Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction
Nuclear Holocausts Bibliography: E
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Eco, Umberto. The Bomb and the General. Illus. Eugenio Carmi. Tr. from the Italian by William Weaver. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989.
A beautifully illustrated but silly picture book for children telling how
the benign atoms leave bombs which the evil general plans to drop on the world,
rendering the bombs harmless. When his planned attack fizzles, disarmament
ensues and the general becomes a lowly hotel doorman "Because now he was of no
importance at all." Paints a threatening picture of the danger of nuclear war
and then resolves it though whimsy that would not reassure any child old enough
to understand the text.
Edmonson, G. C. and C. M.
Kotlan. The Takeover. New York: Ace,
1984.
A political thriller
in which an American grain embargo triggers a Russian oil embargo, creating a
crisis which brings the world to the brink of a nuclear holocaust. A bomb
destroys the Latin American city of Flyville, and the Russians announce they
have planted atomic weapons in major American cities. The government
capitulates and the U.S. is occupied by Russian troops; but at a news
conference, the president announces he is calling on the Trident submarine
force to maintain resistance, and shoots himself. The subs station themselves
near cities the Russians wish to spare. When one of them is attacked, it fires
a missile at the USSR, doing little damage, but impressing the leadership. The
Russians withdraw as their allies fall away from them in droves. Much of the
novel concentrates on the gas shortage caused by the crisis and on the problems
of illegal immigrants from Mexico.
Edwards, Malcolm.
"After-Images" (Interzone 4,
Spring 1983). In John Clute, Colin Greenland, and David Pringle, eds. Interzone:
The First Anthology: New Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing. London: Dent, 1985. New York: St. Martin's Press,
[1986].
Nuclear
bombs exploded around a Greek island cause an anomaly resulting in the slowing
of time, so that the wave front of the explosion advances slowly, day by day,
toward the people trapped inside the anomaly. Two Englishmen penetrate the
barrier between their isolated world and the outside. One dies, the other
somehow finds himself back in England, in yet another anomaly, waiting for the
end. The concept is fantastic, but the story is highly effective.
Edwards, Peter. Terminus.
London: Macmillan, 1975. New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1976.
In
2139, after two nuclear wars have destroyed three-quarters of the Earth, a
repressive bureaucracy dominates Eurafrica. Disillusionment with science has
led to a revival of various forms of religion and superstition, and there is a
plot to assassinate a religious leader. Much of the novel is set in a Martian
prison camp, where excavations uncover a ten-thousand-year-old city whose
secrets are still undiscovered when it is destroyed. However, its discovery
prompts a myth that it was designed by aliens bent on denying the violent human
race access to outer space. The popular opinion is: "They were a celestial
judiciary, and woe betide man if he was found wanting. Their ships would sweep
low over Earth and envelope Eurafrica in fire and brimstone, nuclear catharsis
Sodom-and-Gomorrah style."
Egleton, Clive. The Judas Mandate. London: Hodder &
Stoughton, 1972. London: Coronet, 1976. New York: Coward, McCann, 1972. New
York: Pinnacle, 1974. Sequel to Last Post for a Partisan.
When
the Russians, embroiled in a conflict with China, are forced to withdraw their
troops, Garnett becomes involved in a plot to free six political prisoners to
form a government in exile. Early in the book he visits the devastated region
in which his wife and child were killed by an H-bomb.
___. Last Post for a Partisan. London: Hodder & Stoughton,
1971. London: Coronet, 1976. New York: Coward
McCann, 1971. New York: Pinnacle, 1974. Sequel to A Piece of
Resistance .
Dane turns
out to be alive after all. She and Garnett find and kill a cell of Russian
counterspies.
___. A Piece of
Resistance. London: Hodder & Stoughton,
1970. London: Coronet, 1976. N.Y.: Coward-McCann, 1970. New York: Pinnacle,
1974. Sequels: Last Post for a Partisan and The Judas Mandate.
This
is the first of a series of three novels in which an agent named Garnett does
battle with collaborators and invaders in a postwar Britain ruled by the
Russians. He gets involved with a beautiful woman named Dane, and she joins the
team that he leads in an assault on a prison. At the end of the novel, he is
told she has panicked and committed suicide when she thought she might be
apprehended. Little is said about the nuclear war in any of these three novels,
and remarkably little about the Russians; most of the energy of the resistance
is concentrated on collaborators of various stripes.
Eisner, Simon. See Kornbluth, C. M.
Elliott, Charles. The Unkind Light . London: Hamish Hamilton,
1959.
A
satire on colonialism set on a fictional Pacific island, focusing on the
adventures of a beautiful woman reporter. A revolutionary leader steals an
atomic bomb and uses it to destroy the local American military base. The
"unkind light" of the explosion reveals the falsity of the views of
the colonial administrators.
Elliott, George P. David Knudsen. New York: Random House, 1962.
A
story of the responsibility of scientists for their work on the bomb. The
narrator's father worked on the Manhattan Project and later becomes the subject
of a security investigation; eventually the father commits suicide. The son
worries that the expression of his view that his father was wrong to have
worked on the bomb may have triggered his death, but this is not clear. The
narrator and some of his comrades in the army are caught in the fallout from an
H-bomb test and fall ill of radiation disease. Two of the men die of the
effects, and the protagonist worries about genetic effects, so that he induces
his wife to have an abortion when she becomes pregnant. He experiences
depression and a breakdown, then has a romance with a friendly nurse in a rest
home.
Elliott, H. Chandler. Reprieve
from Paradise. New York: Gnome Press, 1955.
Long
after a holocaust, reproduction is insanely encouraged by a dictatorial
government which has reduced the average life span drastically and lowered the
quality of life in order to maximize the number of children born. (No logical
reason is given for this bizarre policy, whose depiction must reflect
mid-fifties fears about Catholic opposition to birth control.) Rebels use the
threat of tipping the globe off its axis with nuclear bombs, thereby
duplicating nuclear blackmail on a grand scale. The novel contains a typical
love story. It is rather well written, but flatly incredible in its basic
conception.
Ellison, Harlan. A Boy and His Dog (New Worlds, April 1969). In The Beast That Shouted Love
at the Heart of the World. New York :
Signet, 1974. London: Millington, 1976. London: Pan, 1979. Also in Donald A.
Wollheim and Terry Carr, eds. World's Best Science Fiction, 1970. New
York : Ace, 1970. Also in Arthur C. Clarke
and George W. Proctor, eds. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, vol. 3.
New York : Avon, 1982. Also in Walter M.
Miller, Jr. and Martin H. Greenberg, eds. Beyond Armageddon:
Twenty-one Sermons to the Dead. New York: Donald I. Fine, 1985.
Savage
adolescents roam the devastated postwar landscape. The boy and his telepathic
dog encounter an attractive young girl from one of the conservative
middle-class "downunder" shelters. He is bent on rape, but finds her
enthusiastically cooperative. Despite the warnings of Blood, his dog, who
senses something amiss, the boy pursues her to underground Topeka, where he
learns she was sent to lure him into becoming a stud to impregnate downunder
women threatened by sterility. She has learned to want him, however, and
together they kill much of her family and run off. In the end his loyalty to
Blood takes precedence: the girl is killed so that the dog will not die of
starvation. This striking example of the grotesque in contemporary science
fiction was made quite faithfully into a film in 1975. See John Crow and
Richard Erlich, "Mythic Patterns in Ellison's A Boy and His Dog, " Extrapolation 18 (1977): 162-66. Made into a movie, 1975. [More, More, & More]
___. "I Have No
Mouth, and I Must Scream" (If, March
1967). In I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream. New York: Pyramid, 1967. Also in Alone
Against Tomorrow: Stories of Alienation in Speculative Fiction. New York: Macmillan, 1971. Also in The
Fantasies of Harlan Ellison. Boston: Gregg,
1979. Also in Stephen V. Whaley, ed., Man Unwept. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974. Also in Thomas Durwood
and Armand Eisen, eds. Masterpieces of Science Fiction. Berkeley: Ariel, 1978. Also in Eric S. Rabkin, ed. Science
Fiction: A Historical Anthology. New York:
Oxford Univ. Press, 1983. Also in H. Bruce Franklin, ed. Countdown to
Midnight: Twelve Great Stories About Nuclear War. New York: DAW, 1984.
The
supercomputers built to run World War III merged and took over, killing all
humanity except for one woman and four men who are kept underground and
tormented because the computer realizes it is only a useless machine. The
protagonist kills the other men and is remolded into a gelatinous monster
unable to die. This is one of the finest nuclear war stories ever written. See Harlan
Ellison: "Memoir: I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream," Starship 39 (1980): 6-13. Rept. Martin H. Greenberg, ed. Fantastic
Lives (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ.
Press, 1981): 1-14.
___. "Phoenix"
(originally "Phoenix Land," If ,
March 1969). In The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the
World. New York: Signet, 1974. London:
Millington, 1977.
In
this twist-ending story an expedition from a future Atlantis seeks a lost city
said to have recently risen from the waves--the fabled (and radioactive) ruins
of New York.
___. "Soldier"
(Fantastic Universe, October 1957). In From
the Land of Fear. New York: Belmont, 1967.
Also in Leo P. Kelley, ed. Themes in Science Fiction: A Journey into
Wonder. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972.
Radioactive
beam weapons bounce a soldier fighting in Great War VII back to a city of the
1950s where he first wreaks havoc and then becomes an eloquent spokesman
warning of future wars. A 1964 television script based on the story also
printed in From the Land of Fear has a
less optimistic ending, as the soldier is blasted back into the future to be
killed.
___. "The Very Last
Day of a Good Woman" (originally "The Last Day," Rogue, November 1958). In Alone Against Tomorrow:
Stories of Alienation in Speculative Fiction. New
York: Macmillan, 1971. Also in Ellison Wonderland. New York: Paperback Library, 1962. [New York]:
Bluejay 1984.
A
man who has psychic knowledge that the world is about to end is desperate to
have sex with a woman for the first time. His quest ends in the arms of a
prostitute to whom he hands his life savings ($4,000) just before they are both
turned to ash. Presumably a nuclear war has broken out, but it is conceivable
that the sun has gone nova.
___. "The Voice in the Garden" (Lighthouse , June
1967). In From the Land of Fear. New
York: Belmont, 1967. Also in Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg and Joseph D.
Olander, eds. Microcosmic Tales: 100 Wondrous Science Fiction
Short-Short Stories. New York: Taplinger,
1980.
The
last couple left after the holocaust are named--for a change--Eve and George.
Ellison, Harlan and
Robert Scheckley. "I See a Man Sitting on a Chair, and the Chair is Biting
His Leg" (Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1968). In Harlan Ellison. Partners in Wonder. New York: Ace, 1983. Also in Robert Sheckley. The
Robot Who Looked Like Me. New York: Bantam,
1982.
First
the good news: World War III didn't kill many people. Now the bad news: it did
kill most of the plants, and since fear of the war produced overpopulation,
famine threatens constantly. But there is more good news: radiation has created
mutated plankton called "goo" which can be made into a universal and
highly nutritious food. More bad news: its gatherers sometimes develop bizarre
symptoms. Good: the particular symptom developed by the protagonist is that he
becomes irresistible to women. Bad: he is irresistible to inanimate objects as
well; and when he spurns their advances, they turn on him. A piece of whimsy
concocted to fit the arbitrarily chosen title.
Emshwiller, Carol.
"Day at the Beach" (Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1959). In Judith Merril, ed. 5th
Annual Edition: The Year's Best S-F. New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1960. New York: Dell, 1961. Rpt. as The
Best of Science Fiction 5 . London: Mayflower,
1966. Also in Judith Merril, ed. SF: The Best of the Best. New York: Delacorte, 1967. New York: Dell, 1968. Also
in Leo P. Kelley, ed. Fantasy: The Literature of the Marvelous. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974. Also in Walter M.
Miller, Jr. and Martin H. Greenberg, eds. Beyond Armageddon:
Twenty-one Sermons to the Dead. New York:
Donald I. Fine, 1985.
In
the postwar suburbs, commuting consists of harrowing train rides to loot the
ruined city and the struggle among the passengers to plunder each other. The
few survivors cower in their houses as vicious gangs roam the streets. A
hairless couple and their retarded, hair-covered son try to revive the old
custom of Saturday trips to the beach. The husband wants to make love, but the
wife resists, fearing pregnancy in a world of birth defects and without
doctors. When three punks try to rob them of their gasoline cache, the father
kills one with a hammer, and drives the others away with his gun. Much of the
rest of the afternoon is spent searching for the retarded boy, who has wandered
off. All in all, however, muses the mother, "We had a good day."
"I wonder if it really was Saturday."
Engel, Leonard and
Emanuel S. Piller. World Aflame: The Russian American War of 1950. New York: Dial, 1947. According to the dust jacket, a
portion of the book appeared originally in Reader's Scope magazine, of which Piller was editor.
A
short but detailed and carefully researched account of a devastating war
between the two superpowers involving biological as well as nuclear weapons.
Dedicated "to all those who realize that another war can be only a
disastrous adventure which may lead to personal, national and world
suicide . . . with the earnest hope that their numbers will
multiply swiftly and that their influence will keep this story from ever being
truly prophetic." Written in the form of an official report by a radio
newsman. May 14, 1950, after a border air clash, the U.S. strikes first against
the USSR with nuclear weapons, by plane; but this act fails to halt the Russian
army from marching west and south. The U.S. forms a hasty alliance with
recently conquered Germany, an act that alienates most of its former allies.
The Russians survive partly because they have decentralized their industry.
They use gas, but ineffectively. U.S. atomic bombing goes on for months. Again,
America is the first to introduce a weapon into the conflict: a biological
toxin to ruin Russian crops. Suddenly the Russians drop atomic bombs on five
major U.S. cities, some from sub-launched missiles. The reporter vividly
narrates the aftermath in Chicago, borrowing details from John Hersey's Hiroshima
(1946). There is one striking original image: mannequins
blown out of Marshall Field's display windows are difficult to distinguish from
the corpses littering the street. In those cities not hit, panic strikes as the
fleeing population jams the streets. To keep up war production, martial law is
imposed and news is strictly censored. Elections are cancelled. Strict
rationing is imposed (creating a thriving black market and demand for the
rental of chairs to be used while waiting in the interminable lines), gas masks
are required, water is short, the mail and telephone services function poorly.
The population is forced to do compulsory labor in underground factories. The
irony of losing one's liberty in order to fight for it is underlined. A
"counter-bomb" rocket is used against the Russians with limited
success; it works only against planes, not missiles. An errant test rocket hits
El Paso and panics the city. The Russians fail to destroy Canadian uranium
mines, but the Americans fail to invade Russia in the Arctic. With most nuclear
weapons exhausted, the battle shifts to biological agents: wheat rust,
"Russian flu," plague, cholera, cattle disease, cancer, and polio
viruses. The USSR turns on Great Britain, which surrenders, its empire rapidly
falling to pieces. An uprising in South Africa is suppressed. Radioactive dusts
are used in the last phase of the war, causing innumerable miscarriages and
foreshadowing mutations to come. It is predicted that there will never be a
return to the prewar world, but the struggle continues with faint hope for
peace.
Erdman, Paul E. The
Crash of '79. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1976. New York: Pocket Books, 1977. London: Sphere, 1982.
In
this complex thriller of international finance, the shah of Iran builds atomic
bombs with the aid of the Swiss and plans to use them to conquer most of the
Middle East in the 4-Day War which begins March 19, 1979. The Saudis catch his
planes on the ground and explode the bombs in situ . The designer of the bombs,
as part of a plot to protect Israel, has jacketed them with cobalt, and their
explosion renders Iran a radioactive wasteland. The Western economies having
been wrecked by Saudi meddling and the cut-off of oil from the devastating Arab
states completes the destruction of civilization.
Etchison, Dennis.
"The Fires of Night." In William F. Nolan, ed. The Pseudo-People:
Androids in Science Fiction. Los Angeles:
Sherbourne, 1965.
Humans battle androids in the postnuclear world.
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