There is something about Evil within Science Fiction that bothers me. It seems to be an easy plot mechanism to say something or someone is ‘evil.’ When the author says the machines, corporations, computers or politicians are evil, the reader is expected to accept it as fact. I think this is a shortcoming with the genre.

In other genres, the motivation behind the actions are an important part of the story and it helps the reader understand both sides of the conflict. Good without evil is not balanced and is not fulfilling to read. Good literature presents the motivations on both sides of the question so the reader understands the forces involved. Unfortunately within Science Fiction I think most authors just jump into the story and don’t develop how the evil computer or evil machine became evil.

When an author does get into the back-story behind the evil they tend to use stereotypical reasons. “The machines attack because they don’t like humans,” goes only so far. Evil is real life is much more complex and takes on many more forms. Evil to one side of the story is different than that on the other side. In human history much of what we’d consider ‘evil’ was because of ignorance, ambivalence or arrogance. True some of it was true evil, but much of it was because of politics, economics or pressure on civilizations.

In one of my series my evil is a huge civilization that has lost touch with its history. What it does is evil from one perspective but happened because of ambivalence and arrogance, not an ‘inherent Evil’.

My only point is, I think the genre is missing different interpretations of evil we need to broaden our perspective to define evil in more complex terms.