Does -- can -- science fiction deal seriously with the topic of evil?

[Extollager]

Hitmouse mentions PKD's Do Androids...? The PKD book that comes to my mind in connection with the subject of evil is A Scanner Darkly, which moved me in a way sf almost never does -- well, really, fiction almost never does. Though I've read it a couple of times, though, I don't have a copy, and I don't feel prepared to discuss details, but perhaps others here will. But as I recall the novel is largely about devastated lives even though human lives are precious. It seems to me that PKD evoked friendship and maybe wistful love and yet showed people coming apart inside. I'll have to get hold of that one yet again.

It seems to me that I took up a library copy of Disch's Camp Concentration a while ago for a reread, after decades, but somehow I didn't stick with it, maybe something put me off. As I recall this is about people being subjects of experiments of some kind, where supposedly there is some benefit but the result is always their destruction in some way. Has anyone anything to say about that one?

How about some of Walter M. Miller Jr.'s stories? I seem to remember real pathos in the treatment of hapless animals made "conditionally human" in one of his novellas. It seems to me I just about choked up, so to speak, over the early "Kirri Rorry" incident with an abandoned (?) forlorn cat>"conditionally human" creature.

(By the way, eventually we might want to discuss sf works that deal with positive things in an unusually thoughtful way, e.g. courage and magnanimity ... the one that's coming to my mind is Anderson's The Enemy Stars, aka We Have Fed Our Seas. But unless someone wants to start that thread right away, it might be well to wait a while on that.)

 

[alexvss]

In District 9, an alien ship arrives in Johannesburg, and the aliens are relegated to live in a slum. They are treated with disdain, called slurs. A bureaucrat is tasked to give them orders of eviction, but he finds it impossible to even communicate with the aliens; and he ends up “infected”, transforming into an alien himself. More than just mirroring the political landscape with immigrants in South Africa, District 9 is also about putting oneself in someone else’s shoes, to feel how they feel. I think it’s a great example of dealing with evil.

 

[Pyan]

This thread is not intended for partisan airing of disputes about religion and politics, so let's see if we can have a discussion here without it having to be shut down. I'm hoping we get a second chance, but I doubt we'll get a third.

You're correct, @Extollager. I understand that the rules may be frustrating at times, but dura lex, sed lex, as they say.

 

[Danny McG]

As soon as I saw this thread's title my brain jumped to evil SF characters and Ming the Merciless popped into my mind, closely followed by Beast Harkonnen from Dune

 

[Extollager]

You're correct, @Extollager. I understand that the rules may be frustrating at times, but dura lex, sed lex, as they say.

In the case of the discussion of evil, my frustration most recently was not with the rules and the application of them. But it looks like this time around the discussion is going to go better.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I suppose that the subject of evil is something of universal concern.

The trouble is, you've not made an attempt to define "evil" which invites every and any interpretation. Additionally, you've suggested you want to discuss it in a science fiction context, but almost every single book you reference in your opening post isn't science fiction, and the one you actually do was published over 100 years ago.

Because of all this you've started this discussion with the widest possible remit and even brought religion into this with mention of The Bible, which means this will inevitably end up as a discussion of social and political issues. I'll therefore close this thread and add it to the previous closed thread.