In my new thriller, The Cure, the science of psychopathy takes center stage. And since I’ve been a science fiction geek all of my life, this beloved genre also plays a major role in the novel.

So to celebrate the book’s release, I wrote The Sci-fi Psychopath Quiz. Part I of the quiz appeared here earlier. But fear not. If you wish to proceed without reading Part I, here is all you need to know before you begin:

• Scientists are uncovering differences between the brains of psychopaths and normals, which could well contribute to some of the behaviors associated with this condition.
• Psychopaths are characterized by fearlessness, lack of conscience, selfishness, and an unequaled ability to lie and manipulate.
• Psychopathy and sociopathy are nearly identical conditions. Leading experts classify the condition as psychopathy when it is more on the innate side, and sociopathy when it is more due to environmental influences (i.e. psychopaths are born, sociopaths are made). Sociopaths can be brutal killers but have the capacity to care about others. Psychopaths have zero loyalty to anyone but themselves.

So with this as background, let’s get to our first science fiction super-villain:

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Fully 1% of us are psychopaths. Really. And while few psychopaths are the Hannibal Lecter type (or the Emperor Palpatine type, as it were), this group has caused untold misery throughout history.

When I read that scientists were finding differences in the brains of psychopaths versus those of normals, I was fascinated. What if scientists could invent a simple way to diagnose this condition? I thought. Would society be justified in monitoring psychopaths? Even before they’ve committed any crimes? And what if we could cure this condition? While answers to these questions may seem straightforward, the deeper I dug, the more unexpected complexities I found.

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