What Happens When Science Fiction Villains Don’t Feel So Fictional

I wrote the villain. A podcast just confirmed the world I built wasn’t far off.

A few years ago, while researching gene editing for a speculative fiction series that would become The Helix Chronicles, I came across the work of Dr. George Church. I was fascinated. Synthetic biology, DNA data storage, species revival—it all felt like the edge of something astonishing.

But as I dug deeper, one question kept circling: What happens when brilliant ambition outpaces ethical guardrails?

That was the spark.

Soon, a fictional biotech cabal began to form on the page. At its head was a billionaire visionary who truly believes he’s saving the world, even as he rewrites its code. I wasn’t writing about any one person. But the themes—unfettered innovation, blurred ethics, unchecked power—felt rooted in reality.

Then, a few weeks ago, I listened to Behind the Bastards’  two-part series on George Church. And I had one of those moments: oh no, I’ve seen this movie before.

Hearing it all laid out—the ambition, the techno-evangelism, the strange alliances—was eerie in the best possible way. Not because I felt predictive, but because someone else was tracing the same shadows I’d already written into fiction.

It didn’t feel like validation. It felt like company. Like someone else had stumbled into the same bioethical minefield and started mapping the blast radius.

These aren’t just storylines. They’re warning signs. And it’s good to know I’m not the only one paying attention.

It got me thinking. Not just about what makes a biotech villain scary, but why they’re so plausible.

It’s not the lab coats. It’s not the gene-editing buzzwords. It’s the conviction.

These characters—the ones who show up in my fiction—don’t believe they’re the problem. They believe they’re the answer. They're visionaries with just enough data and power to justify rewriting the rules. They don’t twirl mustaches. They deliver TED Talks.

That’s what makes them dangerous. Not the tech. The certainty.

The world is already filled with brilliant people who think progress should follow their blueprint, no matter what it costs the rest of us. You don’t have to fictionalize much. Just add a few closed doors, a few billion dollars, and a belief that “this is for your own good.”

So I’ll keep writing my science fiction villains. Because someone has to imagine how far this could go.

I'll see you in the bookstores,

Monica

Note: This post references publicly available podcast content and explores thematic overlaps between real-world science and speculative fiction. All characters in my work are entirely fictional and not based on any individual, living or dead.

If you’d like to listen to the episodes that sparked this moment of eerie déjà vu, you can find the two-part series from  Behind the Bastards below.