Review: Shambling Towards Hiroshima
By EricMesa
- One minute read - 207 words
Shambling Towards Hiroshima by James K. Morrow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
That is definitely not what I thought it was going to be. I was sure that somehow this actor would be transformed into a monster.
What we got instead was a short, witty, and fun book that posited an alternate World War 2 strategy to win the war - (view spoiler)[ create Godzilla (hide spoiler)]. The book’s main character is great, especially when trading verbal barbs with an anti-semetic FBI agent.
I also enjoyed the meta-narrative of the main character writing a memoir and going back and forth between the present and past.
It’s also full of lots of references that would delight any classic horror nerds.
By transposing things to a horror movie plot from the Manhattan Project, the author gives us a chance to see the PTSD of working on and deploying WMDs. In addition to being more explicitly called out in the end, once you know the ending you can see the foreshadowing.
Overall it’s a quick, fun read that can be enjoyed by people in any of the following sets: 1940s horror buffs, Manhattan Project lovers, Godzilla fans, and lovers of witty and smart-aleck banter .