Biology in Science Fiction: Free Stories

Title: The Shangri-La Affair

Author: Lavie Tidhar

Length: novella?

First Publication: Strange Horizons, 2009

What the Story is About: An engineered virus causes the war in southeast Asia to take a different turn..

They called it Shangri-La. Its transmission mechanisms included sexual intercourse (99%-100%); it could also be transmitted by air (50%-60%), by water (30%-35%), through saliva (15%-20%) and by touch (5%-6%). It was not transferable by mosquitoes, but that was for aesthetic rather than technical reasons. It was developed by a group of scientists working on a UN-funded project in the Golden Triangle, on the border region of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar. The group, as it turned out, was receiving additional funds from a local drugs syndicate, and when first indications of the product began to surface the entire research station, alongside the village it was situated in, had simply disappeared. For a long time no one believed it really existed. Then came the rumours . . .

Categories: 2000-2009 • Genetic Engineering • Microbes & Viruses • Short Fiction • Tidhar - Lavie