A nightmarish genetic manipulation.

As science has evolved, it's become a commonplace of contemporary science-fiction to portray the nightmarish consequences of genetic manipulation gone wrong. Yet, in the case of cyberpunk —even more so perhaps in the so-called biopunk genre— it is all presented to us as a given:

Like the time she'd screamed about the bugs, the roaches they called palmetto bugs, but it was because the Goddamn things were mutants, half of them; someone had tried to wipe them out with something that fucked with their DNA, so you'd see these screwed-up roaches dying with too many legs or heads, or not enough, and once she'd seen one that looked like it had swallowed a crucifix or something, its back or shell or whatever it was distorted in a way that made her want to puke.

(Gibson: p. 34)

What I find peculiar about this approach is not so much that the author defends genetic manipulation, but rather the fact that he presents it matter-of-factedly as something normal, common, part of the daily routine. Yes, Mona pukes when she sees the genetically deformed cockroaches, but she doesn't show any surprise at all. She doesn't display any sort of deep moral qualms about what she sees, which some may consider quite scary. And yet, my guess is that this is far more realistic than the deep philosophical and/or theological musings that we see in other books. If we take a look back at our own History, most leaps tend to happen in this manner, bit by bit, inadvertently. After all, isn't it true that most people just a few decades ago would have considered a national ID something more typical of dictatorial regimes than of advanced democracies? But here we are.