Product Description
Bartter surveys 250 American science-fiction stories, and American SF novels–with occasional overlaps of stories made into episodic novels–that have some relationship, often direct, sometimes marginal, to atomic weapon… More >>
The Way to Ground Zero: The Atomic Bomb in American Science Fiction
An examination of the atomic bomb in science fiction might seem like an outdated topic. The years since this book was published have seen both the end of the cold war and an abundance of newly-minted threats to domestic peace and human survival. So the days of worrying about an apocalyptic “World War III” may seem, if not nostalgic, at least anachronistic to current readers.
But it was in science fiction concerned with nuclear war that humanity made some of its most detailed, thoughtful and adventurous explorations into a wealth of issues that are anything but dated: Is war inevitable? Is war, or simply violence, a part of “human nature? If so, what makes it so? What is “human nature” anyway? Can war be prevented? How might it be prevented? By world government? By the threat of annihilation? Through social engineering or improved psychology? By “redirecting” humanity’s (supposed) violent instincts? All of these notions and many more have been explored in the pages of science fiction, and this book is an excellent history of this exploration.
Martha A. Bartter writes a thoroughly entertaining and interesting history. Many volumes such as this one are unreadable exercises in “scholar-babble”–language whose apparent purpose is to impress graduate-school professors rather than convey actual information. When Bartter uses terms like “existential guilt versus existential shame” they’re defined clearly and used with genuine purpose.
This is a book that will appeal to those interested in the history and analysis of science fiction, but really it deserves a wider audience than that.
Rating: 5 / 5