Speculative fiction serves as a vital lens in the era of climate change, offering imaginative insights into the anthropogenic facors shaping our world. Curiously, this genre has not yet found significant visibility within Indian literature, making Gigi Ganguly’s anthology Biopeculiar: Stories of an Uncertain World a notable and commendable contribution. While international speculative fiction enjoys a wide readership in India, books by Indian authors within this genre remain surprisingly rare. This scarcity makes Biopeculiar a welcome addition to the literary landscape, even if it does not fully meet its potential. The collection is infused with a deep reverence for the natural world, a profound awareness of the crises it faces today, and a rare, unflinching empathy—even as Ganguly places the responsibility squarely on humanity’s shoulders.
Ganguly’s anthology melds biology with diverse genres, creating a world that feels simultaneously familiar and alien. Her storytelling brims with heart and ingenuity, bringing forth intriguing premises: cloud herders tending to the skies in a speculative twist on cloud seeding, a silkworm bite that transforms a young man, a singer with the mythical power of raag malhar who struggles with her burdensome gift, and a sentient moss that evolves into a nightmarish entity. These ideas showcase Ganguly’s imaginative range and her ability to draw on various genres and writing styles.
However, while the anthology’s ambition is undeniable, its execution sometimes falters. The pacing of the stories is uneven—some leave you yearning for more, their evocative worlds and characters painted beautifully but feeling incomplete. Others, like “Corvid Inspector”, a murder mystery featuring corvids, linger excessively over 40 pages, overstaying their welcome. Stories told from the perspective of animals or transformed beings, such as a bug who once was a human, present an intriguing narrative mix, but their potential often feels underutilised.
The climate themes, though present, could have been more robustly explored. Ganguly leans heavily on fantasy, which allows for creative freedom, but many stories lack grounding details to anchor their fantastical premises. While speculative fiction need not delve into hard science, a stronger connection to the realities of climate crises might have made the narratives more resonant.
One of the stories, “Solastalgic”, offers a Jurassic Park-esque reimagining of a world where humans coexist with dinosaurs—but without the gore or thrill. Instead, it tackles the fuel demands of a bustling economy and explores the uncertain future of energy resources. While the twist in the tale is intriguing, the anticlimactic ending feels misaligned with the story’s promising premise. A cliffhanger or a dive into horror might have better served the narrative’s inherent tension.
“Barking up the Wrong Tree” takes a sharp look at the perils of greenwashing and the commodification of environmental solutions. Told through a third-person interview format, the story stands out for its inventive narrative style, even if its critique of capitalist exploitation could have been more incisive.
Other stories, such as “Forest of Plenty”, “Whirlwind”, and “Ceaselessly Sea Follows”, bristle with ideas but fall short in execution. Their imaginative premises beg for richer exploration, leaving readers wanting more than the surface treatment they receive. Ultimately, while Biopeculiar brims with whimsy and ambition, it struggles to deliver on its promise to carve out a space for Indian authors in the speculative fiction genre. The anthology falls short of fully capitalising on its potential to open new doors in Indian storytelling.
Despite its flaws, Biopeculiar is a laudable attempt to carve a space for speculative fiction within Indian literature. Ganguly’s deep concern for the natural world and her daring exploration of hybrid genres shine through. This collection invites readers to reflect on humanity’s relationship with nature, even as it offers a reminder of the narrative possibilities within speculative fiction. While the stories may not always hit their mark, the anthology is an important step in a genre that deserves more attention in the Indian literary landscape.
“On the forty-second day of her life on the moon…”
ON THE forty-second day of her life on the moon, she dons a spacesuit and steps out of the pod. Carefully, she places her feet on the ground. She looks ahead and around, and feels innumerable eyes on her. Plants sway in her direction, and it feels to Loursge that they are looking at her too.
She is a few metres away from her pod when a great mass of pink swings between trees, lowering itself down the branches, to stand in front of her.
Shocked and unable to move, Loursge hopes the monkey’s curiosity will quickly run out and it’ll go back to hanging out in the trees. But the light pink simian, instead, reaches out and unlocks her helmet, throws it to the ground and exposes her to the elements of the moon. As a reflex, Loursge takes in a deep breath as she struggles to bend down and put the helmet back on. But her breath escapes and she ends up taking another lung-full of air...
Her eyes widen and finally the monkeys do something other than stare at her. They bare their teeth and break out in infectious smiles that grow into hiccupping, echoing laughter. When that dies down, two of them grab her hands and pull her forward. Loursge doesn’t know if she should go with them, but the blush-faced imps are insistent, so she lets her feet follow them...
It’s only when Loursge is back in her pod—to eat some food—that she realises they had been communicating telepathically, and that everyone on this moon was deeply connected to each other.
(Excerpted with permission of Westland Books)
This was first published in the 1-15 March, 2025 print edition of Down To Earth