Borne - Background
Borne was written by Jeff VanderMeer and published in 2017. The story contains many elements of genetic engineering and its relationship to corporate greed. In an interview with Gulf Coast magazine, VanderMeer states that
“In Borne, I wanted the people and animals to stand out in stark relief from the setting, and even in purposefully calling the biotech company The Company played into that, especially because I wanted to explore the end results of a situation we often find today — where some multi-national corporation comes into an area, sucks out the resources, destroys the environment, and none of it helps people locally” (Wyatt).
VandeerMeer based the setting and general plot of Borne on real situations that are getting more attention with the growth of environmentalism and other scientific/social movements. The genetic engineering aspect could have been inspired by the popularization of CRISPR genome-editing technology around 2015. CRISPR allows scientists to quickly modify cells and animals, which altered the boundaries of science and led to widespread public concern (“Questions and Answers about CRISPR"). As stated in Science magazine, “advances in these fields have led to great benefits and also to puzzling problems, including some for which our present ethical concepts do not prepare us” (Abelson). There is no definite right or wrong way to implement the technology. That led to people imagining worst-case scenarios and monstrous creations, like the dinosaurs in Jurassic World or, in this case, Mord.