Will Pushes the Button

Fine. Here. The Great Nuclear War of 1975 is available. 

There it is. Eighteen months or so after starting a short story to go in Seven Stories, 75 is published. The first of two, possibly three novels. How many? That all depends on you people, the reading public, doesn't it?

We feel nothing but fear and trepidation. You know that scene in MacArthur where the general is sitting on the wing of a cruiser and watching the landing boats take the marines ashore at Inchon - and MacArthur damn near has a panic attack? That. This is like that. Wingate had the same thing as the transports took off at the beginning of Operation Thursday. Peter O'Toole used to yak every night before he went on stage. 

We have nothing but questions. What if 75 doesn't sell? We'll know within days (see the tragic fate of To Survive the Earth). What if 75 sells but people think it sucks? What if 75 sells, people think it sucks, and find all kinds of things wrong? There will typos, they're there, we guarantee. No matter how hard one works typos get through. We await the crits from the nuclear war experts who will grognard 75 to death. 'Why everyone knows according to SIOP-68 the US would retained its secondary strike capability...'

Whatever happens The Great Salvation of 1976 will follow apace. We're too far along. Might as well finish it up, no matter what. Until then:

The Great Nuclear War of 1975

In a Different 1975…

Superpower relations breakdown and a nuclear war all but annihilates the Soviet Union and devastates the United States.

100 million Americans are dead.

After Washington is destroyed, a smalltown judge delivers the oath of office to Vice President Rockefeller.

Surviving American forces on land, sea and in the air await orders from the new president.

Americans across the nation climb out of the rubble looking for a homeland that no longer exists.

In surviving capitals across the globe, governments ponder the implications of a world without the superpowers.

In Britain, a rump cabinet meets in the Cotswolds to plan a way forward without the United States.

Commonwealth Prime Ministers in Canberra, Auckland and Ottawa look to the UK for leadership.

In Buenos Ares, a weak government plots the takeover of the Malvines.

As radiation sweeps down from Siberia, the Chinese government faces unprecedented famine.

In New Delhi, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wonders how she will feed India.

 

In Rhode Island, one man will start a trek halfway across North America to reunite with his family.

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