Fictions of nuclear disaster

About This Book

"In 1914 H.G. Wells published the first novel about nuclear war. Since then there have been thousands of efforts by writers to predict, warn of, denounce and comprehend the nuclear threat. David Dowling has studied over 250 stories and novels on the theme of nuclear power and its awesome effects and presents his findings on this wide-ranging guide to the literary responses to the threat of our age. The result is an alarming tour through a neglected psychic landscape of the twentieth century. The study is arranged under such subjects as the role of the scientist, the place of religion, future evolution, and mutation. Authors' works which Dowling discusses include those of Bradbury, Burgess, Dahl, Dick, Heinlein, Huxley, Lessing, Malamud, Shute, Vonnegut and Wyndham. Much more than a plot summary, Fictions of Nuclear Disaster examines the works in clear and concise ways. And in the closing chapter, Dowling analyzes two novels in detail--Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz and Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker--showing how the imagination and imaginative use of language can help us live with the bomb and weave it into a new mythology. Presenting many forgotten and inaccessible stories, Dowling's book catalogs the fictional treatments of the bomb in so comprehensive a way that it will be the starting point of future discussions of the subject for years to come"--Book jacket.