Gene Mapper

by Taiyo Fujii, Jim Hubbert (Translator)

In a future where reality has been augmented and biology itself has been hacked, the world’s food supply is genetically modified, superior, and vulnerable. When gene mapper Hayashida discovers that his custom rice plant has experienced a dysgenic collapse, he suspects sabotage. Hayashida travels across Asia to find himself in Ho Chi Minh City with hired-gun hacker Yagodo at his side—and in mortal danger—as he pushes ever nearer to the heart of the mystery.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Japan, Japanese Literature, Cyberpunk, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 24, 2013

About the author

Taiyo Fujii (藤井太洋 Fujii Taiyō?) (born 1971 in Amami Ōshima) is a Japanese science fiction writer.

Awards
2015: Nihon SF Taisho for Orbital Cloud
2015: Seiun Award Japanese Long Form for Orbital Cloud

Works
English translations, long form[edit]
Gene Mapper (2015), translation of Gene Mapper —full build— (2013)

English translations, short form
"Violation of the TrueNet Security Act" (2015), translation of "Koraborēshon" (コラボレーション?) (2012)
"A Fair War" (2016), translation of "Kōseiteki sentō kihan" (公正的戦闘規範?) (2015)

Reviews

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Really I would have given this a 4 except the writing towards the end seemed both confusing and the final scene with the 'bad guys' was a bit slap stick. Maybe it was the translation?

I enjoyed the story and found the science interesting. although I know nothing about coding or augmented reality platforms I could follow the ideas fairly well. I would read this author again.

[Victor Tatarskii · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Japanese hard bio-Sci-Fi (although with somewhat weak dialogs and characters).
In 2030s, after blight eradicated all cultivated rice in Asia, triggering world famine, agriculture depends solely on GM crops. But people are still suspicious of new technology, and when a new strain of bestselling rice starts to show unexpected behavior a team of biologists must race against the clock before it becomes a media catastrophe.
I never encountered Japanese science fiction before and "Gene Mapper" is a very pleasant surprise. First of all it's perfectly researched - technologies of Taiyo's world in 2030s are very possible to exist by then (or already exist in some form now) - it's more of a speculative fiction than traditional sci-fi. The book maintains the tension and pace almost to the very end, and although the ending is a bit naive, it ties all the plot lines in a very satisfying manner. The strong side of the "Gene MApper" is also the reason for it's weaknesses, as the author spends a lot more time explaining how something works, compared to character development. Nevertheless it's an unique science detective, and I hope other Fujii's works would also get translated.

[John Hurlock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just finished this book last night. Definitely a great story, fantastic concept and well written.

The first person was awkward at times, this is also not my preferred style of writing for fantasy and sci-fi, it's difficult for the author to explain the futuristic technology and any social differences without seriously detracting from the story being told.
That didn't happen in this story, but that did mean up until about half way through the book I was still guessing and fuzzy on what some of the things being referred to were, or the backstory behind the world being given to us as readers, by the end of the book I still didn't have a firm grasp on quite a bit of the goings on, just enough to muddle through.

I hope there's more to come, I definitely enjoyed the story, though I would prefer 3rd person writing for future installments.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was very interesting but never got bogged down in the technical stuff. It had a good pace but didn't feel mad-capped. The end was optimistic, maybe a bit unrealistic, but a nice change from all of the apocalyptic stuff so many authors are putting out these days. Not that it was some pie-in-the sky, we fixed the world just like that, ending. It wasn't like that, it was just about how they handled the one thing that was relevant to their investigation and how it turned out. I found the Japanese author's view of America and the American military discouraging, as usual when I read a book from a non-American author's point of view. This was seen from the many, many Vietnamese people who were still crippled and suffering seventy years after the Americans used Agent Orange in the Vietnam War. And in the programming of the salvaged US Ground Forces biochemical warfare suits Kurokawa and Mamoru get to use as clean suits for going out in to the field to collect samples of the intruder. "Leave it to the Americans to use love as a motivation tool for soldiers while challenging insects to declare whether they are with you or against you." But that's the world we've made for ourselves. It sure isn't the world I thought it was when I was growing up, it's very depressing. But the book wasn't, it was a smooth, well-paced, interesting story. I can see why it took off when it was originally an Amazon Japan kindle serial and why it was nominated for several major awards when it was published as a complete novel.

There wasn't a lot of character development. I can't comment on the translation really except that I wondered about a few things. For instance, I've read that Asians find being described as having almond shaped eyes to be offensive, so I wonder if that's actually what the author said. But being what it is, I thought it was interesting and a lot of fun, and I'm glad I had a chance to read it.

[Skye · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't think I'd ever read a science fiction book about genetically engineered rice, augmented reality, and grasshopper terrorism, and yet here I am.

this book broke all my expectations. I enjoyed it.

[Jacqie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd give this book a really high rating for the concepts it introduces, but a low rating on it holding my interest.

This book reminds me a lot of old-school cyberpunk. Our gene mapper main character is responsible for getting a genetically engineered field of rice to reflect the logo and certifications of the company that engineered it through changes in the plant pigmentation. This is a company that has enough money to burn that it wants its rice field to be its own visual advertisement. However, there's a problem with the pigments fritzing out and not working correctly and to keep himself out of trouble he needs to figure out who's responsible.

This book also delves into the idea of augmented reality platforms and how people use them to communicate and do business. You can go to an agreed upon virtual office and either use an off-the-shelf avatar that will hide your facial expressions and interact correctly with the environment automatically or you can put a digital version of yourself into the environment- very impressive, but if you don't know how to interact with that environment you could end up bowing your face into a table or something- going from impressive to embarrassing.

Yet another idea is that the internet messed up badly and now exists as a very safe and limited, even curated environment. Data divers can still find old data that was sunk out of sight during the previous disaster, though.

So there are lots and lots of concepts getting thrown out, and they are interesting. However, the writing was dense enough that it didn't seem that there was much of a story going, more a sequence of different concepts getting thrown at me in big infodumps. One such dump, about the genetic manipulation of rice to express color characteristics, made my eyes glaze over and also made me feel kind of dumb for not getting what the writer was talking about.

So, good concepts, poor story execution( at least to me and my current ability to concentrate). Also, this is a book that's pretty much all male- we've had an annoying female journalist and a subservient cute waitress, and it feels like this is the way it's going to go. I might try another book by this author, with some caution and after I've checked out the topic.

[Silvia Moreno-Garcia]

Hard SF, with a cyberpunk vibe but an interesting in genomics rather than the hackers of the 1980s we associated with William Gibson. So if you used to like that kind of book you'll enjoy this. Smart is the best way to define it. Also, a quick read.

[Jonathan Lin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

Japanese detective story wrapped in a science veneer. I liked the way the science issues were explored. There were some translation issues and I think it would have been better to read in the original Japanese.

[Susan Prevas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Japanese Michael Crichton. A bit technological but races along at a great clip.

[Neilam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the near-future/spec-fic premises explored here - both tech and bio concepts, with a slice of culture and day-to-day life.

[Shaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three and a half stars

Pretty cool scifi though lightly characterized.

[Amber M. McCarter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was sort of a teaser... almost touching on really fascinating potential future technology, but not quite. The tech and some of its practical applications were ntroduced, and then not delved into with any possible theories, not even of the made up variety. Disappointing. This would have been a four star if the author had even attempted to go a little deeper.

[Pat MacEwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up at MidAmericon (WorldCon that year, in Kansas City, MO), and was lucky enough to meet the author. Didn't get a chance to read it till now, and I'm sorry I waited. I very much enjoyed this one, which combines GMO technology taken beyond its natural limits and Augmented Reality (AR) taken to the next level, or maybe three. The protagonist is a gene mapper whose career and reputation may be down the tubes after the super rice crop he helped design shows signs of genetic collapse. Or is it sabotage? When totally synthetic ('distilled') organisms turn out to be involved on both sides of the question, it becomes the hero's mission to stop the destruction of a new crop that could feed the world, and figure out how to cope with the bioweapon being used against him and his employers. Cogent, clear, and forever coming up with the unexpected, I found this view of the future plausible, scary, and... hopeful.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cracking techno-thriller from Japan. A "style-sheet" designer for a synthetic rice is scapegoated when the latest, and high profile, crop starts to spontaneously change to the wrong colour. The author has a bold vision of the future which I found only slightly implausible; just let it go for a snappy read.

Perhaps some of the characterisation was lost in translation and in the wonder of technology - another story or two in this universe with these characters could help flesh them out.

Specifically the augment reality, as described, is very invasive and can hinder rather than enhance one's perception of the real world. Who'd want that?

[Alik · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read. There was never a dull moment in this story. Really engaging. A storyline that was constantly changing, good characters and character development as well as great technical detail described throughout the book.

Really enjoyed going through Gene mapper. It was fun, exciting, interesting, imaginative and it made you think about the future of genetic engineering and how far we can possibly take it. The technical detail in this book was great, never over-bearing.

The story was very easy to read and flowed very well. Nothing ever seemed over complicated or forced. Making for a great book to read through.

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would have finished this in a single read had I started reading earlier in the day. It had me hooked on the story early in. I love this kind of story where the technology and the skills of the characters are reflected in the terminology, almost to the point of jargon overload. I feel this kind of writing helps me to appreciate the characters skill and also make the world a little more 3D. Sometimes it can feel like a cheat when it’s too much jargon without a layman clarification but I think this book struck a great balance. I would love more

[Left Coast Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rarely read science fiction, and those more well-versed in it might find this book ho-hum, just another techno-thriller, but for me it was solidly entertaining. It also raised some interesting questions about the purposes and limits of technology, which I appreciated. Also, this book was set in an unnamed Japanese city, Saigon and a rice farm in Cambodia; I appreciated the reminder that there are vast sections of the world carrying on their daily business with little regard to what's happening in the US or Europe.

It's 2038 and the global population has risen to 30 billion people. Agricultural methods used back in the 2020's were woefully insufficient. GMO's are quaint baby steps. Instead, a few companies are engaged in building "rice" and "wheat" from scratch, genetically speaking -- rather than modifying an existing plant's DNA, they simply build a new DNA strand with all the inefficient "junk" DNA taken out, while desirable characteristics such as resistance to insects and disease are retained.

Oh, and one other thing. It the plant is normally green, it would be nice if a subset of plants could be grown that are bright blue, or sparkly gold, so that the company's logo can be planted into the rice fields, writ so large that they're clearly visible in satellite photos or from overflying aircraft. This logo creation is, in fact, the narrator's job as the novel begins. (As for the inadvisability of tampering with "junk DNA," see Nessa Carey's excellent Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome.

Alas, there are people, trogdolytic utopian naysayers not unlike your current reviewer, who believe sowing our fields with something that hasn't been forged on Darwin's Anvil may be asking for trouble. I'm not opposed to genetic engineering in principle, but I do wish people were more familiar with the excellent scholarship of Charles Perrow, popularized in his book Normal Accidents. All technology entails risk, and you don't need to be a bead-wearing drum-circling shroom-ingesting radical to recognize that the more complex a technology is, the more difficult it is to predict exactly how it will fail (though it inevitably will) and what the actual hell to do about it when it does.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the author seemed to share this view. He also, like your reviewer, recognizes that technological innovation will not and really cannot be slowed. What you need to do, in situations like this, is to proceed with some degree of caution and have some sort of response plan in place.

In order to make the book more exciting and novelistic, there's all sorts of stuff about avatars that are indistinguishable from real life, leading to all sorts of mistaken identities and bad guys hiding in plain sight. I found the relentless explanations of what a modern office in 2038 will look like a bit tedious, but then, I've never been much of a gadget guy to begin with.

I enjoyed this more than I expected to.

[astaliegurec · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taiyo Fujii's "Gene Mapper" is an interesting book with some problems. I'm not sure if the issues I have with the book are translation issues or perhaps cultural differences between the US and Japan. But, most of them are not the usual "bad writing" things I see in other books. Anyway, again, the book is interesting. But:

- The author tends to have his characters focus on extraneous things instead of the important things. There are an awful lot of points where I was scratching my head, thinking "something big just happened...., why is he talking about coffee (or something), instead?" Similarly, he tends to focus too much on the technologies he's using at the expense of the plot.
- Even though the protagonist knows his stuff, there are several points where he's just clueless about things that should be in his milieu.
- The company involved is one of, if not THE, biggest companies in its field. The project in question is the most important project for not just the company, but for the industry and the world. Yet, when our characters visit the project, the company hasn't provided it with things it needs. Heck, the protagonist shows up with some stuff he got in town that's far better than what the company has.
- The author actually over-uses technology. Changing a plant's genome to display logo information in a field? Why not put up a sign? A hazard suit that uses Artificial Reality as its SOLE source of input to its wearer and manipulates his emotions so he has no idea if what he's seeing or feeling is real? Why?

So, the best I can rate the book is a mere OK 3 stars out of 5.

[Chak · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was made aware of this book's existence via the Sword and Laser book club 2016 YouTube interview with Ken Liu - someone asked him to recommend a book that had been translated that we probably haven't heard of, and he said Gene Mapper by Taiyo Fujii.

I am calling this "nutritional science fiction," because it is fun (for me, anyway) to call it that, but it was actually a fast-paced, near-future, corporate thriller, with cyberpunk framing. I like the types of stories that feature a rather clueless and narrowly- but highly-skilled protagonist who is forced out of their comfort zone. That this one was told by a lone narrator, first-person present voice was not a deal breaker for me, but I prefer something that chops up the plot and timeline a little to reveal more facets. So, this book was like cool glass cube, as opposed to being a brilliant diamond, but I really did enjoy it. Perhaps if I wasn't so sure of my stance on the topic, Gene Mapper might have left me internally debating the ethics of genetically modified agriculture, but it did activate the portion of my brain devoted to thinking about landscaping.

All in all, it felt like a latest-decade Neal Stephenson book with 70% fewer characters, 80% fewer pages, and 90% fewer esoteric rabbit holes/inner monologue. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I do prefer the Stephensonian style.

[Sherrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I went into this book completely blind. It was a gift from a friend with A+ sci-fi taste.

The parts I liked of this book, I really really liked. The concept of developing completely synthetic crops to effectively end hunger is so compelling. And the idea of having gene mappers who combine computer programming and biochemistry, is of course right up my alley. I really liked these thought experiments and the way they were presented as simply a part of the society that exists in the book.

Unfortunately, there were other components of this world that simply didn't make sense to me. For example, augmented reality is a major part of people's lives...but why would they leave it on when fighting the "bad guys"? It seemed like that just made things harder than it needed to be. I never really understood what value augmented reality had besides really immersive virtual meetings.

Overall, meh. 2.5 stars. It's got some good ideas and fun parts, but overall it just isn't cohesive.

[Maverynthia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I started to read this and was inundated with technobabble about some strain of rice. Then we get people calling a woman doing her job a bitch as well as saying that Google somehow caused the internet to die out completely and it's replaced with TruNet. We get sentences that invoke images of abuse that involve "spanking" Mother, which is some kind of computer system or something?
They also go on at length about 32-bit dates causing the end of the world VS 64-bit dates and 128-bit dates. My head started hurting form all the bullshit when they said that gene mapping was as easy as XML sheets. No really it's called gXML. Then they are wondering why their crops are growing all funny. I got to about 11% before my mind just noped out of the book. The author just didn't do the research on things combined with the misogyny I just ain't having it.

[David Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent enough biopunk. I wish I could give it 3.5 stars. It's a relatively slow burn for a simple enough detective story about a new "five star" artificially designed rice variant that is mysteriously getting infected. It's set in the 2030's, where VR and augmented reality are fully enmeshed in everyday life, and fully artificial organisms that are programmed whole cloth from the DNA up are just beginning to exist.

It's relatively hard scifi, aside from a brief interlude involving nanites, which seems a bit optimistic for the 2030's. It's also relatively science-positive, depicting Luddite factions as largely backwards and misguided. It also features a memorable character named Kurokawa, whose quirks I won't spoil here.

[Kashif · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cool book, the concepts and worldbuilding were really cool. Lots of very interesting concepts around AR (if this apple glass shit takes off this kind of world might be a vision into what an AR revolution could look like) and pretty nice sense of tension that held my interest. Internet implosion is also cool idea.

The idea of designed/distilled crops and life forms was really interesting and some of the ethics questions that came up in the novel were cool, I think the ending has a nice level of optimism and hope for humanity and its capacity for good. IMO definitely needed in times like these when our technological overlords continue to drive everything good about technology and the world into hell.

[Ben Fisk · Rating 4 out of 5]

As it is set in Vietnam and Cambodia, it was a fun novel for those of us who have traveled there. The characters and plot were fresh. The author doesn't follow the same lines that an American page-turner author would have. One tidbit: the original Internet collapsed and is currently only accessible from rogue datacenters. In the novel, there is one on a barge outside of HCMC. The author is timely and not prone to use stereotype characters or stock lines. I highly recommend to any scifi readers looking for a new author to follow.

[Barrita · Rating 3 out of 5]

La verdad la premisa me pareció bastante original e interesante y aunque en algunas partes se puso un poco técnico no cayó totalmente en info dump.

Desafortunadamente los personajes no están muy bien desarrollados y creo que hay un problema de traducción que da la sensación de acantonamiento a veces.

Me gustaría leer otros libros de realidad aumentada. Si saben de algo, no duden en recomendarmelo.

[Herman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Science fictions at its peak. Transporting us into the future, while throwing the dystopia off the cliff.
Taiyo Fujii paint the future with words, and capture the essence of locations as the book plays out. He places faith in our species making the right moves, as new technology emerges from darkness.

237. Pages gone in a Blizz, this book was a beautiful read. Thanks to Jim Hubbert for the translation, and keeping the "tone".

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this novel! The jargon took a bit to get used to, but the world that was created was intriguing, and plausible, and scary. The concepts of gene mapping, and engineered, "distilled" crops, were super cool, and I liked the fast pace of this novel as well.

Can't wait to read more from this author.

3.5/5 stars

[Joshua Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book about technology and food production. The writing may through some readers off, but it reminded of me manga animated movies that I have seen (note - I have not seen many of them).
Really liked the ending and how it developed. Looking forward to reading Taiyo Fuljii's other works.

[Juan Sanmiguel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Something is attacking a genetically modified crop. Gene mapper Hayashida must investigate and solves the problem. What he discovers could change the world forever. A lot of cool concepts with genetics and distributed computing and the ending is very original.

[Keizen Li Qian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I relished the geekiness of this near future depiction. I found the mystery solving action fell rather flat at the end, though.