Step-Sisters: Nuclear Weapons

I'd like to discuss my book in relation to this summer's biggest phenomenon: "Barbieheimer". While my book features a mushroom cloud on the cover, and is about the Cold War (SPOILER), no nuclear device actually goes off. I'll come clean and say that nuclear weapons have always fascinated and horrified me. They convey the true horror of what our governments are capable of and how the very worst things in life are out of our hands. This is the image, after all, which created Look at the image of the mushroom cloud. That is one of the most intense images the human mind can conjure: it symbolizes death in more ways than one. First of all, there's the very obvious fact that when that cloud goes off, most likely it means the death of millions. Death comes for us, and it comes for us in our millions. Secondly, when that cloud goes off, it symbolises so much anger -- the ultimate fury of warfare. Can you imagine how much anger it takes to drop something like this? Can you imagine how much fury on both sides it would take to get to that point?

When that button is pushed -- if that button is ever pushed, and we all hope it isn't -- it won't be out of a tantrum-style fury; most likely, it will be done with no emotion whatsoever. Even an angry child of a world leader would surely undertake such a task with the pomposity of knowing what it means -- this is the way the world ends.

On a lighter note, I came up with this book in 2018 as a result of tensions with North Korea -- it has nothing to do with Barbie or Oppenheimer. I was asked by a book review company in December to submit a list of books I would be writing over the next year. This book was included among them. It has nothing to do with those two movies; it just hit the sweet spot.

By the way, I love both Barbie and Oppenheimer. Great films. I'll do another post explaining my love of these movies.