Billed as “original short fiction for the modern evil genius,” the new
fiction anthology
The Mad Scientist’s
Guide to World Domination features delightfully villainous and entertaining
tales from the likes of Diana Gabaldon, Austin Grossman, Naomi Novik, and
Seanan McGuire. Edited by one of the science fiction, fantasy, and horror field’s
best editors, John Joseph Adams, the book has been lovingly crafted. It
features with a wonderful cover from Ben Templesmith and a very fun interior
design that includes a whimsical preamble for each story. Exclusively for
Omnivoracious, Adams has cajoled eight contributors into each championing their
own particular mad scientist.
Which would you vote for—and why? Who else might trump them all? The best
response will get a free copy of the anthology.
Dr.
Frankenstein
Championed by
Carrie Vaughn
Dr. Victor
Frankenstein. Everyone knows his name. He is the godfather of mad scientists. The
first, the template, the model by which all others are crafted and judged. The
goal, the primary mission of his endeavors: to play God. To manipulate the very
mystery of life itself. His hubris is explicit and without boundaries. And when
his experiments go horribly awry (as we know they must)—ah yes, this is where
the “scientist” gives way to “mad.” We last see him sledding into the arctic in
a futile quest to make right what he first made wrong. But can we trust his
judgment about what's right and what's wrong? Do we dare?
Dr.
Jekyll
Championed by Grady
Hendrix
They both wear
white lab coats, they both do it because everyone laughed at them—they laughed!—back
in high school, and they both have the word “science” in their names, so what
exactly is the difference between a “scientist” and a “mad scientist?” As far
as Dr. Jekyll is concerned, it means having the worst experimental methodology
of all time. Rather than writing a protocol that involved tests on animal
subjects before moving on to humans, the second Dr. Henry Jekyll whipped up a
concoction that sparkled with pretty colors and he chugged it. Then, rather
than staying in a controlled environment to observe and record the effects, he
was out the door and trampling servant girls five seconds later. Rather than
submitting his results for peer-review, he cowered in his lab, occasionally
venturing outside to murder someone, or engage in light trampling. Needless to
say, his results were irreproducible, and it turned out that the
transformations occurred in the first place because of contaminated chemicals.
It’s no surprise that he winds up killing himself. Being a mad scientist means
even your worst mistakes are just alternate outcomes, but even the maddest of
mad scientists would be ashamed to run a lab this sloppy.
J.
Robert Oppenheimer
Championed by David
Farland
The world is full
of pretenders—senators who cannot govern, movie producers who can’t even do
porn right, and scientists who tout their miniscule discoveries as if they were
major accomplishments. But when Oppenheimer saw his first nuclear bomb explode,
never has any scientist felt a greater thrill. Some scientists suspected that
if we heated the atmosphere to 10,000 degrees, the heavens themselves would
ignite and strip the world of its atmosphere. But Oppenheimer assured them that
certain lightning bolts must have heated the air to that temperature, if only
briefly, and that his bomb was safe. Yet when that mushroom cloud stretched
over him, even he shrank in terror beneath it. He spoke the words from the
Bhagavad Gita: “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” Surely he who
can destroy a thing, ultimately, controls it. This world became his. Cower
before him you sniveling pretenders—Frankenstein, Moreau, Jekyll. You cannot
withstand the atomic bomb, and Oppenheimer, its master!
Lex
Luthor
Championed by
Austin Grossman
Let's get his bona
fides out of the way. Dirigible? Yes. Secret floating city? Yes. Secret
floating city hanging from a dirigible? Yes, and that's just in his
first appearance. Luthor re-created the dinosaurs way back in 1940, and he was
just getting started. Aerospace, powered armor, cloning (why do you think we
even have Bizarro?), dimensional travel—you name it, he's done it. But Luthor
is a mad scientist for the ages, not just because of brains, but the scope of
his ambition and the depth of his character. Would Luthor let himself be chased
around Europe by a stitched-together corpse? No, he picks the grandest of all
opponents, the greatest bully super-heroism ever spawned: Kal-El the Kryptonian
(“Superman,” if you must). You'd have to go back to Paradise Lost to
find a tougher matchup, and one more meaningful for all of us. Luthor pits
brains and un-augmented human flesh against unnatural brawn again and again,
staking his life on the idea that being smart is worth something and makes a
difference, even if the game is rigged, even if the entire rest of the world is
rooting against you. That, sir and madam, is character. Greatest mad scientist
ever.
Dr.
Moreau
Championed by
Seanan McGuire
Dr. Moreau: so
awesome he doesn't need a first name. Played on film by no less than Burt
Lancaster and Marlon Brando. Why all the fuss? Because you're talking about a
man who, without proper sterile conditions or treatments to prevent organ
rejection, was able to make men out of beasts. Who built his own private
kingdom, with its own laws and customs (NO SPILL BLOOD). And who had the good
grace to die at the hands of his tortured creations, as all the best mad
scientists are taught to do. Dr. Moreau: too awesome for your small-minded
human ethics.
Nikola
Tesla
Championed by
Daniel H. Wilson
Nikola Tesla is
hands down the world's greatest real mad scientist. His scientific inventions
are still in widespread use by millions of people over seventy years after his
death, and include the arc-light, alternating current motor, and systems for
transmitting electricity. Some argue he should be credited for inventing the
radio, too. In classic mad scientist fashion, Tesla requested exorbitant sums
of money from government officials, negotiating unsuccessfully with the Prime
Minister of Great Britain for 30 million dollars (about a half billion dollars
in today’s market) in exchange for a “defense ray machine.” Later, he declared
that he was receiving messages from inhabitants of either Mars or Venus over
his radio-receiving equipment. Finally, his nerd cred was impeccable. At the
age of 17, he exposed himself to cholera to avoid required military service. In
college, he organized the first intercollegiate activity in which a team from
one university would challenge a team from another university: chess.
Doc
Brown
Championed by
Jeremiah Tolbert
Doctor Emmet Brown is more of an inventor than a scientist,
and whether he is truly mad might seem up for some debate. Absent-minded, sure,
with a penchant for hanging out with teenagers… yes, that's a little weird.
Where's the “mad” come in? Emmet “Doc” Brown lacked an important element in his
construction of the famous flux capacitor (a device which came to him in a
vision brought on by severe head injury). He required a high energy fuel
source, and in 1985, only plutonium would do. But how did he go about acquiring
this? He tricked Libyan terrorists by offering to build them a nuclear bomb,
but instead filled it with pinball machine parts and used the plutonium in his
pet project. This single action marks Doc as a force to be reckoned with.
Beneath that goofy, wild-haired and wild-eyed exterior lies the heart of a
coldly calculating master deceiver. While this plan seems to initially result
in him being murdered by the terrorists…why is Marty there? Why is Marty ever
there, for that matter? Clearly, Doc has long considered Marty to be an easily
manipulated experimental test subject and back-up plan. He wears a pleasing
demeanor around the teenager, but alone, we see the real Emmet Brown--a man
obsessed with his creation, and willing to sacrifice anyone or anything for
science, including his beloved pet dog, Einstein. What could be madder than
that?! The
events of the docudrama Back to the Future are all part of Emmet Brown's
backup plan, should the terrorists find him.
Thomas
Edison
Championed by
Mary Robinette Kowal
Thomas Edison.
There's a reason they called him the Wizard of Menlo Park. The man is brilliant
and created his own compound of brilliant young minds to support him. They have
“a stock of almost every conceivable material” according to Edison, that
includes, “eight thousand kinds of chemicals, every kind of screw made, every
size of needle, every kind of cord or wire, hair of humans, horses, hogs, cows,
rabbits, goats, minx, camels…silk in every texture, cocoons, various kinds of
hoofs, shark's teeth, deer horns, tortoise shell…cork, resin, varnish and oil,
ostrich feathers, a peacock's tail, jet, amber, rubber, all ores…” If there's
not already a solution to a problem, he'll just invent one. And if you get in
his way, he's not above electrocuting an elephant to prove his point.
and Fantasy Writers of America. The nominees in the novel category are:
