Stories Without Villains

[THX1138]

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. I don’t think the sharks can be considered villains.

Good one.

 

[Wayne Mack]

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. I don’t think the sharks can be considered villains.

I guess you never saw Jaws.

 

[Vince W]

Inherit the Stars by James P. Hogan

 

[Montero]

The Merro Tree by Katie Waitman - a re-read and it is as good as I remembered. A layered book starting with the main character being in prison and then going back (briefly) to his crap childhood and on to how his life got better, with interludes on the set up to his trial. The main character is a master performer - intergalactic top level performer - dance, singing, acting - and total mega-star as well as a nice guy (alien guy). I am currently reading his apprenticeship to another master performer. Book abounds with well drawn aliens and actually, thinking about it, not yet noticed a human. Generally a positive book (I don't do grim and dark).

 

[JunkMonkey]

Plenty of Golden Age short stories threw their protagonists into 'get out of that' situations where the only thing stopping them were the laws of physics or whatever particular "what if...?" the author cooked up.
Of the top of my head Goodwin's Cold Equations, Van Vogt's The Village. Would fit this type of story. Most of the Sector General stories by Jim White had no villains - just problems

 

[farntfar]

Several Le Guin novels don't have a villain.
Both The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness have two conflicting philosophies or political systems, but neither is defined as the correct or heroic or villainous one, even if our sympathies may tend in one particular direction.
Both the 'opposing' countries are shown to have benefits that the first encountered one lacks.
Most of the Hainish novels are more about an Earthman (usually) needing to understand a newly encountered world.

In the Ones who walked away from Omelas, is the whole world, other than the child villainous? It's the question asked. It's a sort of great big version of the Trolley Problem.

 

[BAYLOR]

A Can of Paint by A. E Van Vogt

 

[KiraAnn]

I remember a short story from the 40's (I think) in an old sci fi magazine. Please note: I'm not that old just found the magazine somewhere and bought it in the 70's.

Anyway, the two characters were an interplanetary criminal (likeable though) and an interplanetary cop (equally likeable). During a chase on an asteroid, they both fall into a huge, almost friction-less half-dome. They have to work together to get out, on opposite sides. The cop doesn't get his man as they pop out