading it, I think I would enjoy an expanded version of this story. I reached the end with high hopes for the main character, and it might be interesting to see what she made of herself in the aftermath of her own survival.

Kundalini Rising by Michael Hacker is another story that seems heavier on the cyberpunk than on the biopunk. The characters were in turns too naïve, too arrogant or too ignorant, and it had a frustrating dream-within-a-dream quality that made becoming immersed in the narrative a challenge. Given all of that, I did not expect Kundalini Rising to end as well as it did; ultimately, I found myself liking it in spite of myself.

Necrosis by Berit Ellingsen starts slowly and then drags through too much exposition before arriving at any significant action. The science that the writer chose for inspiration is interesting, but it doesn’t really pay off in the story, which was disappointing after all the build-up it was given. The main character – a standard-issue government operative stereotype – is essentially a narrative device. We follow him through the world and the plot, but he doesn’t really matter. One could chalk all of that up to the use of convenient genre tropes, but I think the surprise vampire at the end was taking the tropes a bit too far.

Neurolution by R.S. Hunter is a bit procedural, but still satisfying. The ending was obvious from the beginning, but that didn’t detract much; the outcome isn’t really the point of this story. It’s about basic human desperation to avoid oblivion, and about ultimately settling for the same solutions we always must: Record-keeping and reproduction.

Green, Green World by Michaela Hutfles is an evocative and brief poetic dystopia. It’s a little heavy-handed with the message, but it compensates for that by being a rather good use of format. I read it a couple times to explore its little nuances, and the next time a green mood strikes me, I’ll read it again.

Aesthetic Engine by Mae Empson is a new play on several old myths. This story is also an effective application of the biopunk theme with flavors of alternate history and Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Still, with any other ending, this story would have been unfulfilling – it ended as it had to, which was satisfying in its way, if not precisely happy.

How to Hack Your Dragon by Christine Danse is completely innocuous. The title put me off, and there are plenty of things wrong with the science – this would probably be a more solid story rewritten as straight fantasy. But even though the characters are a bit flimsy, the youthful, airy tone is pleasant enough for that to be a feature rather than a bug. Read this story in the mood for a flight of fancy. 

Doctor Circe and the Separatist Man-Cheetahs by Erik Scott de Bie is the anthology’s pulp piece, but it turned out slightly cleverer than I anticipated given the title. It has more character growth than expected – I expected none, but there actually was a little. The female ‘villain’ wasn’t a run of the mill evil scientist or a simple-minded sexpot, for a fun change of pace. And the ‘hero’ was actually vile, and managed to improve himself a little over the course of the story. There were a few distracting problems in the science, but the punchy ending redeemed much of what I didn’t love about the rest.

I had a good idea of what I was getting into when I selected this anthology for review. I expected the authors to play fast and loose with the science – which they did – and I expected to enjoy reading it, anyway – which I did. Actually, I was surprised by how much research obviously went into the conception of many of these stories. However the authors tinkered with reality and logic, they sought inspiration in some fairly sophisticated places. Growing Dread is science-fantasy because the stories within take magical liberties with real science, but that shouldn’t count against the anthology. There is wit and novelty in these pages and a few interesting glances at the self-harm that seems to captivate us.

Try it; you might like it. Or at least find it growing on you.