>That hasn't been the case for at least a few decades. Authors don't really keep up with all the science or technology, for whatever reason As a biologist, I'l

>That hasn't been the case for at least a few decades. Authors don't really keep up with all the science or technology, for whatever reason As a biologist, I'll be a bit snipe - it's because the famous SF authors usually had a background in physics or mathematics (Greg Egan, for example, has a degree in mathematics), while the truly exciting science right now happens in biology :) Personalised medicine, CRISPR, transposon selection, GM, gene drives, ML in biology, genomics, not that much SF happening in that area because again, hard SF usually comes from physics. Think Forward's Dragon's Egg, amazing physics, bad biology (I vaguely remember triple-stranded DNA). I think solarpunk is coming from a biology-heavy background and we'll see a lot more there. Some examples of bio-SF would be Bear's Darwin's Radio, on transposons reactivating themselves leading to a new species of humans, or Burke's Semiosis, on first contact with alien intelligent plants. There's also a whole subgenre of Biopunk but I'm not the biggest fan, a lot of the content feels like 90s kneejerk reactions without being well-informed. For example, Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl features the usual 'farmers can't replant their seeds' myth with 90s-style GM-fear mongering.