This novel is one of the many stories Van Dijck discusses. Not only popular scientific texts figure into her book on the popularization of genetics, but novels, journalistic texts, films, advertisements and documentaries do as well. Van Dijck considers these media to be important factors in popularizing science. Yet they don't just passively index for the layman what genetics is all about, as is often presumed in discussions regarding the popularization of science; instead, they actively structure the public scientific debate. The works can even be so powerful that they actually begin to play a role as consistently recurring arguments in the discussion on the future of science and technology, such as Huxley's novel Brave New World, Marry Shelley's creation Frankenstein, and Levin's army of little Hitlers in The Boys from Brazil. The most important message of Van Dijck's book is that scientific researchers should pay more attention to films, science fiction and journalism, even if only because most people don't stay informed of the newest scientific developments via Nature or Science, but they do flock en masse to Jurassic Park. According to Van Dijck, products of popular culture not only reflect ideas about science and technology but construct them as well, and are therefore important participants in the debate surrounding technology and science. In her view, it's an issue of mutual shaping of science and culture.

One of Van Dijck's most important and interesting observations is that as technology develops further, its popular representations often remain rigid and undergo few changes. What's of note in the current representations is that they still make use of old metaphors. In articles, films and novels about the Human Genome Project, the rehashed metaphor of the map surfaces again and again and, according to Van Dijck, this doesn't do justice to the complexity of the developments within genetics. On the last page of her book, she calls upon all of her readers to be creative, to invent new images and metaphors, to appeal to our powers of imagination and actively participate in the scientific debate. Van Dijck's entreaty here strongly recalls Haraway's in Modest_Witness@Second _Millennium. FemaleMan© Meets_OncoMouse™ Feminism and Technoscience (1997). In this book, Haraway proposes that we are all witnesses to our information society, and that we are responsible for the stories that are told about who we want to be. If we don't like the stories, we can try to intervene with new ones. The all too optimistic maxim of both Haraway and Van Dijck seems to be that if you come up with a nice metaphor or a new story, the world will change along with you:

he process of image-making is far more democratic than the process of the scientific production(p. 198), 
 

I hope that in her next book, Van Dijck will occasionally dare to ignore the rules of play so as to surprise her readers somewhat; perhaps she could apply her talents by experimenting with other styles, and place the results alongside the scientific argumentation. There has traditionally been a division drawn between the domains of imagination and science. Van Dijck has convincingly criticized this division by showing how imaginative science can be. Her very surprising and remarkable conclusion suggests that nowadays, the imaginativeness we usually ascribe to literature and film often leaves something to be desired in these media. The challenge is thus to blow new life into these styles, styles which we usually assume somehow better lend themselves to the rich imagination Van Dijck is calling for. Perhaps she can dare to produce a work that's a bit more of a hybrid. Science, alternating with depiction, some poetry, or even better, a play. Suggestions for titles abound, preferably alliterative ones, as Van Dijck's endless treasure of rollicking titles such as Monstrous Microbes, Genes and Gender and Biofears and Biofantasies would suggest her proclivity for them. Something along the lines of Gina, George, and a Gonzo-grounded Grappling for Giggle-grabbing Genes.