James Nicoll Reviews

Pat Frank’s 1946 Mr. Adam is a standalone science fiction comedy.

On September 21, 194_, Bohrville, Mississippi’s nuclear fission complex went boom, taking Mississippi with it. Yeah, it was a tragedy … but then, it was just Mississippi. The world shrugged its collective shoulders and went on with business as usual.

Months later, reporter Stephen Decatur Smith stumbles over a heretofore unnoticed consequence of the nuclear catastrophe. Nine months after the atomic calamity, babies stop being born. It seems that the Bohrville explosion sterilized the entire human race. More specifically, while women appear to immune to the radiation, all men were rendered sterile [1].

Almost.

Read more ➤

The sleepy little town of Fort Repose is only vaguely aware of events outside its borders. Given their druthers, certain members of the community — the Daughters of the Confederacy, the White Citizens Council — would prefer that they be even less aware of the outside world and its alarmingly modern ideas. The isolationists are going to get their wish, but not in a form they would have wanted.

“Alas, Babylon”: that phrase in a telegram from his brother Mark, a SAC officer, warns Randy Bragg that the long cold war between East and West is about to become hot. 

Read more ➤