Birth of the Atomic Bomb

I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds – Bhagavad Gita

By GG Collins Copyright 2023

“The beginning of the atomic age began with a pinprick of light so bright it lit up the desert with the power of several midday suns … ” – Atomic Medium

https://tinyurl.com/5n74s59r

When I began writing Atomic Medium I thought the world had forgotten this era. But thanks to a movie called Oppenheimer a new generation is learning about the men and women who developed the bomb. Not with computers and smart phones but with a little thing called a slide rule and human calculators.

By Jack W. Aeby, July 16, 1945, Civilian worker at Los Alamos laboratory, working under the aegis of the Manhattan Project. – This image comes from the Google-hosted LIFE Photo Archive where it is available under the filename 96ad5a9a5c94664e.This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See the copyright section in the template documentation for more information., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=140895

I was lucky to have access to photos from the Atomic City of Los Alamos including pictures of the houses where the scientists lived and the mess hall where they ate. I poured over maps of the compound and read books describing the times. Many of my sources are listed below and a full list can be obtained in the bibliography at the end of Atomic Medium.

My characters, reporter Rachel Blackstone and her friend Chloe Valdez, went back in time to 1945 New Mexico. It was here they experienced the first treacherous step into a future of unimaginable weapons.

“They dropped to the ground and held each other. They trembled with terror. Rachel wondered if their hair would burn off or if they were on the verge of incineration.” – Atomic Medium

“Calling it a weapon of mass destruction sounded like an understatement; a news bite, trivial. This was obliteration; one second you were there and the next you were vapor being inhaled by hell’s meteor.” – Atomic Medium

By Trinity_crater.jpg: Federal government of the United Statesderivative work: Bomazi (talk) – Trinity_crater.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12817993

We talk about nuclear weapons today like they have always been here. Each year scientists move the Doomsday Clock a bit closer to midnight. In January 2023 it was moved to 90 seconds before midnight. That’s how close we are to apocalypse.

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Atomic Medium will be priced at .99 cents on July 30, 2023. https://tinyurl.com/5n74s59r

For additional blog posts on this subject: Atomic Bomb Test Successful but Deadly https://tinyurl.com/mu6mdz3v and The Building That Changed the World https://tinyurl.com/22bpr67t

For more reading: Bibliography of Atomic Medium

109 East Palace by Jennet Conant, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2005.

The Manhattan Project, edited by Cynthia C. Kelly, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc., 2007.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1986 by Rhodes & Rhodes.

A Few Good Women by Evelyn M. Monahan & Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee, Alfred A Knopf, 2010.

The Streets of Santa Fe by Josh Gonze, 2012.

A Spy’s Guide to Santa Fe and Albuquerque by E. B. Held, University of New Mexico Press, 2011.

Manhattan Project Suitcase, Manhattan Days Script, Los Alamos Historical Society, http://www.losalamoshistory.org

Los Alamos National Laboratory/Science Photo Library at www.sciencephoto.com/media

Atomic Heritage Foundation, Profiles at www.atomicheritage.org/bios

Los Alamos National Laboratory, LANL History in Images at www.lanl.gov

Manhattan Project Heritage Preservation Association, Inc., The Otowi Bridge at http://www.mphpa.org

“Manhattan Project spies who met in Santa Fe changed the balance of the world” by Tom Sharpe, The Santa Fe New Mexican, September 27, 2000.

“The Difficulties of Nuclear Containment” by Sam Roberts, The New York Times, September 29, 2014.

World Building for the Fiction Writer

Authors: Creators

of Worlds

by GG Collins Copyright 2023

If you write fiction, you must build a believable world for your reader to inhabit for the length of their stay. Make it authentic, personal and full of local color, wherever that might be.

Sometimes writers don’t realize it, but they’ve been building worlds all along. Mostly thought of as a skill for authors of sci-fi, fantasy and paranormal stories; we all do it. Every time you describe a room or what your heroine is wearing, you’re creating a reality in your reader’s head, subject to their interpretation.

Try this, next time you’re at a writing or reading group, read a paragraph that describes a room. Then, ask the participants where the sofa is? You’ll find that almost everyone has a different layout of the room and where all the furniture is located.

When writing my Rachel Blackstone Paranormal Mysteries I frequently have to construct other times and places. In Lemurian Medium, Rachel astral-traveled back to the doomed continent of Lemuria. I read the works of James Churchward and Frank Joseph to get the history. But when it came to clothing, I researched early Roman times.

With Atomic Medium, it was the 1940s Manhattan Project. I was lucky with it because I found photos of the Atomic City houses and buildings in the Science Photo Library at the Atomic Heritage Foundation in Los Alamos, New Mexico. These insights into time and place are invaluable to the writer needing background on historical events.

As I tackled Anasazi Medium, I researched the Fourth World of the Hopi. Both Frank Waters, who probably wrote the book (Book of the Hopi) on this American Southwest tribe, and Harold Courlanders book The Fourth World of the Hopis were a great help in establishing what might happen to my protagonist when she traveled to the Land of the Dead. I used the story of the young man from Oraibi that the Hopi have verbally gifted to each generation. It’s a beautiful account of a boy who risked death to see beyond the veils. Rachel experiences much the same journey as she visits that realm. There, Másaw, the Guardian of the Underworld, speaks with her regarding the end of the Fourth World.

Writing anything historical, for instance, Jacqueline Winspear’s wonderful Maisie Dobbs series, requires not just research, but immersing yourself in that moment in time. Your scenes need to look, maybe even smell and taste, authentic so your reader can’t put it down.

Next time you’re up to your ears in stacks of research and earmarked books, remember how much more interesting and fun your story will be to read because you took the time to hammer together a world beyond our own.

Book Review: Ogre Lake Nothing to Fear by Helen G. Huntley

Get Ready to Enter a Magical Place

By GG Collins (Copyright 2023)

Set during the period before the Great Depression, two brothers return from their father’s funeral only to launch into an argument that is a turning point for both. While Jeremiah tries to calm his brother’s tirade, Isaiah is seething with rage because his father left him nothing. He refers to himself as the spare who will never be as good as his brother in his dead father’s eyes.

In his torment he casts a spell on his brother transforming him into an ogre who will forever be condemned to haunting the nearby lake. That is the only place he can be in human form. If he leaves the lake, he again becomes a monster. In emotional agony, Isaiah throws his father’s portrait into the open fireplace. Soon the fire has spread to the house and Isaiah is consumed by the flames.

Carina Raison, who is a forward-thinking woman of her time – perhaps even part of the suffragette movement? – decides she needs some alone time and drives to Ogre Lake to set up camp. Because of the rumor surrounding the area, she feels certain it will be a quiet experience. After all, she doesn’t believe in ogres. But soon she runs across a man who appears to live in a cave near the lake. In a lovely scene she gives the man soap and cuts his hair and beard. From then on, Carina is a regular at Ogre Lake as she helps him unravel his past so he can have a future. Their romance blossoms from her kindness.

“Jeremiah watched as Isaiah walked through the flames as if they were nothing, parting them with a movement of his hands.”

Cawdron Darois originally came from New Orleans where he had been a detective on the police force. He moved to Connecticut to become a private investigator, leaving the craziness of the Crescent City behind. He was content to find lost pets and take photos of philandering spouses. He could sense the presence of ghosts and Louisiana was full of them. Unfortunately, Connecticut has spirits too and one came with his apartment. Except for the ghost, he lives quietly with his cat Fred. Soon he is drawn into a series of deaths originally thought to be accidents.

Enjoy Huntley’s lyrical prose as you transit the tumultuous times before the Crash. Her characters are vividly written. Huntley’s theatrical experience shines through when she describes the rooms (sets) of the mansions she creates. This transports the reader into a beautiful world not yet cognizant of the approaching global economic collapse. Carina’s love for the ogre helps unravel the murder mystery with the help of a detective, a nun and a ghost.

Note: Adult Content