1940s-early 1960s A-Bomb Thrillers

[Extollager]

Perhaps there'd be interest in a place where interested people could talk about thrillers written in the 1940s to the early Sixties with an atom-bomb threat element. I'm thinking of works that are marginal as science fiction, such as

Peter Bryant's Red Alert
Philip Wylie's Tomorrow!
Burdick and Wheeler's Fail-Safe*
Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon

(I have to say that I list the first three of these without having read them yet! They certainly seem to be the sort of thing I have in mind for this thread.)

The intended scope of this thread would restrict discussion to fictions set basically in the writer's very near future, possibly dealing with atomic war that doesn't break out but almost does, as well as fictions in which it does. I'm not thinking of stories in which the threat of nuclear missiles, etc. is the McGuffin for a plot in which the adventures of a secret agent or the like are the focus, but rather stories that come more seriously from the Cold War anxieties of the period specified.

This thread is not intended as a place for discussion of the post-apocalyptic genre, which is what most of the books listed here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_holocaust_fiction

qualify as being. There's probably already a post-apocalyptic fiction thread, and if not someone can create one for discussion of books such as Dick's Dr. Bloodmoney, etc. The thread I propose here could accommodate stories such as Frank's that deal with the lead-up to nuclear war and with its immediate aftermath provided the story is set in the writer's immediate future and belongs to the 1940s-early 1960s time frame. No story is acceptable for this thread that starts after the bombs have gone off.

You can see what I'm driving at, right? Stories for this thread would typically be books that would be shelved with the general fiction in a library, not the sf. Short fiction of this type would probably not have appeared in a science fiction magazine. Lester del Rey's "Nerves" would not qualify. It concerns an accident at a nuclear plant, not a bomb.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin

This thread is being proposed by someone who was a kid during the Cold War. I still have a 1962 note from my school about what would be done in the event of nuclear war breaking out.

*I have this one as serialized in the Saturday Evening Post!

 

[BAYLOR]

On The Beach 1957 Neville Shute

 

[Extollager]

Hmmm... On the Beach would have to be disqualified, wouldn't it? "No story is acceptable for this thread that starts after the bombs have gone off." For the purposes of this thread, I'd count On the Beach as a post-apocalyptic fiction, if I can go by how the book is summarized on Wikipedia.

 

[BAYLOR]

Hmmm... On the Beach would have to be disqualified, wouldn't it? "No story is acceptable for this thread that starts after the bombs have gone off." For the purposes of this thread, I'd count On the Beach as a post-apocalyptic fiction, if I can go by how the book is summarized on Wikipedia.

Opps sorry

 

[hitmouse]

Dr Strangelove. OK, its a film, but quite a good one.

 

[Extollager]

Kubrick's movie has been said to be based on the Bryant novel Red Alert (aka Two Hours to Doom), which I'm reading now. The novel doesn't have that manic quality, but is pretty interesting in its own right. The Wikipedia entry below may contain spoilers. (I purposely didn't read it all!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Alert_(novel)

 

[Extollager]

My thread title may be misleading, given the distinction between atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs.

Red Alert (1958) proved to be a Cold War H-Bomb thriller that held my interest to the end. I wouldn't make much in the way of claims for it beyond its being a competent thriller and an interesting period piece. My understanding is that Stanley Kubrick bought the rights to Bryant's book and, when he learned that a movie of the 1962 Fail-Safe, went to court over strong plot similarities and was successful. If anyone's interested in this thread, I'd recommend reading Red Alert before Fail-Safe. By the way, Bryant's book contains the idea of a "doomsday" arrangement to ensure the end of all life should one nation be destroyed by nuclear weapons.

 

[Extollager]

I'm reviving this discussion since I've begun reading Fail-Safe as serialized in issues of The Saturday Evening Post that I saved when the university library was throwing away most of its magazine archive.

 

[tinkerdan]

I recall reading many back then; but only a few that might fall in your rigid structure.
I do think that The Seventh Day by Hans Hellmut Kirst falls in the slot.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1297580400/?tag=brite-21

These types of books depressed me and I only read them few and far between and did not retain them in my library. Back in the late sixties this was still quite imminent and sometimes too real.

 

[tinkerdan]

The Day the Earth Caught Fire by Barry Wells::
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000O8ZVBG/?tag=brite-21
It might be an adaptation from a movie.

 

[Extollager]

According to Worldcat, the original McGraw-Hill edition of Fail-Safe was almost 300 pages. I'd estimate that the Saturday Evening Post version would have come to no more than around 75 pages in a hardcover book. My guess is that the book has lots more about the families of a number of the characters (so that the reader has more of a sense of the loss to be incurred by the bombs exploding), about technical military-technological stuff, and about the places involved -- the War Room and so on.

My guess is that a lot of the material not present in the serialization was dutifully written -- but the core of the book is simply the predicament developing of an American nuclear attack on Moscow that was not supposed to happen, and of the president's solution to convince the Soviet rulers that this was an accident and to prevent all-out nuclear war that would leave both sides devastated. Spoiler: As you might know already, the president's solution is to nuke New York with the same number of bombs used on Moscow. The abridged version was enough for me. I suspect I'd have put the book aside before finishing it if I had had to read the whole thing.

I wonder if the SEP really made a lot of money on their purchase of serialization rights, since their version of the novel (issues dated 13, 20, and 27 Oct. 1962) must have been appearing during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 16-28 Oct. 1962.

The funniest thing in the somber serialized version is the kind of hero-worshiping depiction of the handsome young heroic president, i.e. JFK. It's kind of like the authors have a crush on him.

here's this, by the way:

Most of what you know about the Cuban Missile Crisis is wrong

 

[pambaddeley]

The Day the Earth Caught Fire by Barry Wells::
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000O8ZVBG/?tag=brite-21
It might be an adaptation from a movie.

It is, a good one starring Leo McKern - A key part is the setting in the Daily Express offices, which used the real building - The Day the Earth Caught Fire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Trailer for it here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4rHz7ENhtY
It is available on DVD.

 

[Extollager]

I got hold of letters sections of the Saturday Evening Post after the FAIL-SAFE serial appeared. I'd expected even more, and more controversy, than actually appeared there.

10 Nov. 1962 issue: One reader was addicted to the serial; the next letter's from a reader who asks, "Why deal in fictional fantasy about anything so important as the peace ofthe world when so much worthwhile literature could be published to promote better feelings?" The third letter comments disapprovingly, "Your October 13 cover [see above] will long be remembered by the Russian people when they see it reprinted in school books, magazines and Communist leaflets. You have provided the Kremlin with a perfect piece of propaganda to nurture their image of the 'war-mongering Americans.'" The fourth and final letter commenting on the serial suggests that cover art like that invites censorship on the grounds that it endangers foreign relations.

17 Nov. issue: One letter praising the serial as "unforgettable... I could scarcely wait for each Post to arrive." The other letter cites a passage from a review of the complete book, indicating that the magazine abridgement omitted a subplot about "'seething and handsome Evelyn Wolfe who attacks Groteschele sexually.'"

24 Nov. issue: Objects that anyone in the SAC headquarters would never crack up, etc. The second letter objects that Khrushchev would not say invoke the Deity in alarm.

The magazine may have received lots of letters, but that's about all that, it seems, it shared in its letters pages.