Editing the Soul: Science and Fiction in the Genome Age

Personal genome testing, gene editing for life-threatening diseases, synthetic life: once the stuff of science fiction, twentieth- and twenty-first-century advancements blur the lines between scientific narrative and scientific fact. This examination of bioengineering in popular and literary culture shows that the influence of science on science fiction is more reciprocal than we might expect.

Looking closely at the work of Margaret Atwood, Richard Powers, and other authors, as well as at fi...